THE NAVAL CADET CASE.
STRONG as has been the indignation aroused by the Admiralty's conduct of the case which ended in the Courts last week in the vindication of the Cadet George Archer-Shee, we cannot think that as much anger has been directed at the Admiralty as they deserved, or that public feeling has addressed itself sufficiently to the demand that such a wicked proceeding should be rendered impossible in the future. We cannot remember a case which exactly matches this for its odious features of wrong persisted in and redress refused. An examina- tion of the simple facts makes one feel sick at heart ; it is obvious that if his relations had not been able to afford costly legal help, and if they had not displayekan admirable firmness of purpose, the boy would be now branded for life as a forger and a thief. For two years his relations were trying to bring the Admiralty to consent to an open examination of the facts. When a boy is expelled from an ordinary public school his parents know with whom they have to deal if they suspect an injustice. They know that the Head-Master accepts responsibility. At Osborne the authorities—no doubt necessarily ; we make no charge of bad faith— referred the boy's father to the Admiralty, and the Admiralty could not be induced to make any response. Mr. Archer-Shee for two years, with a firm conviction of his son's innocence, was against the blankest of blank walls. The Spenlow and Jerkins trick is trying enough for its victims in all circumstances, but when a boy's whole career and • reputation and the honour of an honourable family are at stake it is a levity of which one can hardly measure the brutality.
At last by perseverance and ingenuity—to think that they should have been necessary !—an appearance of the representatives of the Admiralty and the Government in Court was exacted. And then an astounding thing happened. Not a single witness for the Crown withdrew ; not a jot or tittle of the case against the boy was changed ; it was the same case as it had been for two years in every particular ; and yet the Admiralty admitted that they could not prove the guilt of the boy who was said to have stolen a postal-order for 5s. and forged a fellow-Cadet's name on it, and they withdrew from the case. On the very evidence on which they had branded the boy as a thief and forger for two years, on that evidence they threw up their case. We venture to say that no parent can read these facts and reflect that his own son might have been in the position of George Archer-Shee without dismay and horror.
But it may be said in extenuation that Osborne is not like other schools ; that the Cadets are in a sense officers in the service of their country ; that, though injustice was no doubt done, it was inevitable under the conditions, and that it would be very unlikely to be repeated. We answer that injustice ought never to be done in the way in which it was done. Such a thing should never be possible, and when it happens those who are responsible for it should bear a heavy burden of shame. Let us remember what an intricate and disheartening process the relations of the boy had to go through in order to establish his innocence. After the long silence of the Admiralty, Mr. Archer-Shoe succeeded in bringing into use some antiquated legal machinery, of which the very phraseology sounds strange to the ear of those accustomed to the ordinary language of the Courts. He brought a Petition of Right. This came before Mr. Justice Ridley, who dismissed it on a demurrer from the Solicitor-General. Probably most Judges would have acted in the same way ; technically the argument was in faiour of dismissal, but Mr. Justice Ridley wont so far as to say that the facts should have been tried in the 'first instance. •Fortunately Mr. Archer- -Shee was able-to appeal. Credit -is due to the Court of Appeal for overriding technical difficulties -in the interests of a broad issue of justice. The Judges showed that the Admiralty had not really substantiated their case that their action was an exercise of the Royal Prerogative. They ordered that the Admiralty pleadings should be amended, and held that the facts ought to be tried. They also took the significant course of awarding costs to the appellant. The result of the trial thus procured after prodigies of labour and a great outlay of money was the vindication of the boy in the manner which is still fresh in our minds. The trial was as fine a proof as one could wish to have that an English trial at Bar is the best means known to our civilisation of arriving at the truth. The Admiralty said in Court, and in the House of Commons afterwards, that they acted in good faith. Of course they did. No one is so mad as to suppose that they singled out the boy for ruin because they disliked him personally, or because somebody at the Admiralty had a private quarrel with the Archer-Shee family. But " good faith " is a fatally elastic term. A man may sincerely believe in the guilt of a person he condemns, and claim an acknowledgment of his own good faith, and yet be grossly careless in the examination of the facts on which he founds his belief. Probably some of those who forged documents in order to convict Dreyfus were " conscientiously " convinced of Dreyfus's guilt, and regarded their act as a short cut to justice. It cannot be pretended for a moment that the Admiralty were not careless. They did everything they could to avoid a trial, and when a trial was forced upon them, and they saw a verdict against themselves trembling on the lips of the jury, they backed out of the case, to their own fathomless humiliation.
The rights of parents and boys are so closely involved in this trial that we trust its lessons will not be quickly forgotten. A Cadet at Osborne, if he is to be regarded legally as an officer, and therefore as in a different position from boys at ordinary schools, should have the rights which belong to an officer. An accused officer comes before a Military Court, which may not be so competent as a Civil Court, but which tries impartially to do right. In the case of George Archer-Shee only one side was heard. This was admitted. Before he was dismissed from Osborne there was no trial in. the proper sense of the word at all. We do not forget that a trial is not always necessary. The proof of a boy's guilt may be overwhelming, and his parents may prefer to take him quietly away rather than incur the additional pain of making the facts public. But when the parents and the boy deny guilt there should always be some avail- able means of bringing the facts to trial. At Osborne there is none,—nothing, at all events, that is clearly definable and not open to dispute. At an ordinary school a parent can bring a civil action against the master, proprietors, or governors of the school. We fancy it might be better if all Head-Masters offered prosecution before a Magistrate (for theft or whatever the charge may be) as an alternative to expulsion. The onus of proof would then lie on the master, and not, as it generally does now in the case of a civil action for damages, on the parent. In the region of moral discipline a master must no doubt be allowed much more discretion than in any other. But the Archer-Shee affair does not touch that question. It was a simple charge of theft; the boy pro- tested his innocence, but for two years could secure no trial before a Court of any kind. Finally, we should like to say a word about the evidence of so-called experts in handwriting. We entirely agree with Sir Edward Carson's protest against the admission of this sort of evidence. Is it forgotten that the evidence used against the unfortunate Beck was partly that of an expert in handwriting ? In the Archer-Shea case, again, the Admiralty depended in part on the evidence of Mr. Gurrin. Surely it is obvious that handwriting does not afford the material for expert knowledge. You cannot have an expert in handwriting like an expert in electrical engineering, mining, navigation, or what not. Sir Edward Carson in a letter to the Times of Monday says that Lord Russell of Killowen condemned the practice of calling in the evidence of experts in handwriting, and adds : " I think it was Baron Fitzgerald, a great Judge, who said that the only experts' in handwriting were the twelve jurors." We trust that the Archer-Shea affair may do something to bring such evidence into deserved ridicule and contempt.
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