I9 12 ] Eugenic Reforms 399 



explosives. He is enthusiastic about his naval work, but I know too 

 little about military affairs, either by sea or land, to appreciate the 

 whole of his talk, and I was tired with the shooting and so cannot do 

 justice to the wonderful evening it has been. 



"20th Oct. (Sunday). — Another day of excellent talk. Cockerell 

 came for luncheon and to spend the afternoon, and Winston told us 

 admirable stories of his experience as Home Secretary and of how 

 it had become a nightmare to him the having to exercise his power of 

 life and death in the case of condemned criminals, on an average of one 

 case a fortnight. Nearly all of the cases of murder are a combina- 

 tion of love and drink, young fellows who on a sudden impulse kill 

 their sweethearts, sometimes in the most barbarous fashion yet with 

 the excuse of temporary rage amounting to madness. He described 

 the power of the Home Secretary as absolute, either to quash the 

 sentence or to confirm it. The Home Secretary can go into any 

 prison and on his sole authority can order a release, which if once 

 notified to a prisoner cannot be changed afterwards by any power 

 in England. He had several times done this, and just before leaving 

 the Office he had ordered a number of remissions of sentences, not- 

 withstanding the protests of the judges in the cases. He spoke of these 

 cases with emotion, and giving us all particulars. 



" About the war in Turkey I told him that it was his fault, or 

 rather Grey's, that it had broken out, that the outbreak could have 

 been stopped a year ago by ordering the British fleet to the Mediter- 

 ranean and notifying the Italian Government that their raid on Tripoli 

 would not be tolerated. He said, ' Yes, it was so, but we could not 

 afford to make for ourselves yet another enemy in Italy.' Talking of 

 the Italians I remarked that they were contemptible as fighting men, 

 they have been beaten always by every other people by sea and land 

 since Lepanto. He said, ' That is interesting, if true, but how about 

 Garibaldi ? ' ' Garibaldi,' I said, ' was an Italian fighting against Ital- 

 ians. He and his men never beat a foreign enemy.' Winston, how- 

 ever, will not hear of Grey as being other than a splendid specimen 

 of an Englishman, the best of the type, and they are evidently close 

 friends, indeed Grey is Winston's son's godfather. 



" Winston is also a strong eugenist. He told us he had himself 

 drafted the Bill which is to give power of shutting up people of weak 

 intellect and so prevent their breeding. He thought it might be ar- 

 ranged to sterilize them. It was possible by the use of Rontgen 

 rays, both for men and women, though for women some operation 

 might also be necessary. He thought that if shut up with no prospect 

 of release without it many would ask to be sterilized as a condition of 

 having their liberty restored. He went on to say that the mentally 

 deficient were as much more prolific than those normally constituted 



