§ MR. JENNINGS (Stockport)asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether the Government will take into consideration the necessity of adopting more stringent measures for the suppression of the thieves' literature, and other demoralizing and indecent publications, which are now so extensively circulated among the young, and which led to the Tunbridge Wells murder and so many other crimes?
§ THE SECRETARY OF STATE (Mr. MATTHEWS) (Birmingham, E.)The Government are as anxious as my hon. Friend to suppress demoralizing and indecent publications, and the recent prosecution of the publisher of M. Zola's works, by the direction of the Attorney General, is an instance of their action in this direction. It must be borne in mind that prosecutions sometimes do 893 more harm than good, by making obscure publications more widely known; and that it is desirable not to prosecute unless it is tolerably certain that a jury will convict. Subject to these considerations the Government are prepared to take all the measures that the law permits.