What about Convictions?

READING between the lines of this declaration, what strikes one at once is that while the sense of uneasiness which the Government, according to the Home Member, is anxious to allay is largely, if not principally, as to “the correctness of all these convictions,” the actual proposal made by the Government with a view to meeting the popular apprehension only contemplates a revision of sentences and, speaking generally, of such sentences as have not expired already. This is clearly a serious limitation, one that is bound to detract largely from the usefulness of the step taken by the Government. It must be remembered that while reductions in and remissions of unexpired sentences must naturally be very welcome to the persons under sentence, what is even more important both from the point of view of such of them as believe themselves to be innocent and of the public generally is a declaration that the conviction itself was unjust or unsustainable.