%live New Underworld Dr. Donald Mc!. Johnson, MP. Bruce Arnold
Wee! Erskine B. Childers, Henry Adler
0 Venezia! James Morris
The Road from Billericay Nicolas Walter otne and Carthage ,4. D. Fitton Brown the Proms G. H. Bosworth Into the Rough Monica Furlong box of Tricks Frank Dunlop GRAVE NEW UNDERWORLD
Sta.—Immediately before the Recess two of my Parliamentary colleagues and I wrote to the Home Secretary aSking for action against 'undesirable Clubs.' The clubs which we had in mind were, of Course, far .less genteel institutions than those which Mr. Kenneth Allsop describes in his article. None the less, parliamentary legislation must inevitably, Perhaps regrettably, be of a comprehensive nature; and accordingly I find his article of much interest. Let me say straight away that I am no kill-joy— and neither are my two colleagues who joined me ill the letter in question. I have no closer association with the Public Morality Council than has Mr. Kenneth Allsop. Who am I to say that solid citizens Should .not enjoy solid fun? But the present situation, as you rightly comment in your editorial, is fraught svith humbug and hypocrisy. There might be little harm in that either; but the humbug is of a particu- hull+ dangerous kind. n. The indications are that the Home Secretary's 'thcoming legislation intends to leave the matter ur decisions on club licensing in the hands of the )cat magistrates. One automatically asks: will it ue their polies, to permit activities to be carried on Under a smoke screen of genteelism, when these same activities in other circumstances would be edit- sidered to be of a criminal nature? Possibly, as Mr. 1/)%1101) suggests, it will; and if so, what is going to e the effect on public confidence in the authority or the law, already in an alarmingly shaky state? Let us face it. We have on our hands 'an opulent lociety,' which has shown the same wayward urges a% all previous opulent societies before it—as was e..,li.idenced by the ugly rash of street prostitution. ,1111Ply by removing the supply, as was done by the ?treet Offences Act, you do not necessarily destroy the demand; it has been 'diverted into shady cellar clubs and 'clip joints,' the continuation of which ,11,e0anvecg the more But close this type of club down, in
e more genteel establishments open : and what will happen then?
appreciate that I am posing more questions Tan I am able to answer. It seems to me, however, at there is an overwhelming case for direct con- t'ol by the Home Secretary of licensing arrange- Vents in areas where these matters present a prob- __M; not with a view to complete repression, but '.11erely so that there can be some kind of rough Justice applied as between one kind of establish- Taut and the other. The Home Secretary, auLtook Lecasion to remind him in a recent questiciA has ad such. control over licensing arrangements for the rPe ast forty years in my constituency of Carlisle. Why
tain it' in Carlisle, where its presence is corn- Pletely anachronistic?—Yours faithfully,
ti"se of Commons, SW!
DONALD MCI. JOHNSON
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