Letters to the Editor
The Notting Hill Sentences David Astor, Rev. F. A. Jasper
Loyalties Ltd, Rev. Austin Lee How to Win an Election John Papworth The Population Problem Admiral Sir W. M. James
Granting Visas John Curtin Purging Intellectuals Professor William Empson ITV Programmes John !Win The Liberals Oliver Smedley, Perceval Graves Formosa: Right or Wrong? Dr. R. L. Kitching The Canker in our Midst D. Goodwin THE NOTTING HILL SENTENCES
SIR,-1Tharos reproved. the Observer for its qualified support of the recent sentence of four years' gaol on the 'nigger-hunting' youths. The question before Mr. Justice Salmon (as we saw it) was whether to treat the crime of the nine youths, which had in his view `started the whole of this violence in Notting Hill,' with or without regard to its social consequences. Had a party of teddly-boys assaulted other white boys (as happens frequently) it would not have started a series of race riots. In speaking to the accused of his determination that 'anyone anywhere who may be tempted to follow your example shall clearly under- stand that crimes such as this will not be tolerated in this country,' the judge was speaking, not merely of acts of violence,'but of acts of violence committed against those of a different 'race because they are of a different race.
It may be that he was wrong to take into account the racialist character of their acts of violence. But it may also be that he was right. If the judges of the Weimar Republic had treated the first crimes of individual Nazis with greater severity, it is just Possible that German society might not have come to accept racial ,contempt and hatred as a tolerable public attitude—an attitude that led, in their case, to the most merciless act of all history, the calculated slaughtering of six ' million people of a highly civilised race. There is also an analogy between Notting Hill and Little Rock, as regards the need to restore the confidence of an anxious section of the community in the protection of the law.
That severe punishment is known not to deter effectively some crimes committed by individuals, such as murder, does not prove what effects exemplary punishment may have on some social crimes, such as race riots. It is hard on the in- dividual youths who made the 'nigger-hunting' ex- pedition that they should be punished in a way intended to have a certain effect on public opinion : but this does not necessarily mean that it was an unwise sentence.
In giving Mr. Justice Salmon qualified support, we were not saying that punishment alone, or more and harsher punishment, was the right answer to race riots. In recent weeks, we have made various suggestions of positive means of . combating this kind of social disease. But I am not ashamed of supporting Mr. Justice Salmon, and I gladly accept Pharos's taunt that the Observer takes racialism Particularly seriously.—Yours faithfully,
The Observer, 22 Tudor Street, EC4 Editor
DAVID ASTOR
[This letter is referred to in 'A Spectator's Note- boo10—Editor, Spectator.]
Previous page
