Informers and Agents Provocateurs
The Secretary of State for Scotland said last week that he was satisfied that in the Edinburgh " conspiracy case " no use had been made.by the police of agents provocateurs and that no inquiry into the methods of the Edinburgh police was called for. On the same day the committee of Scottish Conservative M.P.s declared themselves satisfied with Mr. Stuart's decision to take no action. Westminster may be satisfied, but Scotland, where it is still generally believed that the Edinburgh police behaved improperly, remains uneasy. And with good reason. On the very day that -Westminster was applying soft soap to the scalds left by the Edinburgh trial, Sheriff Thomson in Glasgow announced a " not proven " verdict in the case of two young men who were charged with posse sing petrol and ,the intent to fire a Government building in Maryhill with it. The Procurator-Fiscal's case was siinply that when the two youths were arrested in the vicinity of the building they had petrol and jemmies in their possession. But the accused's agent provided evidence which' satisfied the Sheriff that " in the first place, the police were fully informed beforehand of what was going to take place, and it is beyond doubt that the person who informed them was within the inner circle of those who were discussing such a project." The person in question denied that he was an informer, but witnesses called by the defence gave detailed evidence of other incidents in which he had, according to them, acted not just as an informer but positively as an agent provocateur. The parallels between this and the conspiracy case " are much too striking to be ignored. Mr. Stuart would do well to look at them. Nationalism can neither be crushed nor discredited by under- hand police tactics. On the contrary, it can only be strength- ened by them.
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