The Harworth Sentences Comment on the severity of the sentences
in connexion with the disorders arising out of the Hayworth colliery dispute has by no means been confined to the political Left. When the surrounding circumstances, the heat of the passions running through the whole of the Nottinghamshire coal- field and the grave nature of the issues involved, are taken into account, there can be no doubt that much of the comment has been justified. Sentences of two years' imprisonment with hard labour on a man, and nine months on the mother of a family, for committing grave breaches of the peace may be justifiable from a legal point of view ; and Mr. Justice Singleton is an eminently sound and clear-headed lawyer. From the political, as from the personal, point of view they are a tragedy. A settlement of the dispute by an amalgama- tion of Mr. Spencer's Union with the Miners' Federation is in process of being worked out, and to bring peace to the coal- fields a favourable atmosphere is essential. The sentences have destroyed this atmosphere, and, whatever view the Court of Criminal Appeal may take of the individual offences, the Home Secretary will still have his duty to consider, as Sir Samuel Hoare no doubt already realises. Punishment that on legal grounds may be justified can and should be mitigated in the light of wider considerations. Bygones in this case had better be bygones.
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