THE BRENON LIBEL CASE.
" WE have good reason to believe," said Mr. Sexton, in his speech on the question of Privilege on Tuesday night, " that there is no effectual justice to be obtained out- side the House." And yet an hour before he spoke these words, a jury in the Queen's Bench Division of the High Court of Justice had awarded £500 damages to Mr. Brenon, who had been libelled, as Mr. Parnell and Mr. Dillon say they have been libelled, by an accusation that he was connected with illegal and criminal conspiracies. It is all very well for Mr. Sexton to describe himself and his fellow-Members as being at the "mercy of every ruffian who calls himself the editor of a newspaper ;" but if innocent, it has now been made obvious that they are only at the mercy of such persons as long as they refuse to prosecute. Mr. Brenon did not choose to remain at the mercy of pamphlet libellers when he could prove himself innocent. He therefore brought his action, and obtained his verdict. It sounds very striking, and no doubt gives, to people who do not weigh their arguments very carefully, a terrible sense of injustice and oppression, to hear Mr. Sexton plead so passionately for an inquiry where he and his friends will not be "defeated by the jugglery of the Sheriff." But what possible ground has Mr. Sexton for saying that there would be any jugglery on the part of the Sheriff? If the Sheriff who empannels the Middlesex juries is politically so corrupt as Mr. Sexton represents him, why did he not secure a more partial jury to try Mr. Brenon's action I So inefficient a juggler as a partisan Sheriff who gets into a box a jury prepared to give £500 damages to Mr. Brenon, need not, we should fancy, be very much dreaded by Mr. Parnell and his followers.
The accusation against Mr. Brenon was something similar in character to that which the Times has made against Mr. Parnell. Mr. Ridgway, of Piccadilly, published last June a pam- phlet entitled " The Repeal of the Union Conspiracy ; or, Mr. Parnell, M.P., and the LR.B." (Irish Republican Brotherhood). Certain passages in this pamphlet referred to Mr. Brenon, and described him as a "stormy-petrel of Fenianism," as per- forming "ambassadorial functions" for the Irish Republican Brotherhood, and as having devoted himself at one time " to counter-working the detectives of Scotland Yard." These charges Mr. Brenon was able to prove false, though in the course of his disproof he was obliged to admit circumstances showing that his political and journalistic career had been governed by notions of a not very strict kind. As he naively admitted, he belonged to that class of writers who always say "we know," whether they know or not. On this principle, Mr. Brenon wrote an article in the Echo, describing the doings of the Irish dyne• mitards in Paris, couched in language which implied that the writer was conversant with the secrets of the moat violent portion of the Irish Party. Considering the tone of the article, it was not altogether unnatural to suppose that the
writer had stood in intimate relationship to the dynamitards. Thus, though it was impossible to substantiate the charge, the general result of the evidence might reasonably have induced the jury, though giving, as they were bound to do, a verdict for the plaintiff, to rate the damages low. They might have argued that Mr. Brenon, since he was not unwilling on occasion to represent himself as associating with members of the Fenian organisations, was not entitled to declare himself aggrieved by being taken at his word. Not- withstanding, the jury seem to have considered, and, we think, rightly, that if charges so terrible were brought against a man and proved to be false, they were a ground for substantial damages, in spite of any proof that the plaintiff had by his conduct laid himself open to misrepresentation, or that his antecedents were such as to make it difficult to say that he had suffered grievously in reputation by the charges. But if Mr. Brenon had a right to substantial damages for the comparatively mild charges made against him, what would be the damages that Mr. Parnell would have a right to claim ? Mr. Parnell has always contended that he has con- ducted a most difficult and dangerous agitation with hands as clean as those of Mr. Cobden and Mr. Bright when they raised the country on the question of the Corn Laws. If Mr. Parnell can make this contention good by showing that the terrible accusation made against him by the Times—an accusa- tion more tremendous than has ever before been made against a politician in modern days—is false, he has a right to any damages he may like to claim. If a jury think it right to give Mr. Brenon .£500, they could not give less than ten or twenty times that amount to Mr. Parnell. The verdict, then, in the Brenon case is one which may fairly be considered a subject for congratulation. It proves that a Middlesex jury can be perfectly well depended upon to do equal justice in a case of a political trial, and to give a proper weight to the heinousness of such statements as those made against the Irish leaders, when they can be proved untrue in fact. It takes away the last shred of excuse left to Mr. Parnell for not forcing the Times to prove its charges, if it can do so. He cannot now say that no English jury will do him justice. Mr. Parnell has now had nearly three weeks to consider the question of a prosecution. Unless he very soon begins to take the steps necessary for bringing matters to trial, it will be obvious that he does not choose to submit himself to cross-examina- tion ; and this excuse, so far as it is consistent with the forgery of the famous letter, is only substituting one accusation for another. Ordinary English politicians, no doubt, often do things which they would not care to own in the witness-box if they could avoid doing so ; but they do not do things of so doubtful a character that it is better to endure the accusation of condoning murder than have them elicited in evidence. The present line of apology made for Mr. Parnell by his friends places him in this dilemma,—either he wrote the letter, or he has done things which it would be more damaging to admit than to be falsely considered the author of the letter. Surely he and they must at last see this. We do not, then, give up hope that the honour of our Parliamentary life may yet be saved by Mr. Parnell determining to test the question whether or not his accusers have brought against him a baseless and cruel accusation.
Previous page
