THE CANTEEN CASE AND THE MARCONI SCANDAL.
THE Canteen case is rub judixe, and we can therefore say nothing, and desire to say nothing, in regard to the guilt or innocence of any of the persons accused. Not only are we bound to assume them to be innocent till they are proved guilty, but it may very well be that this assumption will be shown to be no legal convention, and that all, or at any rate many of them, will establish their complete innocence. But though we have nothing to say as to the guilt or innocence of individuals, we can, of course, deal with the general questions raised. In effect, what several of the defendants are charged with is taking presents of money from contractors. In certain instances, as far as we can judge, it is not alleged that the Government or the public interests suffered any pecuniary loss. There is no allegation that the men who are said to have taken the presents used their influence to make a bad bargain for the canteens where they might have got a better one. Again, they were not asked to wink at, nor did they wink at, bad material being supplied to the canteens, or goods being paid for which were not supplied, or an inferior quality being given instead of the superior quality specified for, as happens occasionally in the case of a bribed inspector. A man is bribed to certify that so many hundreds of tons of goods have been received, whereas in reality perhaps only half that amount has been sent in. In a word, the men were not paid to commit any statutory offence. Very often the sole offence in such cases is that they took " sweeteners," or what we believe in France are called polo-de-vin, from per- sons contracting with the Government. In other words, they are alleged to have been "tipped" by the contracting firms.
It must not be supposed that when we write as we have written above we desire to do anything to minimize the gravity of the accusation on which the men in question are arraigned. In our opinion, if they are guilty, they are guilty of a most serious offence, and one which the Secretary of State for War and the Army Council are doing a great public service in taking so seriously. Men 210 a position of trust who receive presents from anyone in contractual relations with the Government are doing a great wrong, even though it can be proved that they were never asked to use their influence for any improper purpose. The fact that they have taken a "tip " is enough. It is the thin end of the wedge of corruption, the beginning of the end in the healthfulness of public service. The higher the public servant and the greater the trust, the more essential is it that he should never be allowed to get into the position of a person " tipped," or be laid under a pecuniary obliga- tion, direct or indirect, by persons in contractual relations • with the Government. Therefore, as we have said, there can be no question that the Government are right in prosecuting. In any event, and quite apart from the case now before the Courts, it has undoubtedly often happened that soldiers and officials who have taken money in similar circumstances were only half conscious that they were doing wrong in receiving " tips." They persuaded themselves that they were only taking a bond-fide pre- sent from a friendly source, and could not really be doing wrong, since they were never asked to do anything by which the public interests could possibly suffer.
We would ask those who have followed us so far, and who agree with the principle we have laid down, to apply this principle to the Marconi controversy which convulsed the public mind six months ago, and which unhappily, through the miserable cowardice of the Government and the House of Commons, was never satisfactorily settled, but left an unpurged stain upon the national conscience. The House of Commons, in effect, refused to condemn the "High Ministers" who had accepted and acted upon a Stock Exchange " tip " and Stock Exchange facilities, supplied to them in the last resort by persons who were either contracting or desirous of contracting with the Government. In our opinion, and we believe that such must be the opinion of any person who will look into the matter without party prejudice, there is in essence very little difference between what certain of the defendants in the Canteen case are alleged to have done —viz., accepted money from contractors without doing anything else of a tortious nature—and what was done by the three Ministers. The Ministers in question, it may be said, would not have dreamt of pushing on the Marconi contract, and in fact did not lift a hand to help it. The same certainly may be said of some of the persons who are alleged to have taken contractors' money. They were not the people who had the power of giving out the contracts, and in effect did nothing for the money—if, which of course has not been proved, they received it. At any rate, it is well known that in cases of this sort contractors' money is often given out of a kind of anxiety to make things pleasant, and not because the person receiving it has any real control over the contract. The contractor often has nothing but a feeling that it is as well to have a good many friends about, and that he had better establish, as it were, a kindly atmosphere all round. But if the analogy we have suggested is correct, how is it that the men who are alleged to have taken a few £5 notes in the way of pots-de-vin in regard to regi- mental canteen contracts are going through the terrible ordeal of a public trial and risking a criminal sentence, while, as we have said, Ministers were not only not prosecuted for allowing themselves to be placed under a pecuniary obligation, at a remove or two, from a person in contractual relations with the Government, but were actually declared by a large majority in the House of Commons to have done nothing culpable, nothing for which they could be called to account or need be ashamed of —except a certain failure to recognize that Ministers must walk very carefully lest envious and unjust newspapers like the Spectator should criticize their artlessness and innocence ?
It seems to us that unless we are to accept the principle that it is one thing for an officer in a marching regiment who has risen from the ranks to allow himself to be laid under a pecuniary obligation by a contractor, and quite another thing for a Minister to do so, then the Government ought either to have condemned the " High Ministers," or else not to have prosecuted in the Canteen case. As it is, it looks as if there is one law in this country for the ordinary man and another for those who belong to our new privileged aristocracy—the men in power, the men who are too big to be touched, the men who would pull down the pillars of the party temple if they were not protected when in a difficulty by the full force of the party organization. But perhaps it will be said that our analogy is bad, and that the "High Ministers" did not lay themselves wider any pecuniary obligation to persons contracting with the Government by receiving, at a remove or two, a Stock Exchange " tip " and Stock Exchange facilities. We join issue. The analogy is sound, except that one was a case of money down, gold and bank-notes, while the other was a case of money's-worth—the presentation of knowledge and facilities which were convertible into money on a great scale. We are well aware that we shall be told that this is not a truthful statement of the facts, and that it begs the whole question. The case of the three Ministers, it will be alleged, was that they not only received nothing in the shape of money, but nothing in the shape of valuable consideration, and that the " tip" they got and the facilities they got were not in the true sense valuable because they might have been obtained at the time Ministers obtained them by any member of the public. According to this view, the Ministers were in a position, when advised to buy Marconi shares, to have said to their advisers " Thank you for nothing. Your advice is not worth having. We and anybody else could got it all from the newspapers." In other words, the facilities given to them for purchasing stock might have been obtained just as well from any stockbroker either here or in America.
In answer to this we say that it is not a true view of the case, but merely an afterthought in order to cover the posi- tion of Ministers. On March 25th last, at a meeting of the Select Committee, Lord Robert Cecil asked Sir Rufus Isaacs the following question: "Did you obtain these shares before they were available for the general public at a price lower than they were afterwards introduced to the public ? " To this Sir Rufus Isaacs replied : " Yes, I think you can say that on their introduction here—in England." In other words, Sir Rufus Isaacs admitted that he had been placed in a favourable position to buy the shares,and bought them at a favourable price. Therefore he had placed himself under a pecuniary obligation to the persons who advised him to buy and who gave him the facilities for buying. That those persons were his brothers did not alter the fact that the stock came ultimately from a contractor to the Government. Sir Rufus Isaacs was the conduit pipe by which the valuable consideration was passed on to the Master of Elibank and Mr. Lloyd George, his colleagues in the Government. Sir Rufus Isaacs appears to have very quickly seen the extreme danger of his admission, for he at once sought to correct it. At the very beginning of the next sitting he qualified his statement by declaring that since he gave his evidence he had received information that there were dealings in England in American Marconi shams before the day when he had dealt, and that there were transactions at £2, the price at which he bought, on April 17th, 1912, the day on which he dealt. He added : " I do not say I was aware of these facts before, but I am now." Later on, that is, on March 31st, 1913, be interrupted Mr. Lloyd George's testimony by inter- jecting the remark : "I made it perfectly clear, I think, that the public could buy just the same as I could buy." Sir Rufus Isaacs had evidently become aware that it was essential to his case to prove if he could that the Ministers buying had not been laid under any pecuniary obligation through the " tip " they had received or through obtaining facilities not open to the public. This was indeed the crucial point of the inquiry, though, curiously enough, the public never seemed quite aware of it.
We cannot now discuss in detail the evidence on the matter, except to say that it completely failed to make good Sir Rufus 1saacs's point. He was utterly unable to prove that he was not put in a better position than the public. It was quite clear that he was in a much better position, and that if he had not been helped as he was he would not only have had to pay more for his shares, but would have received very many less in reply to his applica- tion. Therefore he was laid under a pecuniary obligation, and so were those who shared the " tip" and the facilities' which were offered to Sir Rufus Isaacs by his brother, Mr. Harry Isaacs, but were originally derived from Mr. Godfrey Isaacs, the managing director of a company contracting, or seeking to contract, with the Government. A side-proof of the valuable nature of the consideration is to be found in a fact set forth by Mr. Maxse in the current number of the National Review—a fact derived from the books of Fenner, the bankrupt member of the Stock Exchange. Mr. Maxse points out that the Master of Elibank made a very large purchase of American Marconis on behalf of the Liberal. Party funds the day after he had made the private purchase recommended to him and the Chancellor of the Exchequer by Sir Rufus Isaacs, yid. Mr. Harry Isaacs, vhf Mr. Godfrey Isaacs. This purchase for the Liberal Party made the day after the private purchase was at the rate of £3 Is. per share. But as Mr. Maxse points out, " if the public could buy just the same as Ministers could buy, surely the party should have bought on the same terms as Ministers." The Master of Elibank did not, of course, wish the party to lose, but wished to make as good an investment as he could for it. But, as is the nature of such things, the price and the facilities which constituted the pecuniary obligation under which Ministers were placed were strictly limited, and could not be extended to the party funds. The fact that the Master of Elibank could not get the party funds in on the ground floor, though up to a certain point he could get in there himself, is a proof that be accepted valuable consideration for himself, as did his two colleagues, in the matter of American Marconis.
We have tried to be quite fair in this statement. If we have missed any point which tends in favour of Lord Murray, and goes to show that he was not under any pecu- niary obligation through his receipt of the " tip " and the facilities, Lord Murray will no doubt correct us in the course of the explanation of his share in the Marconi transactions which it is clear he will have to make directly Parliament assembles. We are bound to assume that he would have liked, had it been geographically possible, to have come before the Committee and, as his friends asserted he could, cleared himself from all suspicion. Since he could not do that, he will, we cannot doubt, take the opportunity offered him by his membership of the House of Lords. The Lords, we may be sure, will never refuse one of their members the fullest opportunity of clearing himself from suspicions and allegations which he declares to be unjust and unfounded. To return to our major issue. Will the Government and their defenders explain how it is that humble members of the Army are prosecuted for, as it is alleged, allowing themselves to be placed under pecuniary obligations by contractors, and Ministers are not only not liable to prosecution in similar circumstances, but are declared to be absolutely innocent, while those who say otherwise are accused of the foulest libels ? This is a matter on which we must have a clear ruling if the national welfare is not to suffer, and if we are not to base our public life on a foundation of hypocrisy.
It remains to meet an allegation which is pretty sure to be urged against our view. The Spectator, we shall be told, only accused the three Ministers of want of delicacy and discretion. Why are they now compared to men who are being tried for a criminal offence ? Our answer is that certain of the defendants in the Canteen case are in reality accused of little more than a want of delicacy and discretion. But such a want may be a most serious offence. It is through it that the wedge of corruption is driven in. Hence our arraignment of the three Ministers, and the most serious view we have taken and take of their actions. If an example is not made of those who show neither delicacy nor discretion, we at once enter ou the down-grade. No doubt the Ministers did not intend to betray their trust, nor were they prepared to back what they believed to be a bad thing, or to let the public interests suffer. They were, however, careless of what example they set or what obligations they laid themselves under. So, it is alleged, were some of the men in the Canteen case. Yet in one case the alleged want of delicacy and discretion and the bad example are punished by prosecution ; in the other by a vote of confidence in the House of Commons. And then we assert that all men in this country are equal before the law !
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