Dr. Evatt's Mistake
Writing in the Spectator of August 27 Mr. Stephen Toulmin said that: When Dt. H. V. Evatt, QC, Leader of Her Majesty's Opposition in the Australian Federal Parliament and of the Australian Labour Party, appeared before the Royal Commis- sion on Communist Espionage (the "Petrov Commission ") in Sydney, on August 16, plenty of people in Australia said that by doing so he had placed his whole future in jeopardy.' There must be many more people now who share these feelings. Dr. Evatt's anomalous position as a political leader, and as counsel for the former members of his staff who have been connected in evidence with the notorious Document J, was a delicate one which could have been sustained only by discretion and finesse —if indeed it could have been sustained at all in circumstances in which everyone except the Commissioners is more or less openly playing politics.' When Dr. Evatt, in his political capacity, addressed a public protest to the French Government about their arrest of Mme. Oilier, the Second Secretary, who is accused of giving away secret information, it was clear that his role of counsel was hopelessly compromised. Mr. Justice Owen indicated that had this been an ordinary legal action he would have committed Dr. Evatt for contempt of court. Thus Dr. Evatt's energetic, but perhaps not very clear-sighted, decision to come to the rescue of his former private secretaries has petered out in legal, political, and perhaps moral confusion. What is particularly damaging to Dr. Evatt's reputation for sound judgement is that he has not only been politically manceuvred into an awkward situation, but that the situation has involved a tussle with the Commission itself, whose authority, integrity, and intellectual grasp shines out brilliantly in' a not especially luminous incident of Australian politics.
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