25 JANUARY 1946, Page 14

"NUREMBERG JUSTICE" SIR,—Some of your readers will agree with me

in protesting against the tone of much of the article by Wilson Harris on Nuremberg justice. For he is an accredited Press correspondent and is, moreover, familiar with the comnion law of England, its principles, the etiquette associated with it, and, above all, with the correct attitude of newspapermen towards part-heard trials conducted in its name.

He describes the prisoner Ribbentrop as "a slatternly nuisance." That would have been an entirely uncalled-for epithet to apply even to a convicted rogue, and is not the language that either a member of the Fourth Estate or a Parliamentary representative of one of our seats of learning is entitled to employ under any circumstances at any time or in any country. Mr. Wilson" Harris proceeds to inform us that "a number of capital sentences are certain" and that many of the accused "are living the last weeks of their nefarious lives." If my old friend Lord Hewart, who was a journalist before he became Lord Chief Justice, were alive and in Lord Justice Lawrence's place and had seen that con- temptuous comment, I know what he would have thought of it, and I can easily picture the man who made it having to return in a hurry to Germany to learn a little more about justice in Nuremberg.

I am relieved to find that although Mr. Wilson Harris adds that "the prisoners might all have been shot summarily out of hand," he assures us that "every endeavour is being made to carry out in full sincerity 'a fair trial for the defendants.'" Of course, there is not the smallest doubt that the trial judges—British, American, Russian and French—will sift all the evidence before they give their verdict, but their task is not made any simpler by the comments on the case made -by a famous writer in a renowned weekly, to which, since I happen to have a reverence for the dignity of the courts of law and for the reputation of British journalism, I have felt is a public duty to call attention.—I am, yours faithfully,

Devonshire Club, St. 7arnes's, S.W. i. H. T. COZENS-HARDY.