THE NEWEST MARCONI DISCLOSURES.
'EARNEST Liberals profess to be shocked and dis- gusted at the special indignation shown by the public in regard to the newest Marconi disclosures, i.e., those relating to Lord Murray's investment on behalf of the Liberal Party in American Marconis. " We knew months ago," they declare, "that he acted on the original tip to buy American Marconis given him by the Attorney-General, and also that he both bought and sold later on a joint account with the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Lord Murray never con- cealed the fact, but allowed it to be stated openly by his colleagues in the Matin case and before the Committee. Why therefore worry about any other transactions on his part ? If there was anything wrong, which we Liberals deny, for a Minister to buy American Marconis, the wrongdoing is not the least altered by the volume of the transactions. The purchase of a hundred shares would be quite as bad as the purchase of ten thousand. The fact, too, that Lord Murray bought them not for himself, but was only investing as trustee for the Liberal Party, makes no difference, or rather minimizes any shade of a a shadow of impropriety there might have been in the transaction. Out of this transaction, at any rate, Lord Murray neither made nor had any hope of making a personal pecuniary gain."
Those who argue thus are singularly blind to the realities of the question. In our opinion the ordinary man shows a true instinct for the essentials of this lamentable business when he is moved to special anger and disgust by the transactions which have been disclosed by the purest and most amazing of accidents. If Mr. Fenner had not become bankrupt and absconded, and the affairs of the firm of "Montmorency " had not come under the view of a receiver, and, again, if that receiver, as might well have been the case, had either postponed his examination of the books for several months or perhaps had never happened to look into this particular ledger, the purchase might never have come to light. Lord Murray, in spite of the appointment of the Marconi Committee with its tremendously wide purview, in spite of the speeches of Ministers last October, and in spite of the knowledge, which we think we are right in assuming that he had, that Mr. Lloyd George and the Attorney- General meant at some time or other to disclose their purchases in American Marconis, evidently had no intention of letting the Committee or anybody else know of his investment of party funds in American Marconis. He took what he thought were complete precautions for keeping the purchase secret even from his successor in the office of Whip. As a rule the party Whip has no secrets from such successor, but tells him all the party " mysteries," sometimes, we are told, to the very great astonishment of that successor, who often learns for the first time amazing explanations of why this or that thing was really done by the party, and finds out how absolutely deluded not only the public but the rank and file and even " notable men " have been as to the mainsprings of action in particular cases. He also learns where the party funds come from, where they have gone, or where they are going, and of course exactly how they are held at the moment. This tradition of passing on the torch of knowledge was broken, or at any rate broken for a time, by Lord Murray. He handed over all the party securities to Mr. Illingworth, except the 3,000 American Marconi shares. About those he said nothing. As, how- ever, he was naturally most anxious that they should not get absorbed into his personal estate, just before his departure for Bogota and Ecuador, Mexico, and the West Indies in January last, he handed over the shares to his brother to keep till the Marconi business was " cleared up " or " cleaned up "—the reports vary. We are most anxious not to do any man an injustice, but we think we have a right to say that "till the Marconi business was cleared up" meant till there was no longer danger of any inconvenient questions being asked upon the subject. Lord Murray, no doubt, did not want to let his successor into a very troublesome secret—to involve him in the hideous muddle created by the inquiry and the bankruptcy of Mr. Fenner. He must also, of course, have contemplated the possibility of his being called by the Committee and asked whether the investments already dis- closed were the only Marconi investments he had made.
We must suppose that he considered that, as the invest- ment was not his but a party investment, he would have had the right to say that he himself did not possess, and had never possessed, any other shares than those men- tioned in the Matin case.
All we know for certain is that Lord Murray meant to conceal the investment of the party funds in American Marconis, and did so even from the new Chief Whip, and this though the House of Commons had appointed a Special Committee charged with the duty of obtaining the fullest possible knowledge in regard to Ministerial trans- actions connected with the whole affair. In the debate in October the whole tone of Ministers was that they had nothing whatever to conceal, that they welcomed the fullest, frankest, and most minute inquiry into all the circumstances, and that they would therefore make the reference of the Committee so wide that no one could suspect them of the slightest leaning towards any economy of truth or calculated reticence. In view of this fact it is surely impossible to suggest that a Minister had a right to conceal transactions in American Marconis on the ground that in his opinion American Marconis had nothing to do with the subject of the Committee's inquiries. For a man to argue thus is to set up as judge in his own cause, i.e., the cause of the Ministers concerned. Anyone, no doubt, has a perfect right to contend that in fact American Marconis had nothing to do with the case, but the decision on that point clearly lay with the Committee, and not with the persons whose conduct was being inquired into. The moment a doubt was expressed as to whether American Marconis were or were not involved, a man in Lord Murray's position should have felt that it was his duty to disclose every- thing and let the Committee judge on the point of relevance.
The indignation of the public at the new disclosures, disclosures which, as we have said, would never have come to light but for a pure accident, is very great and very widespread, but what is perhaps even greater and more widespread is the renewed atmosphere of suspicion that has been created by the last evidence taken by the Committee. Throughout the length and breadth of the country people are asking, and Liberals quite as much as Unionists, " Where is this thing going to end ? If accident can have disclosed so much, what may not accident now be concealing ? " The truth, in the Manchester Guardian's phrase, has had to be drawn out just as teeth are extracted. Sudden chance may reveal that the least suspected organization has, like the Liberal Central Association, had dealings in Marconis. Till the deliberate question has been put, " Had you dealings in English, in American, or in any other type of Marconis ? " and an answer has been given, no one can feel sure what that answer will be. No hypothesis seems too wild for acceptance. After what we have heard already, who could be surprised even if he were told that the Nationalist funds, or the funds of the Free Churches, or the funds of the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland had been swept into the great Marconi whirlpool ? These, of course, are utterly wild assumptions, and we give them merely by way of illustration and as the most impossible things we can think of. Yet, after all, they are not wilder than what happened in the case of the Liberal Party funds.
But suspicion is not confined to these hypotheses. There are other rumours which we are bound to say seem to us if possible even more incredible, namely, that two other members of the Committee who have taken a leading part in its proceedings have held American Marconi shares. That, of course, is not a crime per se, or anything approach- ing a crime. It would, however, clearly be most unfortunate if any member of the Committee had in fact dealt in Marconi shares and had not made the circumstance known publicly. It would mean that an utterly false impression had been allowed to be created on the public mind. It is not too much to say that up till now the public has assumed —certainly we ourselves had always assumed—that the acceptance of a seat on the Committee was a tacit declaration of the kind made by Mr. Winston Churchill —a declaration of no scintilla of interest direct or indirect in any type of Marconi Company. As, however, the point has been raised, we hold it now of vital importance that something more than such tacit declarations should be given, and that every member of the Committee should make a specific public declaration as to shareholding. There is, after all, no sort of indignity or humiliation involved in making such a declaration. It has been regularly exacted from every witness before the Com- mittee. Surely the jury cannot object to putting to themselves questions which they insist on being answered by those who come before them. The Unionist members of the Committee have, we believe, already made such a public declaration, but the majority have refused to follow their example. If that is so, it is a subject for deep regret. The public want to have, and have a right to have, this Matter placed beyond all possibility of doubt in the case of every member of the Committee, whether Unionist or Liberal.
Another matter in regard to which suspicion has grown up of late is to be found in the statement that there are members of the Ministry, not in the Cabinet, but among the holders of lesser posts, who through want of judgment, want of experience, or general ignorance of the true tradi- tion, invested in Marconi shares and have up till now failed to make disclosure of the fact. Probably these rumours are altogether ill-founded, but at any rate they are now circulating very widely and they ought to be put an end to, as they easily can be, by a public statement on the part of the Prime Minister. Nobody wants a formal scene in the House of Commons, in which every member of the Ministry—we speak of the Ministry and not of the Cabinet—should come forward and make a declaration like that made by Mr. Winston Churchill. What would be quite sufficient and would completely clear the air would be for Mr. Asquith, upon whose word of honour the country relies absolutely, to state in the House that he has asked all his colleagues in the Administration, both in the Cabinet and out of it, whether they at any time have had any transaction, direct or indirect, in the shares of any type of Marconi company, and that he is in a position to say that not one of those colleagues except Sir Rufus Isaacs, Mr. Lloyd George, and Lord Murray has had such transactions or investments. Such a statement would at once put a stop to the spread of suspicion.
We shall be told, no doubt, that this suggestion of ours is inadmissible, because it is " pandering " to a morbid and unwholesome suspiciousness, and that the public ought to have confidence enough in its servants to feel absolutely certain that any member of the Committee who had had any transaction in Marconi shares, and still more any Minister, would have long ago come forward and made a, voluntary statement like that made by Mr. Winston Churchill. Since it is incredible that they would. not have done so, it is an insult to assume that they are concealing anything. Our reply is that if Lord Murray could have acted so foolishly and could have shown such amazing reticence in regard to his transactions in Marconis on behalf of the Liberal Party, the public will think nothing incredible, and that therefore the only way to clear the air is such a statement on behalf of the members of the Com- mittee and the Ministry as we have suggested. When such declarations have been made we really shall have reached bottom, and it will then be impossible for the suspicion- mongers to ply their trade any further. All the teeth, to use the Manchester Guardian's phrase again, will have either been extracted or declared sound. Surely that is a result worth obtaining. Remember that we are not proposing to do what we admit is not a fair thing to do, i.e., proposing to ask men voluntarily to incriminate themselves. Nobody is so foolish as to suggest that it would have been a criminal act or even a shameful or dishonourable act for a member of the Committee or for subordinate Ministers to have made investments in American Marconis.
In the case of Cabinet Ministers the Spectator is bound by its whole past attitude to say that it would have been utterly unbecoming in a Minister to hold shares, but even here we should not say that there had been anything criminal. Action unbecoming a Minister is the worst that could be said of such transactions as we are discussing. Worse things, however, could and will be said if any concealment is now taking place and is maintained. Therefore if any member of the Committee or any Minister is in the position which has been described, we would urge them most strongly in their own interests—whatever may be said by injudicious friends or others—to insist at once upon making their personal position absolutely clear. It is the only path of safety. Otherwise they will live in perpetual danger of some accident, as in the case of Lord Murray, disclosing something which is not now very terrible, but which might easily grow into something terrible by further concealment. At present public comment at a new disclosure would not be unjust or extreme. A year hence an accidental disclosure would cause the comments to be very different. Lord Murray's case should surely be warning enough.
The assumption now is that silence in the case of the Committee and of the subordinate Ministers is a tacit declaration that they have not, and never have had, directly or indirectly, any dealings in any Marconi Company in any part of the world. A discovery later of such dealings is certain to be treated by the public—fairly or unfairly does not matter—as an act of dishonour and as a piece of actual falsehood and treachery.
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