MOSLEY CASE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 10 December 1943, Page 4

MOSLEY CASE

MORE QUESTIONS IN HOUSE OF COMMONS MR MORRISON’S DEFENCE. MATTER TAKEN UP IN LORDS. (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) (Received This Day, 12.10 p.m.) LONDON, December 9. The Home Secretary (Mr Herbert Morrison) was a target for many questions in the 'House of Commons with reference to Sir O. Mosley. Mr S. S. Silverman (Lab.) asked whether Mr Morrison was prepared to make available the medical reports on the health of Mosley which led to his release. Mr Morrison said he had nothing to add to his reply on December 1. Commander O. S. Locker-Lampson (Con.) asked whether it was a usual procedure to release prisoners suffering from thrombo phlebitis, and how many had been released. Mr Morrison replied that there was a general policy of release on medical grounds if continued imprisonment would endanger a person’s life or reason or shorten his life, of if he would be bedridden for the remainder of his life. Eight men and one woman had been released from prison in 1942 under this policy. Commander Locker-Lampson: “Mosley has got off. So will Mussolini and Hitler?”

A British Official Wireless message report that Mr G. L. M„ Mander (Lib.), asked if Mr Morrison was aware that there was a very widespread desire for specific charges to be directed against Mosley. “Do I understand,” he said, “that under the Jaw at present there is no evidence on which such charges could be based?” Mr Morrison replied that, so far as he knew, there was no such evidence but there was a duty resting upon members as well as Ministers to deal with widespread feelings not based on fact.” If the suggestion is that Parliament should have enacted or should now enact some new law under which Mosley could be brought to trial and punished for his behaviour and activities,” he added, “the effect would be to make a person liable to punishment for doing things which, at the time they were done, were not forbidden by the law. However, if the widespread feeling is to bring British Fascist leaders to trial, provision on the lines suggested would be wholly out of keeping with our conceptions of enquiry and criminal justice and sound Liberal doctrine.’ The House of Lords will have its first Question on the Mosley case when Viscount Elibank asks “whether the Government will arrange to criminally prosecute Mosley for the offences which led to his arrest, as soon as he is sufficiently recovered in health.”