DEATH PENALTY FOR MURDER

Southland Times, Issue 24537, 11 September 1941, Page 6

DEATH PENALTY FOR MURDER

ABOLITION PROPOSED IN BILL » BAN ON FLOGGING (Special) WELLINGTON, Sept. 10.. “I am not a pioneer tonight and this is not the only country in the world in which this question has been raised,” said the Attorney-General (the Hon. H. G. R. Mason) when opening the second reading debate on the Crimes Amendment Bill in the House of Representatives tonight. The Bill abolishes the death sentence for murder and also abolishes flogging and whipping as punishments. The Minister dealt first with the abolition of flogging and whipping. He said flogging was applied to males over 16 years of age and whipping to those below that age. Flogging was by means of a cat-o’-nine tails and whipping by means of a birch rod. The Minister said that as far as the abolition of the death penalty was concerned a great deal of experience was available to guide opinion. The death penalty for murder had been abolished long ago in many other countries and as far as one could see without harm and with beneficial results. Some of the countries foremost in civilization and others not so advanced had made the change. Mr W. P. Endean (Nat., Remuera): Such as Britain? Mr F. W. Doidge (Nat., Tauranga): No. There are nine countries in South America. NO INCREASE IN MURDER The Minister said these were among those countries to which he had been referring. Austria had abolished it in 1918. Mr W. J. Broadfoot (Nat., Waitomo): They’ve got it there now. The Minister said that looking at the figures for the various countries one did not see a steady continuous decrease in murders as soon as the death penalty was abolished, nor did the figures go up. Generally a slight improvement was recorded and as a rule the effect was that there was no increase. On the whole the figures seemed to favour abolition.

Mr Mason said he believed that capital punishment habituated people to the thought of cruelty and hate and concentrated attention acutely on the question of hanging. Another point was that there was a greater chance of a wrong verdict in the case of murder than in any other crime, and although he knew that where the prospect was of a man being hanged the jury acted with the greatest care, he was sure that the risk was still there and that there was a chance of an innocent person being hanged. The debate will be continued tomorrow.