IT HAS BEEN clear for some time that the Home
Office does not feel itself bound by the normal rules of civilised behaviour; but its failure to produce the Casement Diaries is so incomprehen- sible that I think it must be due to reasons other than its habitual obstinacy. I wonder if the reason why it does not produce the Diaries is that they were privately sold years ago. As documents both indecent and connected with a cause célèbre, they would have a high value. They were not admitted as evidence and were, I suppose, legally part of the guilty man's personal possessions which might be taken as a perquisite by any of the shady men engaged. The agent would plainly be Maundy Gregory. When Baldwin agreed to make them 'State papers' he supposed without inquiry they were somewhere in police archives. All this is pure guesswork, but it explains the mystery plausibly.
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