Mercy for Sir John

Sir John Anderson, Lord President of the Council since 1940 and No. 2 man in Winston Churchill's War Cabinet, was indirectly threatened with imprisonment last week unless he watched his step. A civil servant since 1905, Sir John became known as "The Man Without Mercy" for his administration (as joint Under Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland) of Britain's Black and Tan police during the Irish Rebellion of 1919-21 and for his stern rule as Bengal's Governor from 1932 to 1937.

As Lord Privy Seal in Neville Chamberlain's Cabinet, Sir John expertly worked out plans for the evacuation of 3,000,000 Londoners, then became Secretary for Home Affairs and Home Security before the invasion scare of 1940. It was in this post that he fathered the famed Emergency Powers Act which, among other things, provided for the arrest of persons accused of "spreading alarm and despondency."

One of the thousands of Britons arrested under the Act was a certain Captain Thomas Wilson of Glasgow. During his 17-month imprisonment he petitioned the King's Bench for an appeal. The petition was intercepted by the Home Office "for scrutiny" and promptly suppressed by one of Sir John Anderson's underlings.

After his release Captain Wilson asked the King's Bench to charge Sir John with contempt of Court, claimed -L-5,000 damages for loss of Constitutional rights.

The case was heard last week by a King's Bench Justice, Sir Travers Humphreys, 75, famed criminal lawyer and onetime Cambridge rowing man. When the Government's Attorney General maintained that the Home Office action did not constitute contempt, Mr. Justice Humphreys snapped: "An official of the Home Office is not the servant of Sir John Anderson. Both are servants of the Crown. . . . Are you saying that it is for some subordinate in one of the Ministries to decide what this Court will look at?"

Though Mr. Justice Humphreys said the Court was powerless to make Sir John Anderson pay damages, he warned: "If any case is brought before me hereafter in which any person--I care not how high his position or how great his name--be found to have interfered with the rights of one of His Majesty's subjects, I think I should have no difficulty in putting into force . . . the great powers of this King's Bench Division of imprisoning such a person for contempt of Court."

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