A Spectator's Notebook
It is not often that a politician's speech causes me a sharp pang of pleasure. Anyone who talks a lot with politicians in private knows perfectly well that what they say in public bears the scantiest resemblance to the views they express privately and comparatively honestly. It follows that politicians' public words, being simulations and dissimulations, dissemblances rather than semblances of their intents and beliefs, occasion people who meet them privately either merriment edged with a weary cynicism or a mild feeling of nausea. Very rarely, what they say publicly is so much at variance with what they say privately that the nausea becomes worse, so that one almost retches. Rarest of all, do politicians say aloud what they think, and when that rare event occurs then I, for one, am delighted.
Large delight
And when a politician's public saying and private thinking not only agree with each other but also with my views, then my delight is very large.
Thus it was when President Nixon said that he intended to put forward legislation to restore capital punishment for certain federal offences in the United States. Mr Louis Claiborne; a former deputy Solicitor General of the United States, who used to perform on behalf of the United States Government before the Supreme Court, did his best to cool my enthusiasm by saying that, whatever President Nixon may have said, he could not, nor could anybody, bring back capital punishment in the States, for the simple reason that the Supreme Court had declared the death penalty itself to be unconstitutional.
I cannot believe his argument to be sound. If, to take one example, a mandatory death sentence for a new federal offence of murder committed in the course of hijacking were to be enacted by Congress, despite the Supreme Court's ruling, I cannot see how any Supreme Court could get around it. The Supreme Court, despite its many efforts to set itself up as a quasi-legislative body, is not and cannot legitimately claim to be a source of normative and original law.
Capital reasons
Talking with people over the weekend, I found that the death penalty remains a topic guaranteed to produce heated argument. Time was when I, in my trendy consensus days, was an abolitionist. Now, it seems to me that the only way to deal with hijackers who belong to political organisations is to execute them, for otherwise their presence in prison remains a permanent invitation for further 'hijacking operations designed to secure their liberty. Also, it may well soon come to a choice between the death penalty and an armed police force; and, given that choice, I have no doubt at all that the death penalty (for, say, killing police officers, or for murder committed in the course of theft) is the enlightened choice.
A third reason has to do with the value of human life. The retributive death penalty is the most humane way in which society can express its abhorrence at the wanton taking of life by the criminal. The restoration of capital punishment for certain specified crimes seems to me to be one of the most civilised and sensible reforms this country could carry out. There are people in high places in the Government who agree with me. Unhappily, the Prime Minister does not. This is one of the subjects on which he has not changed his mind. However, I am not without hope. Mr Heath is becoming very adept at changing his mind. So far, he has changed it for the worse, but that, I am sure, is accidental rather than deliberate. Anyway, good luck to President Nixon.
A question of treason?
I gather, on most eminent authority, that the charge of treason could be laid against those who committed the bombing outrages last week. "In that case, why don't they bring such charges?" "Because treason still carries the death penalty, and they don't want to be able to use it." I then said that I supposed that anyone from the Republic of Ireland could hardly be charged with treason, and was roundly told that this was not so. "Anybody within the realm who is not a uniformed member of a state engaged in war with us owes temporary allegiance to the throne and can be charged, and found guilty of treason," so I was authoritatively told.
Death in Bermuda
Another tempest in Bermuda. Shakespeare's islands are perplext as well as vext over the murder of their Governor and his aide. Since there is no possible personal motive the sad pattern seems to follow that of London's bombs: a militant splinter group (possibly the Black Beret Cadre, inevitably known as the BBC) sparked off by combustible political speeches. The Opposition Labour Party, which lately inveighed against Government House as "symbols of colonialism" and an "expensive anachronism" and even against the dog's food (he was also killed), must feel like Henry and his turbulent priest.
Basically the assassination is one more demonstration of Black Power politics, possibly aggravated by affluent tourism, an industry which, its blithe promoters forget, is always an irritant in poor areas. There are two basic factors which have lent urgency to left-wing action. The first is the success of Lypden Pindling, the leftwing black Prime Minister of the Bahamas: since his election in 1972, he has violently discriminated against brown and white and obtained from Britain the promise of 1973 independence (together with the headache of another left-wing mini-state at the United Nations). Secondly, there is the danger that many blacks, especially the more affluent, may rally behind the leader of the conservatives, Sir Edward Richards, of the United Bermuda Party. Behind all this there is the fact of the long-leased American naval and air bases in the western corner of the island. These are an obvious target and if the left succeeds in disrupting them, more •than Bermuda will be vext.
Richard Sharples
Patrick Cosgrave writes: Richard Sharpies was the first person I have known who has died by violence. In remembering him, my own experience must, therefore, colour recollection. I did not know him intimately, but for a few months after the last general election I knew him well, and did a fair amount of work for him. He was a man of the utmost gentleness and courtesy and, in the hell of Ulster politics — at that time one of his principal charges — seemed somewhat bewildered. The considerate side of his character is, however, what I most vividly recall. He once asked me to do some work on a speech of his which already existed in draft. I did so, and returned the text. A week later he sent me a ''Copy of the further amended' text as deliVered, accompanied by a long hand-written letter describing audience reaction to the speech, and explaining the reasoning behind the further changes. That is a small example of his willingness — indeed, anxiety — to take maximum pains in personal relations. I cannot help but feel that he was glad to be out of Westminster, and for that reason especially happy to settle in Bermuda. He would, and could, have done nothing but good for the people he was to govern; and yet he was viciously cut down. The best we can do is remember him for his nature.
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