A VARIETY of amendments to Mr. Silverman's Bill to abolish
hanging has been tabled by Conservative MPs. Sir Thomas Moore wants the issue to be tested at a general election; but hanging is not a party issue, and even if it were it would hardly be a suitable issue on which to fight a general election. A group of Scottish MPs wants to keep hanging in Scotland. AS the hanging rate has always been lower there than in England, and as Scotland got on very well from 1929 to 1946 without a single execution, the reason for the distinction between Scot- land and England is not very obvious. However, the prize for fatuity must go to Mr. Rees-Davies, who wants the courts to be required in future to sentence murderers to 'imprisonment for the lifetime of the prisoner.' The only possible point of this, so far as I can see, is that all murderers should in future spend the rest of their lives in prison. As it has been almost uni- versally agreed for a long time that murderers differ widely in culpability—so much so that under the present law they are often imprisoned only for seven years or less—Mr. Rees- Davies's amendment seems to cast some doubt upon his capacity as a legislator. '
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