26 SEPTEMBER 1958, Page 7

THE Observer's other reason for approving of the sentences, that

'it was important also to let coloured people see that in this country the law had no bias against them and may be relied upon to protect them as far as it can,' seems to me to be equally vulnerable. You can base your penal policy on knowledge and reason—in other words, on what you think is right; or you can base it on people's fears and wishes—in other words, although you know that flogging, say, is not a deterrent and makes the criminal worse, you approve of it because people think it protects them. But what you can't do, I think, is support the first sort of penal policy for every crime ex- cept one, and the second for the crime you par- ticularly disapprove of. And that, it seems to me, is just what the Observer has done.

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