SIR,—Last week the Star, by way of celebrating its seventieth
anniversary as a liberal-minded journal, published a series of articles by the Metropolitan Magistrate Mr. Frank Powell dealing with, among other things, the Wolfenden Report. His highly emo- tional conclusions were supported by a set of 'facts' so remarkable that I felt obliged to write to the Editor, pointing out their remoteness from the truth. The Star, perhaps unwilling to upset so distinguished a contributor, did not print the letter, but 1 think it would be a pity if Mr. Powell's remarks were to go publicly unchallenged.
'The homosexual recommendations would make it impossible for the police to raid premises used by men gathered together to commit these crimes.' On the contrary, the Wolfenden Report expressly recom- mends (para. 76) that the law should be amended to bring both homosexual and heterosexual brothels under equal, and more stringent, control.
'If the law is amended all those detained in prison for conduct which is no longer an offence would have to be released.' This hypothesis, an important link in Mr. Powell's argument, is purely his own 'in- vention. No one has suggested that such legislation should be retrospective.
`There had been another [homosexual club] in Cambridge which shamelessly sported a tie.' This ludicrous assertion, which Mr. Powell attributes to the Bishop of Rochester in the House of Lords de- bate, does not appear in Hansard.
'Homosexual crime is worse in some respects than incest, for it is an unnatural offence.' If Mr. Powell does not consider incest 'unnatural,' what on earth does he understand by the word?
'We could be setting out on the road to national degeneracy—especially with so many foreigners and Coloured men from the Commonwealth in our midst.' This insulting and irrelevant remark comes strangely from one who has sworn `to do right to all manner of people after the laws and usages of this realm, without fear or favour, affection or ill will.'
Such attitudes of mind are alarming in themselves, and doubly so when it is remembered that hundreds of thousands of men in this country are at their mercy.—Yours faithfully,
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