The eagerly awaited Lynskey report is likely, I gather, to
be published almost as soon as this paragraph is. Mean- while it may be well to dispose of one misunderstanding which seems rather prevalent. The Tribunal was constituted for one particular purpose—to investigate charges of irregular action by Ministers and civil servants. That and that alone was relevant to the enquiry. Many persons desired for one reason or another to be heard, but were not called because it was clear that they had nothing to contribute to the elucidation of the actual points at issue. Mr. Dalton, as he explained, had expressed a strong desire to appear, in order to repudiate some suggestions made fegarding him by a former witness. The Tribunal acceded to his wish, but obviously there was no question of pressing points against him in cress-examination, for the allegations he was anxious to repel dealt with a time when he was not a Minister, and the Tribunal was concerned with Ministers and civil servants and no one else. Various criticisms of the Tribunal procedure are possible, but the suggestion that undue leniency was displayed because witnesses whom it would not have been relevant to cross-examine were not more rigorously cross-examined will not hold water for a moment.
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