Tories Determined to Keep C.N.D. Members in Jail

The refusal of Tory Home Secretary, R. A. Butler, to remit the two-month jail sentences meted out to the six members of the Direct Action Committee against Nuclear War comes as no surprise.

The request of Sydney Silverman and 37 other M.P.'s for their release received a curt no from Butler. 'I have ascertained that the prisoners are in good health and that imprisonment is not having any harmful effect on them,' was his cynical reply.

Appeals for 'mercy' and 'clemency,' such as recommended by one leading clergyman, fall on deaf ears. The men who condoned the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are not given to mercy.

The well-dressed and suave politicians of the Tory Party plot and scheme with their imperialist allies, the American government, to produce even more deadly and fiendish weapons than those they dropped in 1945. At Eniwetok in 1954 they tested a bomb with an explosive power equivalent to 15 million tons of T.N.T. This explosive power is a thousand times greater than the one used to murder Hiroshima.

Butler is satisfied

The members of the Direct Action Committee are in jail today because they played such a prominent role in exposing the Tories' war plans and because their anti-rocket base demonstrations have brought to public attention the location of these sites. For these 'crimes' they have aroused the hatred of the capitalist politicians.

Butler did not refuse to remit their sentences because he felt bilious and irritable after excessive Christmas celebrations. He and his fellow Tories want to teach the defendants and all others who oppose their war plans, a salutory lesson. The Tories aim to intimidate and silence.

In his reply to Silverman, Butler reiterated that the prisoners could go free even now, if they gave sureties 'to be of good behaviour and not to take part in or encourage any breach of the peace.'

What the Court demands and naturally the demand is endorsed by Butler, is that the defendants cease their campaign. To achieve this they use a piece of 14th century legislation. Such legislation will if required, be used against trade unionists during strikes.

The defendants were quite right to refuse to give up their right to campaign against nuclear weapons. By taking such a decision they help to defend the political rights of every trade unionist and socialist. Now the working-class movement must face up to its responsibilities to the prisoners and organise a campaign for their release.

Butler will not order them to open the cell doors at Brixton and Holloway as a result of pleas or prayers. What will make him move is the Labour movement which has a duty to call meetings and demonstrations demanding the release of the defendants and the repealing of the Act under which they were charged.