JUST ANOTHER RIDER

Wanganui Chronicle, 29 April 1949, Page 4

JUST ANOTHER RIDER

AT Palmerston North after bringing in a verdict of guilty of murder against John Reremoana Tume on each of the three charges preferred against him. the jury added a rider that the reintroduction of capital punishment would be a more effective deterrent to that type of crime. Is this to be regarded by the Government, the Labour Party and the country as just another rider? The Nationalist Party says “No.” The answer to that plain statement is simple enough; it is to proclaim it to be a political move on the part of those who aspire to office. Three people were bereft of life. Life to them was sweet. The man who took their lives in a very brutal manner has not been proclaimed insane, nor did the defence deem it desirable to raise the question of his sanity. Those three people lost their lives because there was not in this country sufficient support for the reint reduction of the deterrent 1o murder which is capital punishment. The accused in this case made it quite clear that he had contemplated the killings; that he had considered the consequences, that a term of imprisonment did not seem to amount io much of a hardship and that it was a price which he was willing to pay for the crime that he was contemplating carrying out. His concern after the crime was to discover how long he would be incarcerated in a gaol. Those members of Parliament who voted for the removal of the death penalty can now view their handiwork. Did each and every one of them write to the relatives of the victims of this vicious triple murder and accept, responsibility which was theirs for their part in this crime? Have they counted up what harvest of death has been reaped because of their sowing? If not, why not?

The politicians, however, arc a convenient scapegoat in this matter. Theirs is the responsibilty for making these conditions possible wjiereby a man may contemplate the crime of triple murder and then reckon up the years of incarceration that are likely to be endured by himself. There is no denying the responsibility of the polieitians in this case. But there are others responsible for the continuance of this state of affairs and those others comprise every citizen with a vote, every man with a capacity lo write with a pen, Avery woman who can speak to her neighbour across a back garden fence. Death by murder will continue to grow as it has been growing of late in New Zealand unless the penalty for murder, the only retribution that counts as a penalty, is restored. In ancient times it >vas written “a life for a life.” It is the only real deterrent.

It is not a question of being hysterical or of working up mass hysteria, but of misplaced sympathy. The sympathy of the Labour Party is with the murderer, the sympathy of the Nationalist Party is with the victims of the murderci-. To each and every man the issue is plain : leader, where do you stand?