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An Insulting Pay Well Known to Students of Colonial the Question of the Causes of This Secular Affirmation

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An Insulting Pay Well Known to Students of Colonial the Question of the Causes of This Secular Affirmation fa thm Immei “I( is impossible to legislate for the future. All we can A Study of Strikes - - p. 2 do is to vaguely guess its The Press & the People p. 3 essential tendencies and clear the road for it," Trends in Social —KROPOTKIN Psychology - p. 3 (Modern Science & Anarchism) 1 T H E ANARCHIST WEEKLY Vol. 13, No. 44 November 1st, 1952 Threepence « Peaceful Anarchist” Fined 5/- A S reported in last week’s purely nominal sum of five shil­ lings! This can only be regurded FLOG F r e e d o m , Philip Sansom, one as the nearest possible to u complete Q N C E again the question of flog­ pletely question-begging way. of the speakers of the London convicted, the flogging campaigns Anarchist Group, appeared last victory, the obstruction laws being ging is occupying prominent were never followed by a significant "A very simple, fundamental question was posed in the editorial column of Monday at Gt. Marlborough Street what they are. space in the newspapers in response fall in the statistics of crimes of the Magistrate’s Court on charges of to an apparent increase in crimes of relevant class. Sometimes there was this newspaper last week. Do YOU, The policeman in his evidence we asked, prefer the rule of the cosh wilfully obstructing the roadway violence. It will clearly be many a slight rise.” to the corrective of corporal punish­ and the pathway, and obstructing a had wildly exaggerated the number years before humaner judgment Other' voices have been raised ment?” police constable in the course of his of people present at the meeting and the extinction of the idea of against the clamour of the doggers The Cadogan Committee's evidence duty. at the time he arrived. He said | vengeance on a criminal will cease (led, as we have come to expect, by is of little appeal to editors who. in the that pedestrians were being forced i to flourish in our society. No Lord Goddard, Lord' Chief Justice), teeth of evidence, speak of corporal The laws about obstruction in out into Charing Cross Road to get S', doubt it seems simple enough to and have, pointed out that a man punishment as “corrective”. London are such that it is prac­ past the crowd in Manette Street apply brutal punishment to brutal who has been flogged is apt to be We have noted before the rftle of tically impossible to get off on a (which is pructically a cul-de-sac off crimes. To people brought up on admired by his fellow criminals and newspapers in whipping up rather dis­ charge. If one stands still on a Charing Cross Road) und that he K the religious idea of sin and its so received encouragement as well creditable emotions (disguised, as usual, pavement, one is—legally—causing saw several cars trying to get into • atonement, on the conception of an as further brutalisation from this under virtuous indignation) rather than obstruction, and the mere setting up Manette Street but not being able Leye for an eye and a tooth for a leading public opinion by stressing the to, owing to the crowd. form of punishment. It is also plain evidence and a considered judgment. We of a platform in the street, without Booth, such logic seems sound that where brutal crimes are -com­ actually holding a meeting, con­ have also drawn attention to the signi­ Our comrade’s witnesses, John ■enough. It may be true that some mitted out of a psychopathological ficance of these “respectable" outbursts stitutes obstruction. Meetings arc ■eligious teachers struggle to im- hatred of society—represented by of hardly concealed sadism, and there allowed to be held by the grace of Bishop, Rita Milton and R. Murray- Ipress a higher morality, but they are the victim, especially if elderly— is little need to go into them now. the police and the right of public Edghill, of the London Anarchist ■ill too few—how rare-it is to find Group, and one independent wit­ such a hatred can only be nourished A Higher Morality assembly applies only as long as ghurchmen in advanced progressive by a returning brutality on the part the police decide not to bring ness. all gave their evidence firmly Paradoxically, on the question of flog­ and well, and were able to testify Movements! —and they have to of society. charges of obstruction. Struggle against the body of Old ging. the Government has adopted a that at the time the policeman All these are obvious points. Yet it more progressive and advanced position lestament teaching. Such a reli- is obvious also that they are of little However, the police themselves arrived the crowd numbered not Bpus background gives sanction to than public opinion, or the judges—for more than a dozen, that no pedes­ validity to those who are determined as the Lord Chancellor remarked in the operate strictly according to the |e expression of repulsively vin- to make punishment an expression of regulations governing their pro­ trians had been inconvenienced House of Lords last week, judges have and no drivers frustrated in their Ifctive ideas and makes them vengeance. It has repeatedly been stated not always been the best judges of this cedure, and one is not obstructing Ppectable to their bearers. in thjs country that the purpose- of sort of question. a police officer if in fact he is attempts to enter the street. punishment is preventative, deterrent and not proceeding according to those Zadogan Committee’s Findings In this article we have drawn attention The hearing last Monday had reformative, but not retributive. Yet to the evidence against the efficacy of regulations. |The idea that flogging was an most judges interpret their office as the been adjourned from the previous cient method of reducing crimes flogging. But we must stress that the exacting .of vengeance by society. anarchist attitude, as of any higher Comrade Sansom was able to week, and the comrades concerned [violence by its deterrent effect had wondered whether the magis­ Newspapers’ Role morality, is independent of the question argue, and bring witnesses to prove, BS! exhaustively examined by a of efficacy. We are opposed to flogging, trate, Mr. Paul Bennett, would use wernmental enquiry, the Cadogan that the constable who charged him , How little the Cadogan Committee's as to capital punishment, because it is had not given him warning that he the intervening week to read up on i&mmittee, in ,1938. A leading findings, or a higher and humaner out­ in itself plainly wrong, and brutalises was liable to be charged, and had anarchism. This rather seemed to (article in the Times of October 22, look mean to the average newspaper those who inflict it. whether the prison be the case, for he appeared better is shown by the News of the World officers directly concerned or society in fact acted in an excited and Puimmarizes their findings: arrogant fashion. He was therefore informed at the second hearing, j “This claim was subjected by the (not by any means the most reactionary which is vicariously responsible. These paper for all its curious position in outmoded brutalities must be condemned acquitted on the second charge— questioning comrade Sansom on the Bdogan Committee to close statis- Sunday journalism), which begins an not because they are ineffective but of obstructing the police. On the anarchist attitude to law and ■cal analysis, and in each separate article advocat^g flogging in this com­ because they are wrong and degrading. first charge he was "fined the order, to which Sansom replied that instance the argument failed to anarchists were not opposed to (stand up to the test. The Com- order but were opposed to law. fmittee reached two main conc%- Mr. Bennett also mentioned (of F sions. Among men convicted of course!) the bomb-throwing of the [ crimes for which they could suffer KENYA: The Basic Question past, but Sansom pointed out that F corporal punishment, the subse­ he was not being charged with quent record of those actually p O L I C E rule, backed by army and naval units, is now the chosen order to show that even moderate throwing bombs. He agreed with flogged was neither better nor worse method of administration in Kenya since the onset of the “dis­ opinion in this country can see the Mr. Bennett that he was a peaceful than that of those merely im­ turbances”. Newspapers have been suspended, and representatives main issues and draws conclusions anarchist! prisoned, so far as the repetition of of African aspirations everywhere arrested. It is of little value for from them not very different from that class of crime was concerned; government spokesmen to claim that these steps are necessary; they our own. In other words, the Philip Sansom conducted his own their record for crime was decidedly are always reactionary and tyrannical, and the necessity for them only attitude of F r eedo m on the events defence and handled well all his worse. As regards the supposed argues the failure of the administration to deal with local problems in in Kenya is not an extravagantly own witnesses and the policeman, deterrent effect on men hitherto un- the past. extreme one, but is based on facts who could not think of a single ______________ Long-felt Discontents which are recognised in reformist question to ask any of the witnesses quarters. The discontents of the large although their evidence gave the African population of Kenya have direct lie to what he had said! EN6INEERINC WORKERS Causes of Unrest The members of the group declined been expressed by their own spokes­ With the same object in mind, let to take the oath on entering the Offer men for many years and have been us quote the Observer again on witness-box, but instead read the An Insulting Pay well known to students of colonial the question of the causes of this secular affirmation.
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