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Compton Mackenzie
Quern Jupiter vult perdere prius dementat.
WHOM Jupiter wishes to destroy he first drives mad. That sombre apophthegm kept tolling in my mind throughout the trial of those four young Scots, of " good characters, good prospects " and " coming from good homes," in the words of the Lord Justice Clerk, accused of " conspiring to coerce Her Majesty's Government into setting up a separate Government in Scotland or with the intention of over- throwing the Government in Scotland." This trial has been an example of political ineptitude for which one would have to go back to British statesmanship in Ireland for a parallel.
By a majority the jury decided that the accused were not guilty of any attempt to overthrow the Government by blowing up St. Andrew's House, which is the umbilicus of Scottish bureaucracy.. The chief witness for the Crown was one Cullen who under instructions from the police acted as an agent provocateur—when the English want to describe something or somebody of which they are ashamed they frequently use a French name to suggest its remoteness from the English character. This man Cullen was apparently encouraged by the police to advocate violence and when he was able to assure them that four young men had responded to his incitement the police supplied him With mock gelignite in order to win the "conspirators"' trust and .reveal to him their Guy Fawkes plans. The jury unanimously found the accused not guilty of obtaining firearms to endanger the lieges, but by a majority they found them guilty of possessing gelignite with intent to endanger life and property or to enable other unknown persons to do so. The Lord Justice Clerk sentenced each of the accused to one year's imprisonment and, since penal servitude for life was within his power to give, a sentence of a year was lenient. Neyertheless, the behaviour of the authorities had been exposed in the course of the trial as so fantastic that many people in Scotland considered it hardly lenient enough in the circum- stances. There was an ugly growl from the crowd of over 300 who had been waiting four hours in the courtyard when that sentence was known, and when Cullen emerged from the court- room between two policemen he was booed and hissed. As he reached the High Street and all the way up it the crowd's attitude became so hostile that he had to be protected by ten policemen. It may have been lucky for Cullen that the sentence on the four young men was not heavier; the crowd might have followed the savage example of the Porteous mob once upon a time. Three of the accused were brilliantly defended by Mr. Lionel Daiches,, a young advocate, who presented his case with con- summate tact. That case was that the accused had very soon spotted Cullen as an agent provocateur and that they had led him on with the intention of getting themselves arrested in order to call attention to the danger of ignoring the question of Home Rule for Scotland until violence was inevitable. This explanation of their behaviour the jury accepted by a majority, and without doubt it was accepted by a large majority of public opinion throughout Scotland. The behaviour of the Edinburgh City Police in employing the services of a man like Cullen came as a complete, indeed a,staggering, surprise, and there were many who believed that the nasty job had been handed to them by the Security people in the south. Indeed, so fantastic had the behaviour of the police appeared to Scottish opinion that, when in the morning papers on the last day of the trial the news was published of an attempt to wreck one of the pylons carrying the electric grid, many were con- vinced that it was a deliberate attempt to prejudice the jury in giving their verdict. People could not understand why the news of an explosion that took place in the small hours of Monday morning was not made public until Wednesday. There was resentment among those attending the trial at the presence of obvious Security spies in Court; indeed, the whole business has left the people of Scotland in no mood to tolerate any more histrionics from the Government. Rumours have been rife. It is commonly believed that the decision to hold the trial was taken at Cabinet level, and the ,unhappy position in which the Lord Advocate found himself has been noted with commiseration. Lots of people of course attribute this cloak and dagger charade to M15, for whom such a pathetic apology recently appeared in the Sunday Times by their late chief. Nobody knows better than myself of what abortive conjuring tricks Security is capable, but even I hesitate to believe that this attempt to produce a carnivorous rabbit out of a battered top-hat was conceived by any numeral of Military Intelligence. Yet the alternative is to suppose that the Edinburgh City Police in a titubation of conscientious anxiety over the Royal visit allowed themselves to be scared by Mr. Cullen. There is, however, one more possibility being discussed, which is that the whole affair was a deliberate plan to discredit the steadily growing force of the movement to secure a Scottish Parliament by inciting those.four young men to indulge in terrorist activity.
If this theory is not to win general acceptance no time should be lost in applying a strong detergent to the reputation of those under suspicion of such despicable behaviour; official whitewash will not suffice.
Even if we assume that the majority of the jury was right in finding the accused guilty of having 2/ pounds of gelignite and 120 feet of fuse in their possession " with intent by means thereof to endanger life and to cause serious injury to property," that does not excuse the political ineptitude of launching a prosecution for an attempt to overthrow the Government or the official turpitude of supplying the con- spirators with dummy gelignite and dummy detonators. It is certain that dozens of impressionable youths all over Scotland have been fired by this case to see themselves as active patriots in the future. Governments should not play with fire. In those long nocturnal talks I had with Tim Healy in 1924 he said to me once apropos of the Sinn Fein election : " You know, we Nationalist members used to go over to Westminster every year and talk and talk in the House about Home Rule for Ireland and I sometimes used to ask myself whether we wouldn't in our hearts have. been disappointed if we'd won Home Rule: you see, we were really enjoying ourselves in London. And then those young men swept us away in a night . . . every single one of us."
When the National Party of Scotland was formed in 1928 it was derided in the sober Scottish Press as the dream of a few crazy romantics.
Listen to the sober Scotsman a quarter of a century later :' " The Government should ask themselves what it is that makes young men from good homes with a reason- able standard of education take up such schemes as these."
The Government should get down to asking themselves this question as soon as possible. These young men will come out of prison, having achieved their purpose because they have called attention to the apparent impossibility of persuading party politicians to recognise the seriousness of the demand for a Scottish Parliament. If the constitutional approach is to be obstinately ignored an unconstitutional approach in the future is inevitable. The only matter for argument is how near that future may be. And the maddening reflection is that the people of England offer no opposition to Home Rule for Scotland: Whitehall and Westminster are the enemies.
Stultum fadt Fortuna quem vult perdere.
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