[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.] SIR,—In your well-intentioned and
commendable efforts to express a strictly impartial opinion of the Moscow sentences you surely overshot the mark by omitting one point of vital consequence—riz., the absolute standard of justice which no nation is justified in transgressing. The Socialistic Press is very severe on the colossal blunder which, it is alleged, our Government has committed in interfering with Russian trade so as to make it very difficult for the Soviet to exercise cle- mency. But such condemnation totally ignores the principle, which should be universally honoured, that every man is innocent until he has been proved to be guilty. Not a particle of evidence has been produced which would be admitted into any English law court ; and the question at issue is. not any difference between legislation in England and in Russia ; it is that in England absolute justice prevails, at any rate to the extent just indicated, but not in Russia. If innocent men get their deserts they do not need cleniency.—I am, Sir, &c.,
[The standards of justice are undoubtedly higher in England than in Russia, though it would be going rather far to claim " absolute justice " for either. The laws of evidence in different countries differ widely, and not even in English law is it universally true that a man is deemed innocent till he has been proved guilty.—En. The Spectator.]
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