MR. ALBERT CART WRIGHT.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."]
Sin,—About a year ago an agitation was started—Mr. Leonard Courtney, I believe, being the prime mover—in favour of obtaining for Mr. Cartwright, the editor of the South African News, remission of a sentence of twelve months' imprisonment passed upon him for the publication of a seditious libel. The arguments used in support of this plea for clemency were to the effect that Mr. Cartwright was not disloyal, and that if he had sinned, it was through inadvertence. As I had been a daily student of the South African News, I knew that this plea was altogether groundless. The paper edited by Mr. Cart- wright was in my judgment licentious (in the old sense), seditious, and dangerous, and I was more than convinced that the prosecution of the responsible editor was warranted, and that the penalty exacted was not excessive. Holding these views, I felt bound to enunciate them over my own signature. I did so, and naturally became the target of much harmless scurrility shot at me by the Pro-Boer Press. Having taken that line twelve months ago, and still believing that it was one indicated by a sense of duty, I feel bound to protest against the detention of Mr. Cartwright after he has worked out his penalty. If one year's imprisonment is in- adequate for the punishment of the offence of which Mr. Cartwright was unquestionably guilty, let the legislators alter the law. But I maintain most vehemently that it is neither just nor expedient that a man who has expiated his offence by paying the prescribed penalty should receive a supplementary punishment not recognised by the law. I think it is in the last degree unlikely that Mr. Cartwright will ever again find journalistic occupation in South Africa: the greater, there- fore, the reason for permitting him to seek a berth in England. To judge from the tone of the extreme Pro-Boer Press here, he should be hailed as a valuable acquisition to their staffs. In any case, it seems to me that the authorities have no right to forbid his return to England, or to imr Ise conditions on him.
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