I am quite prepared to take the responsibility of adopting the most drastic or arbitrary measures that the S[ecretary] of S[tate] can name wh[ich] w[oul]d further the securing of the murderer however illegal they may be, provided Hm. Govt will support me… All I want to ensure is that the Govt will indemnify us for our action wh[ich] must necessarily be adopted to the circ[umstance]s of the case.

Three weeks ago I do not think the public would have acquiesced in any illegal action but now I think they would welcome anything which shows activity [and] enterprise. Of course the danger… is that if we did not find the murderer our action would be condemned & there is the danger that an illegal act… might bond the Social Democrats together to resist the Police & it might be then be said to have caused a serious riot… [Houses] could not be searched illegally without violent resistance & bloodshed & the certainty of one or more Police officers being killed… We have in times past done something on a very small scale but then we had certain information that a person was concealed in a house. In this matter I have not only myself to think of but the lives & position of 12,000 men, any one of whom might be hanged if a death occurred in entering a house illegally.