We have one more general observation to make. The Marconi
Committee appears to us throughout to have blundered badly. Sometimes it treated witnesses as a Con- tinental judge would treat them, and sometimes seemed to expect them to act as prosecuting counsel. A Committee which properly understood its functions would have stated at the beginning that those whose personal honour and conduct had been impugned were free to seek the protection of the law courts if they so desired, and that the Committee's sale busi- ness was to collect such evidence as it could as to the facts of the Stock Exchange operations in regard to the Marconi business, and also as to the negotiations between the Company and the Government. Instead of that they floundered into the morass in which they are now stuck. If they are wise when they meet after the Recess they will retrace their steps, tell Ministers against whom allegations have been made that if they think fit they should take action in the law courts, but that a Parliamentary Committee cannot try cases of libel.
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