WHATEVER ONE'S views on the merits of the Government's Homicide
Bill my sympathies are with the Ministers who have to commend it to Parliament. On the question of the reform of the McNaghten rules the Home Secretary said in February, 1955, that the Government thought that 'no advantage could be gained by disturbing the present pbsition.' The Government is now disturbing that position. In February of this year, Major Lloyd George said : 'The Government agree [with the Royal Commission] that neither the definition of murder nor an attempt to distinguish between different degrees of murder offers a useful line of approach.' The Government is now dis- tinguishing between different degrees of murder. In July Lord Salisbury made it clear that one of his chief objections to the Silverman Bill was that 'the British people have never been consulted at all on a matter in which they are deeply and personally concerned.' Consultations have not yet taken place. Mr. R. A. Butler alone can congratulate himself. Earlier this year he said : 'Many of us feel [imprisonment] is infinitely more cruel than capital punishment.' The Bill ensures that many of the worst murderers will be imprisoned and the less bad hanged.
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