* * * * In spite of some weighty disagreement
with my paragraph of last week on the unwisdom of the trial of Hitler, I hold to my opinion, which, I happen to know, is that prevalent in high legal circles, where it is pointed out that the business of a legal tribunal is not only to hear evidence but to pass sentence, and there is no legal basis or precedent for sentences on Hitler and his like ; it is for the Allied Governments to decide what shall be done with the supreme architects of evil. That, I take it, was the thesis under- lying the Lord Chancellor's statement in the House of Lords on Tuesday that "the fate of the supreme criminals is quite as much a political as a judicial issue." Meanwhile, though for reasons I gave last week I am not in favour of hanging Hitler, an aphorism of Voltaire's may commend itself to those who are: " Rien n'est plus decourageant que d'être pendu obscurement." The sting is in the tail, and it will be approved equally by the suspension school and the incarceration (in the Andanans) school.
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