It was announced on Wednesday that the Treasury bad offered
Mr. Adolf Beck 25,000 by way of compensation for his wrongful conviction and imprisonment. In August a sum of 22,000, subject to a complete discharge on his part from all claims upon the authorities, was offered to Mr. Beck, but refused by him. The Report of the Committee appointed to inquire into the case is doubtless responsible for the increased sum now offered and for the removal of the condition, though this we believe to be common form in such cases. We may note that Sir Godfrey Lushington, formerly Under- Secretary to the Home Office from 1885 to 1895, has pub- lished in the National Review and the Times a long and able defence of the action of the Home Office in regard to the Beck case. In our opinion, however, he entirely fails to vindicate their action in 1898. In that year, having become convinced that Beck and Smith were different persons, they failed to communicate that fact to the Judge in its full significance, or to make it clear that the informa- tion was official, and when he failed to grasp it, abstained from writing again. "The explanation, no doubt, is," writes Sir Godfrey Lushington, "that the Home Office believed the Judge considered Beck to be guilty, and they did not wish to trouble him again, as he might think, unnecessarily." These admissions largely detract from the efficacy of Sir Godfrey Lushington's defence.
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