We have never taken much in this country to stringing
people up on lamp-posts (though we used to do good work with heads on Temple Bar), but there is something to be said for acquiring the habit. Nothing much less is suitable-for people who may be convicted of engaging in food-rackets on a spacious scale, or even for imitators running a black market on less ambitious lines. I do not profess .to know how far the allegations in various daily papers are true, but there is obviously some sub. °stance in them. Few things more vile than dishonest profiteer- ing in food in war-time can be conceived, and the least the public can demand is that where there is anything like a prima fade case for prosecution a prosecution shall be entered on, and that where there is a conviction maximum sentences shall be imposed. Leniency towards food-racketeers is no more palat- able than the leniency that seems, quite unaccountably, to have been exhibited towards British Fascist rioters in the Isle of Man. More information about that incredible episode is likely to be sought when Parliament meets.
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