PROSECUTION FOR EXPRESSIONS OF OPINION. (Hansard, 1 December 1925)

§ Captain WEDGWOOD BENN

I beg to move, That leave be given to brine in a Bill better to secure that no person shall be convicted for the expression of opinion, and for other purposes relating thereto. As the Debate this afternoon appears likely to be a controversial one, and as it has a special bearing on a special ease, I thought that I might crave the indulgence, and the very brief indulgence, of the House for leave to introduce a Bill which will set out in general terms what we believe to be the meaning of freedom of speech. In order that hon. Members may understand exactly what is the issue upon which we propose to ask the House to vote, if indeed a Vote be taken, I will state precisely what is the one effective Clause of the Bill which I ask leave to introduce. The Bill proposes, in the first place, slightly to alter the procedure in trials for sedition and to assimilate it to the procedure in criminal libel trials. It will require the Judge to put to the jury a specific question before the accused can be declared guilty, and the question which it is proposed to instruct the Judge to put to the jury—it is also a definition—is the following: Does the matter complained of amount to more than an expression of opinion, and has it led, or is it reasonably calculated to lead, directly to public disorder. If the jury be unable to answer that question in the affirmative, then this Bill directs the acquittal of the accused. Now I direct the attention of the House to the fact that this Bill alters the law. In the first place, it would dispose of the first definition of sedition which was given by the Prime Minister at the Unionist Conference at Brighton. We propose to alter the law, because the present legal 2055 meaning of seditious libel might easily be so used as to check a great deal of what is ordinarily considered as allowable discussion and would, if rightly enforced, be inconsistent with the prevailing forms of political agitation. That is the reason why this Bill proposes to alter the law. While it does not deprive the State of the weapon to protect itself against the advocacy of violence when public necessity demands it, it does protect the accused, and attempts to secure to him the right of a fair trial.

It is extremely necessary that in a case of this kind we should take every precaution to secure for the accused a fair trial. In the first place, he is standing in the dock faced with an enormous mass of popular disapproval; in the second place, he may be faced with a willingness on the part of the Counsel for the Crown to strain, and even break through, the protection which is afforded to him by the law under the Criminal Evidence Act; and, thirdly, the accused may be made the subject of a campaign of prejudice on the platform by Ministers of the Crown, and even by those who are specially charged with the execution of these duties. In the case with which we shall deal this afternoon —if I may refer to it for a moment to illustrate my point—the Home Secretary, nine days before he ordered the arrests to be made and knowing that arrests were about to be made, named two of the defendants, Pollitt and Gallacher, and declared on the public platform in advance that they were guilty of the offence for which they were about to be tried.

This Bill first attempts to secure a fair trial for people so charged. It also attempts to protect freedom of speech. When we say that we are in favour of freedom of speech we do not mean only freedom to speak what we approve or what we tolerate or what we think reasonable. We mean freedom to say what we disagree with, what we disapprove of, what is subversive, or even what, in our opinion, is intellectually abominable. We say that we believe in this freedom, because we profoundly believe that you cannot imprison thought and that a bad idea can be killed only by a good idea, and falsehood can be overcome only by truth. We say that 2056 suppression merely fosters the evil that it seeks to remove.