JOCKEYING FOR POSITION
TN February last year, seventeen months after the Royal 'Commission on Capital Punishment had submitted its report, the Home Secretary said that the Government had provisionally decided not to accept any of its main recom- mendations. In November he said that the Government had definitely decided not to accept them. Last week, however, the Government, faced with a debate on hanging, tabled a motion advocating amendment of the law of murder, whilst retaining capital punishment. Jockeying for position, therefore. rather than anxiety for reform is plainly the reason for the Govern- Ment's action. At the time of writing it is not known whether its little manoeuvre has been successful or whether the House of Commons has voted for the abolition of hanging. Nor is it known exactly what are the Government's proposals. but grey are believed to be based on the recommendations of a committee of The Inns of Court Conservative Society. As Professor A. L. Goodhart, QC. said in a letter to The Times, it is difficult to believe that they [the members of the com- mittee] are better qualified to express a view on this subject than were the members of the Gowers Commission who had devoted four years to its study'. But of course the Government was not concerned with the qualifications of the members of the CoMmittee, still less with the merits of their proposals; it was merely concerned with avoiding defeat.
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