CO129-561-14 Naval Volunteer Force 17-3-1937 - 9-2-1938 — Page 9

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I am afraid the Admiralty's

Appendix has a perforation. Section 52 of

the Naval Discipline Act provides a scale of

punishments in descending order of severity.

The rules for applying these punishments are

contained in Section 53. The effect of the

Hong Kong proposal, as embodied in the

Admiralty's Appendix, is to abolish

punishment of death except in the case of

murder and mutiny, and penal servitude in

all cases. The highest punishment is

therefore dismissal with disgrace which by

Section 53(6) involves also a sentence of

imprisonment. By Section 53(7), however,

imprisonment can only be awarded for two years.

The result is that, for example, by their

amended Section 2 of the Act treachery

by an officer commanding a ship in the face

of the enemy is punishable with dismissal

with disgrace and two years' imprisonment,

which hardly seems adequate. Whether the

Admiralty realise that this is the effect

of their proposed amendments I do not know,

but obviously Hong Kong cannot have intended

it. If to remedy this you alter Section

53(7) so as to make imprisonment possible

for any term up to a life sentence you throw

the scale of punishments out of gear. We

must point this out to Hong Kong, and I think

we had better suggest that in the circumstances

it would be preferable to retain the punishments

prescribed in the Naval Discipline Act

(with the exception of corporal punishment):

and