Attorney-General's Explanation.

Part of Orders of the Day — "workers' Weekly." – in the House of Commons at on 8 October 1924.

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Photo of Mr John Simon Mr John Simon , Spen Valley

It is no small matter for a Prime Minister, with all sorts of enormously important affairs on his hands, to concern himself with a prosecution initiated by the Attorney-General. [An HON. MEMBER: "Assuming he did so!"] All I know is that the Prime Minister has already stated to-day that he did so, and that he expressed a view about it. I gather that that happened immediately after Questions, and before the Attorney-General took the steps of which he told us. I gather, further, that on this most important date, within two hours, the Attorney-General was in a position to report to the Cabinet, and that he was called upon to report to the Cabinet; so that on this day, when the most important public business was being dealt with by the Cabinet—the Secretary for the Colonies says it was the Irish Bill, than which nothing could be more important—the Soviet Government was being discussed in the House, and we are asked to believe that twice over the Prime Minister and his political colleagues concerned themselves in this matter, and yet that no political considerations had anything in the world to do with it There never was a more extraordinary example of a speech which entirely misses the main point to be explained than the speech, able and conciliatory as it was, of my hon. and learned Friend.

Let me point out a significant thing. A week ago there was not a man in this House who did not understand from the Attorney-General that the withdrawal of this prosecution was as deliberate and as fully considered as its institution. As far as the public Press knew, the prosecution was not withdrawn until, I think, the 13th August. It turns out to-day that, instead of that being true, the Attorney-General, after two interviews with the Prime Minister and his political colleagues, was in a position to give the tip to two or three Members sitting behind him that it would be all right, that there would be no reason to raise any question on the Adjournment, and that the whole of that, though known to the Members of the Cabinet, was kept concealed from the House of Commons until to-day. What is the good, in circumstances of that sort, of the Prime Minister saying, as he took the trouble to say again today, that this was merely the Attorney-General's matter? This is not the Attorney-General's matter. It is a matter in which it is essential in the interests of public justice that an inquiry should be made to ascertain to what extent political Ministers interfered, and unless that is done the conduct of Ministers themselves has brought the administration of the law into suspicion and contempt. It is not enough for the Attorney-General to lay his hand on his heart and tell us that we now know all about it. I have known the Attorney-General so long and have had so much to do with him that I should be the very last man to east injurious aspersions. I believe it is his political colleagues who really ought to be brought to book. But it is not enough to say that as a matter of fact he can assure us that this was conducted on the most proper grounds. His colleagues for the best part of six weeks have left this country uncorrected and uninformed while great bodies of opinion have been developing which, on the material which was before them, could only draw the conclusion that these allegations were true. I have no desire to pronounce censure until I know all the facts, but it is no good telling me that the Attorney-General, by reading a number of statements which he has collected from a number of officials, has thereby fulfilled the same function as an impartial inquiry.

The Attorney-General appears to be under the impression that really there is no more in this than criticism as to whether he was wise in initiating a prosecution, or whether he was at liberty to change his mind, or whether it was proper for him to allow his second thoughts to prevail. Let me assure him nothing of the sort is in my mind. I do not myself think he came to a wise decision in the first instance. I am one of those who hold—and I think the House will know this is a fundamental Liberal conviction, and many other people hold it too—that to institute criminal prosecution in respect of statements, even very wild statements which have been made, whether in obscure newspapers or at street corners, is not, as a rule, a very wise use of Ministerial discretion. For my part I should be entirely against it except in the very last resort. But it is one thing to say "I will not institute another prosecution," and it is quite another thing to say, "Having instituted it, I will drop it without conditions." The Attorney-General observed that this obscure sheet was at the present moment selling like hot cakes outside the House of Commons. Whose fault is that? It is due to this fact, that whereas the precedent which the hon. and learned Gentleman quoted was a precedent in which, once the prosecution had been started, the Attorney-General of the day absolutely refused to withdraw unless he got from the accused a written solemn pledge that they would not repeat the offence, in the present case the Attorney-General has seen fit to stop these proceedings, although in the meantime another issue of the paper had appeared with an article equally inflammatory without making the slightest attempt to show that his action was one which was, at any rate, going to restrain future lawbreaking. If it is a different thing on the one hand to withdraw a prosecution in return for a signature of that sort and to withdraw it unconditionally, is it not a still more different thing to withdraw a prosecution after there has been outcry and protest from a section of the House of Commons? Ministers themselves, and no one else, are to blame, whatever be the true explanation of this, because the handling of the matter has left people all over the country gravely disturbed as to whether or not there has not here been a most improper attempt to influence the ordinary course of public justice.

The Attorney-General has said something of the relations between himself and the Director of Public Prosecutions. Let me point this out. In England, unlike Scotland, only a. very small proportion of prosecutions are institutes by the Director of Public Prosecutions at all. Nearly all prosecutions are what are called private prosecutions, instituted by municipalities, town clerks, railway companies, whoever it may be. There is a very limited class of case in which the Director of Public Prosecutions is concerned. Even there most of the cases he deals with are crimes against the person, like murder and manslaughter, or other serious offences against person or property, and the Attorney-General has no responsibility except in a technical sense because he is not as a matter of fact personally consulted. But when you come to a ease which raises a serious offence against the State—high treason, sedition, mutiny, corruption—then, and then only, the Director of Public Prosecutions goes to the Attorney-General, submits himself to his direction, examines the matter in every detail and from that time forward acts according to the Attorney-General's own instructions. I have never heard of a ease—and the Attorney-General with all his researches is quite unable to give one—in which an Attorney-General has once authorised a prosecution of that sort where the prosecution has been abandoned in circumstances such as tire admitted to have occurred here to-day.

I think my hon. Friends above the Gangway are making the greatest mistake in the world if they think ordinary men and women do not care about this. A police magistrate is the decent man's friend. The ordinary citizen—a taxi driver—knows perfectly well that though he may get stern justice from a magistrate he will get justice. He knows that if he drinks he will be fined. He knows that if he is careless and hits someone in the street he may possibly go to prison. But he also knows that if a rich man tries to bilk him the magistrate is not going to let the rich man off by any representation which may be made secretly, and for that very reason—I do not think some hon. Members seem to know it—the law will not allow a private prosecutor who has once instituted proceedings for an indictable offence to withdraw such a prosecution, but would insist that the papers must go to the Public Prosecutor in order to see that there has been no underhand dealing, no secret compromise, no blackmail and no threat. The law allows the Attorney-General and the Director of Public Prosecutions, as It ought to do, free choice and judgment to do as they think fit, but it does so upon the plain basis that there shall not be interviews between the Prime Minister and the Attorney-General asking "What is the meaning of this?" or directions telephoned to the Director of Public Prosecutions—"I want to see him in the Prime Minister's Room," a view expressed by the Prime Minister to the Attorney-General which he did not feel able to tell the House when he was asked this afternoon, and a report on all these matters to a Cabinet or a conference of Ministers, although a week ago there was not a soul except the people sitting on that bench who knew that the Members of the Cabinet had ever had anything to do with it. I repudiate altogether the suggestion that this matter is to be disposed of by highly technical arguments between Attorney-Generals and ex-Attorney-Generals. There is not a lawyer in the House, there is not an honest man in the country—[Laughter]—I know some people think lawyers are merely word twisters; is that what you think of your Attorney-General? I think better of him, and I am not prepared to see a professional man, who is obviously endeavouring to take a burden which ought to be borne by his colleagues upon himself, simply thrown to the censure of the House without an investigation. There is no one, lawyer or layman, who would not rejoice from the bottom of his heart if, as the result of an investigation, it could indeed be shown that no such improper political influence or pressure was used. But to pretend that the present situation is one which does not call for inquiry is to say something which no one who looks at the facts impartially could affirm for a minute.

May I say one word as to an inquiry. I heard an hon. Member above the Gangway speak of the inquiry suggested as though it was an unfair one. I did not intend it so. The Prime Minister, I understand, yesterday said that such an inquiry by Members of the House of Commons would be biassed from the start. I do not think he pays a great compliment to his colleagues, but I am the less concerned about it because he went on to say something which no doubt he will develop in his speech. He said he knew for a fact that the report of censure had already been drawn up. Let me say one thing about the character of the inquiry. The only thing I am concerned with is this. The inquiry that the House of Commons ought to insist upon is an inquiry which is public, an inquiry that is prompt, an inquiry that will assemble the documents and the facts and an inquiry that will then be able to present those facts for the House of Commons to consider. I do not in the least care how such a tribunal is composed. I do not make the slightest attempt to put the Government at a disadvantage or in a minority, but I know this, that if, indeed, the proposal for a fair and impartial inquiry in some form or other is resisted by this Government, then it is not because this is an issue which is adequate for a General Election, but it is because the Government, if they were to resist such an inquiry, would be in the position of the man who is asked to produce a document from his desk but prefers to burn down his house rather than produce it. Whether it is a man or a Government that does that, it is equally obvious in either case that they have something to hide.