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5. What is to be done about it? I am convinced from my past and present experience with the railways that there is no quick short-term solution. There is a very hopeful longer term solution which lies in pressing on with the modernisation plan with all possible speed and parallelling this by a new effort to improve human relations throughout the railway industry. It is this second objective to which I propose to give my personal attention and I am sure that we have the right instrument in the Railway Productivity Council which must be made to work effectively.
6. I am sure that the present wages structure of the railways gives too little recognition, at least in some grades, to skill and responsibility. The Commission are fully conscious of this and have made a start in their latest wage settlement in pulling out the concertina. But the Unions-particularly the National Union of Railwaymen are strongly opposed and the process is bound to be slow.
7. In the meantime, this Cabinet discussion may provoke further Press speculation and I would therefore like the Cabinet's agreement to my making a short statement if necessary.
Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation, W.1,
29th December, 1955.
H. W.
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(THIS DOCUMENT IS THE PROPERTY OF HER BRITANNIC MAJESTY'S GOVERNMENT}
SECRET
C.P. (55) 214
30th December, 1955
CABINET
59
COPY NC.
MAJOR GERMAN WAR CRIMINALS
Memorandum by the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs
Five major war criminals sentenced by the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg remain in Spandau prison under quadripartite control, Their particulars are as follows:-
Name
Hess
Sentence
Life
Date for Release
Funk
Life
Speer
20 years
1st October, 1966
Schirach Doenitz
20 years
1st October, 1966
10 years
1st October, 1956
2.
The sentences run from 1st October, 1946, the date of conviction. There is no remission for good conduct or allowance for pre-trial custody. We have, however, already released Neurath and Raeder because they were old and sick and might have died in prison.
3.
I suggest that there would now be advantage in setting up a four- Power judicial board to review these sentences. Its terms of reference might be to make recommendations to Governments, without calling in question the validity of the convictions, for the termination or reduction of sentences or for parole.
4.
The arguments in favour of this proposal are as follows:-
(i) The sentences of the remaining seven Japanese major war criminals have been reduced to ten years, which means that all are now being released.
(ii)
We have agreed to review the cases of the lesser war criminals in Germany, as a result of which all but 16 of those in British hands have been released.
(iii) In equity, there is clearly a strong case for dealing with the Spandau prisoners in the same way as the Japanese or the other German offenders. It is increasingly difficult to justify to opinion in Western Germany and other countries the absence of any arrangements for clemency in respect of the Spandau prisoners, especially as it is contrary to Western theory to leave prisoners without any hope of mitigation or (in the case Hess and Funk) of release.
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