4 NOVEMBER 1932, Page 6

It is never very easy to balance the gravity of

a crime against the weight of penalty meted out to it, but I am bound to say the eight years' imprisonment inflicted on a man found in possession of a loaded revolver in Trafalgar Square during the unemployed demonstration leaves me more than doubtful. It is true the pistol was loaded in six chambers, and the safety catch off. It is true the prisoner had had several previous convictions (I have not seen details of them). Evidence against him resolved itself into the interpretation of a gesture—an inspector saying that when he was seized the man thrust his hand underneath- his coat, where the weapon was—and of an exclamation which the man denied making. It was obviously: a case for a severe penalty—but incarceration till 1940?