Word: ede
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Unripe Time? Last week the House of Commons abolished the death penalty for murder for a trial period of five years. Halfheartedly, the Labor government opposed the change. Kindly Home Secretary Chuter Ede, who ten years ago was speaking out for abolition of the death sentence, now apologetically opposed it. "The time is not ripe," he said, "for the undertaking of this particular reform." He was thinking of Britain's soaring postwar wave of armed robberies and assaults, and of his shriveled police force, 14,000 men under authorized strength. Murders had increased from...
...most M.P.s thought the death penalty had little influence on the murder rate. Some recalled that objections like Ede's were raised more than a century ago to oppose the reform of Britain's brutal criminal laws. In George III's reign, more than 200 crimes were punishable by death. Among them: felling a tree, picking a pocket, associating with gypsies for a month. In 1810, to a proposal to abolish 'the death penalty for shoplifting of articles worth five shillings or more, Lord Ellenborough had solemnly objected: "I trust your lordships will pause before...
Replied Home Secretary James Chuter Ede, with simple dignity: "No, sir, there are many statues in London which give rise to acute controversy. . . . We have to live and let live in these matters...
...Said Ede: "It is a great pity that some of the other monstrosities [in London] are not similarly treated...
British fascists probably do not number more than 50,000, but their early reappearance has startled Britons, embarrassed their Government. When angry M.P.s in the House of Commons last week demanded action against the fascists, they knew they were raising a classic question. Home Secretary James Chuter Ede drew the classic answer from Milton: "Where people aim at extirpating free discussions, they must be regarded as ripe for extirpation themselves." Mr. Ede continued with an assessment of Mosley that only a Briton could make: "We have a very ancient democracy, with a great sense of humor, and I am quite...