The Casement Diaries

'Thrust and counter-thrust continue over the existence and authenticity of the Casement diaries. Till the Home Office admits both—as in time it must—may 1 be permitted to give you, as succinctly as I am able, the truth 1' With this introduction, Peter Singleton-Gates gave us his account of the events which led up to the suppreision in 1925 of a book he had written on Roger Casement; and his recollection of. Vhe diaries themselves. His account contained some extracts from the diaries throwing light on Casement's character. We were warned that their publication would constitute a breach of the Official

Secrets Act. Inquiry at the Home Office was met with a blank refusal to allow publication.

It is now forty years since transcripts of what were alleged to be casement's diaries were circulated in this country and in America, as part of a campaign designed to destroy his chances of a reprieve. Since that time at least one copy has been kept to revive the smear campaign, when necessary. It was shown to the Irish delegates at the Conference which led to the Treaty in 1924': and it (or another copy) has been seen in London in the last few days; and its contents have been commented upon in a letter in a Dublin newspaper. Yet the Home Office refuses to admit the existence either of the diaries or of transcripts. To every inquiry, it replies with a fiat refusal to comment, coupled with a bbn on any use of the material which is available. It will not even allow an investigation to determine whether the 'transcripts are genuine copies of original diaries, and whether the original diaries were themselves genuine. The Home Office cannot be surprised if the public, both here and in Ireland, assumes that it has something to hide.

But the Act Remains

BY PETER SINGLETON-GATES A PERSON in authority came to see me on a May morning Pi in 1922 and left with me a heavy package of manu- scripts, saying that the material might be worth a book of value. As a journalist on a London evening newspaper, one knew many people; but whosoever it was advised that person in authority to seek me out and deliver me this bundle of documents is still unknown after all these years. And what documents! A bundle of photographs of letters and codes; typed copies of diaries attributed to Roger Casement (the first, a Letts diary for 1903, the other a Dollard's diary for 1910): typed copies of an army memo book for 1901; and a cash ledger for 1911. The whole transcripts comprised well over a hundred thousand words. There was also the proces-verbal of his inquisition at Scotland Yard by Basil Thomson on the Easter Sunday, Monday and Tuesday of 1916, setting the hall- mark of officialdom on the typed copies of diaries—the very diaries that the police had found in a locked trunk in Casement's Ebury Street lodgings.

The contents were fantastic, the work of an intensely meticulous diarist and a man who by the nature of innumer- able entries was firmly held in the Laocostin toils of unnatural vice. For nearly two years I studied the official diaries, reports, Blue and White papers of the Congo and Putumayo rendered by Roger Casement to the Government which had appointed him to carry out investigations into atrocities, which he did, and which ended for him in high acclaim and the order of knighthood. Comparison revealed incontestably that the seized diaries were corroborated by the official ones in every parti- cular—times of movements, places, the names of people— everything, save the horrific entries.

This man Casement had a strange courage. And so I wrote a book (The Secret Diaries of Roger Casement) about a determined seeker after truth: albeit; a traitor to my country, a pervert and an invert with the mind of .e Catullus. The Literary Editor of the Evening Standard accorded me a lengthy pre- liminary notice on January 10, 1925, in the course of which he wrote :

Secret for once, is the right word. . . . It has been necessary to edit this diary very carefully before publication, but even so enough remains to show that there was an unsuspected Casement beneath the fanatic and the traitor. The martyr's halo is likely to be a little dimmed. . . .

And if the diary shows one unsuspected Casement, it is quite another figure—that of the disillusioned fanatic—that emerges from a record, to be printed in this book, for the first time, of his interrogation at Scotland Yard after his arrest on Good Friday morning, 1916.

The hammer fell early the next morning: A peremptory order in writing from Sir Ernley Blackwell, chief legal adviser to the Home Office, that I was to see the Home Secretary, Sir William Joynson-Hicks (later Lord Brentford) at twelve noon. In the Secretary of State's room I was asked to sit down in a great engulfing chair. Sir William, in an inevitable frock coat, towered above me from his desk; glowering from an adjacent settle sprawled Sir Ernley. Opening exchanges were polite. I inquired whether a verbatim note of question and answer were being taken (though only the three of us were visibly present, there' was a screen at the other end of the room); only to be countered by the reply that there would be no notes save those 'Th(' himself or Sir Ernley chose to make. Are those in high places usually so naive? An hour before I had been warned to be cautious to the utmost degree. Yet here was a high Minister of State giving me his assurance. I wondered then and I still wonder.

The barrage fell. Who had given me the documents? When? Where? Had I seen the original diaries?

'No, Sir William, but I should very much like to.'

'It is enough that you have seen official copies,' was the immediate retort.

As a newspaper man I pleaded every privilege of confidence. Under no circumstances would I disclose any information on persons or places or what had happened to the documents. 'But under sub-section 6 I can and may quite well prosecute you fora refusal to disclose,' said the Home Secretary. I was adamant. This time I countered by a plea for time, inasmuch as I desired legal advice, for here I was face to face with two distinguished lawyers. Not till January 26 did I return to them. They were grimmer than ever. Again came the demand for disclosure of the sources of information, accom- panied by a reiteration of the threat of prosecution; again the refusal. Moreover, in the interim publishers in London had been warned of the possible consequences under the Official Secrets Act of publishing my book. In my view, and I made it as decisive as I could, an emasculated book, merely a prosaic record of the man's life and death, was of little value. Sub- mission was my only choice—an undertaking not to publish and to return copies of the secret interrogation by Thomson, and this demand was reinforced in two days by another firm letter from Blackwell.

The end was thus : Sir William : 'I am sorry for you, Mr. Singleton-Gates. In ten years' time the satiation in Ireland may be very different.' Myself : 'In ten years' time, Sir William, you may not be Home Secretary.'

Sir William : 'No, but the Act remains. Good day.'

Ironical as it may seem, less than a month later the sight of the original diaries in Casement's handwriting, so begrudged me by the Home Secretary, was given to me ungrudgingly by one in high authority indeed. Had there at any time been in my mind a scintilla of doubt as to the authenticity of the type- written copies to which I had had unlimited access—and there had not—this viewing of the originals would have dispelled any qualm. • Thirty-one years have elapsed and the book is probably no nearer publication than it was then. Yet in the years between, and in particular now, the strife over these diaries continues, with the Home Office evading demands for a Commission to examine the diaries, and allegations by eminent people of cunning forgery. • The criticisms and allegations fall into four categories : (1) That the diaries were forged. (2) That if the diaries were genuine, the improper entries had been interpolated by forgers. (3) That the diary or diaries were copies made by Casement of that kept by a Peruvian, Armando Normand. (4) That the diaries were genuine but the entries fantasies of the mind. I answer each separately.

(1) So meticulous, so varied and of such personal matters are the diaries that none but -Casement could have known and recorded the facts, day by day, throughout the year of 1903 to March, 1904. None could have known of them and written them down in a Letts diary in Casement's hand and deposited it in the locked trunk in 55 Ebury Street to which Casement alone had the key. (2) Casement's handwriting was full and the original diaries left little room and he filled all the space. The horrific entries in innumerable instances occur in the middle of a day's record- ings. None could have written these in years after. (3) Normand was a Bolivian, an interpreter at the station of La Chorrera and subsequently a rubber agent there. The earlier diary of Casement's found in Ebury Street was commenced in January, 1903, in London and ended on January 6, 1904; a Letts half-page diary, all the entries being in his unmistakable handwriting. This was before even the Congo investigation; Normand had never been heard of, and in fact, did not appear till the Putumayo diary of 1910, the first entry being on September 23 when allegations of brutal cruelty by him were sworn to by Barbadian workers for Casement's depositions. Normand in 1904 was at La Chorrera. He was certainly not in London. Nor was he in London or Dublin in 1910 Normand could not have compiled the cash ledger in 1911, when he was on the run from justice. (4) Fantasies?—No! Casement had no dreams or illusions of his companions in unnatural vice. He recorded the cost to his purse.

Will there never be an end to this controversy, imbued as it is with bitterness in one country and stubbornness in another? The pages of the book manuscript before me as I record this are beginning to yellow with the years, but the truth that is written upon them remains to the end.