§ MR. PICKERSGILL (Bethnal Green, S.W.)asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether he will now state his decision as to the release or otherwise of the four defendants convicted along with Mr. Williams by Mr. De Rutzen, who are still in prison?
§ THE SECRETARY OF STATE (Mr. MATTHEWS) (Birmingham, E.)I have carefully examined the evidence before the Court of Quarter Sessions, and the decision of the Court in Williams's case, and I do not find anything bearing on the cases of the other prisoners. But the decision of the Court of Quarter Sessions in Pole's case, by which his sentence was reduced to two months, appears to me to have an important bearing on the cases of the other defendants who have not appealed, and whose cases do not differ in kind from that of Pole. There is, however, an appeal in one of these cases, and of Stafford, which has been heard to-day, and I think it is proper that I should wait until I have considered the result of that appeal before tendering my advice to Her Majesty as to the other defendants.