§ SIR H. COTTONI beg to ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether his attention has been drawn to a Ceylon case of one Kaitan, a boy of 773 twelve years of age, who was sentenced to death in 1907, but whoso sentence was commuted to one of twenty years rigorous imprisonment, and who has since been transferred to a reformatory with orders that his case is to be brought up for further consideration when he attains his eighteenth year; and whether he can see his way by legislation, or otherwise, to prohibit in future any sentence of capital punishment on a child of such tender years.
§ COLONEL SEELYI am aware of the case to which my hon. friend refers, and the question of altering the law is being considered.