Several reasons have been put forward by the Home Office
to justify its refusal to permit an inquiry. The diaries, it has been argued, are not a fit subject for a public investigation. But nobody has suggested that the investigation should be public. It would be enough if a group of historians was allowed access to the originals, to compare them both with the known facts of Casement's life, and with the copies now circulating. This is itself sufficient to demolish a second argument : that Casement's memory should be left in peace. It is the grossest hypocrisy for the Home Office to• adopt this attitude, so long as copies of the diaries, originally 'leaked' from Whitehall, remain in circulation. I have recently been shown yet another copy; and it confirmed me in a belief that the diaries are the work of a man who was insane. It seems barely credible that Casement, who so deeply impressed so many people with whom he came in contact, could have been the man; on the other hand, it is barely credible that anybody else could have constructed such elaborately forged interpolations. I would judge them to be largely fantasy—hallucination; so the question to be decided is not straightforward— the committee of inquiry ought to include a psychiatrist as a member.
* * *
Previous page
