§ (2.45.) MR. SWIFT MACNEILLAs a matter affecting the privileges of the House, I beg to bring to your notice, Sir, certain statements in the Daily Mail, accusing the Secretary to the Admiralty, as a Minister of the Crown and a Member of the House of Commons, of falsehood in a statement made by him in the House. I propose that the clerk should read those statements, and then I will, subject to your consent, move that they constitute a breach of the privileges of the House.
§ * MR. SPEAKERWhat is the date?
§ MR. SWIFT MACNEILLThe date is May 6th. If any question should arise about the lapse of time, I shall be able 205 to satisfy you, I think, that I have taken the first available opportunity in the circumstances.
§ * MR. SPEAKERI do not think that that is sufficient. If the hon. Member has anything to say about the date, he had better say it now. The Rule of the House is that a breach of privilege of this kind must be taken notice of at once. If it is a breach of privilege, it is a breach of privilege on the face of it, and it does not depend on subsequent events to justify its being brought before the House.
§ MR. SWIFT MACNEILLI will read the passage complained of first, and I will then explain why I did not bring up the matter before. The Daily Mail wrote in regard to an answer given in the House—
§ "Mr. Arnold-Forster's reply is not satisfactory to the Daily Mail. immediately on learning its terms we despatched the following letter to Mr. Arnold White.
§ May 5th, 1902.
§ 'Dear Mr. White,—I notice that Mr. Arnold-Forster, in the House of Commons this afternoon, said he informed the House on July 9th that the Admiralty understood the letter of Lord Charles Beresford was private; that it was written without any intention of being published, and that its publication was unauthorised. As this is contrary to the statement made by you to me, I shall be glad to know if yon have anything further to say on the matter.'
§ "We have since received the following:—
§ ' Dear Sir,—In reply to your letter, I have to say that Mr. Arnold-Forster's answer in the House of Commons today is both contrary to facts, and also to written evidence which he knows me to possess. I await an apology from Mr. Amold-Forster for making a statement in the House on July 9th which he did not know to be true, and which was, in fact, untrue.
§ ' Yours truly,
§ ' ARNOLD WHITE.'"
§
The paper goes on—
We await Mr. Arnold-Forster's further statement on the subject with some curiosity.
§ As to the reason why I did not raise the matter a week ago, I may explain I thought I was bound to wait until the gentleman first affected by it, the Secretary to the Admiralty himself, had had reasonable time to take notice of it. I submit that, the Secretary to the Admiralty having taken no notice of it, though I have done my best to bring it before him, both officially and unofficially, I am within the Rules of Order in bringing the question forward.
206§ * MR. SPEAKERIf that is the hon. Member's case, I am quite against him. It is quite clear that the breach of privilege, if breach of privilege there was, was complete on May 6th, and it is not for the hon. Member to enter into correspondence with some Minister, for whom he is apparently taking up the cudgels, and then, when he finds that the Minister himself does not propose to treat the matter as a breach of privilege, to say he will himself take it up a week or ten days afterwards, instead of raising the question at the first available moment.
§ MR. SWIFT MACNEILLI undertook to raise the question on the first available opportunity.
§ THE SECRETAEY TO THE ADMIR-ALTY (Mr. ARNOLD-FORSTER, Belfast, W.)I understand, Sir, that your ruling is that the hon. Member is not in order; but I should exceedingly regret if your ruling were to preclude me, after the allusions made to me in this House, from offering to the House a personal explanation.
§ * MR. SPEAKERThe hon. Gentleman is quite in order in making a personal explanation.
MR. ARNOLD-FOESTERI do not know that I particularly object to the hon. Member for South Donegal coming forward as the champion of my honour.
§ MR. SWIFT MACNEILLOh, no, excuse me. On a point of order, I will not allow that to pass for one moment. I am not the champion of the hon. Gentleman's honour.
§ * MR. SPEAKERThat is not a point of order. The hon. Member must not interrupt.
MR. ARNOLD-FOESTERPerhaps I may be allowed to continue, and say that I am exceedingly grateful to the hon. Gentleman for directly or indirectly giving me an opportunity of making a statement in regard to this matter, which, I confess, to my mind has an exaggerated importance in the minds of some Members of this House. I will make a short statement of the whole of this transaction as far as it concerns 207 myself. The facts are these. On 21st June, last year, a letter from Lord Charles Beresford, now Member for Woolwich, appeared in one of the daily papers in regard to the Mediterranean fleet. A Question was put to me in the House, as the representative of the Admiralty, on June 24th, and in answer to that I stated, what appeared to be the fact—
There is nothing to show that the letter was intended for publication, and it seems highly improbable that the Rear-Admiral would have taken a step so contrary to the discipline of the Navy as to make a public communication with regard to confidential reports transmitted by him in respect of the fleet in which he was serving.On the following day Mr. Arnold White, the gentleman whose name has been introduced into this matter, wrote to me as follows:—I was sitting under the gallery of the House of Commons yesterday when you said, in reply to Mr. Norman's Question, that there was nothing in Lord Charles Beresford's letter to show that it was intended for publication, and it seemed highly improbable that the Rear-Admiral would take a step so contrary to the discipline of the Navy and would make public matter in regard to confidential reports transmitted by him in respect of the Fleet in which he was serving. It will be no surprise to you to know that I was the recipient of that letter, and am responsible for its publication.That was the letter sent to me by Mr. Arnold White, with whom I have always been on most excellent terms, and it contained other matter of interest to us both. I replied on June 27th:—I am not surprised to know that Lord Charles's letter was sent to you. Indeed, I supposed that was the case. Whether or not he instructed you to publish it I do not know, nor do I ask. As for any steps you yourself think it right to take, that, of course, is not a matter with which I have anything to do. About the other matter with which I am concerned, I must say frankly that I have no doubt whatever as to what is right. The rights and duties of a private individual depend very largely upon the conscience and sense of duty of the individual, but the rights and duties of an officer holding a high command are, as long as he holds that command, strictly limited by the rules of the service and by the discipline which applies to every officer and man in the force alike. Granting that I were to agree with every word Lord Charles says, I should still feel that he was and must be wrong, while his flag is flying, to set an example which he would be the first to condemn if followed by any officers under his command.208 I said to Mr. Arnold White then what was in my mind: that I did not understand—I do not quite understand now—what the relations were between that gentleman and the noble Lord, but I said that I waited for the course which he thought fit to pursue. On July 6th Mr. Arnold White did take action, and published his letter to me in The Times. This letter contained the statement that he was the recipient of the letter, and was responsible for its publication. It seemed to me then, and seems to me still, that that was a public and direct acceptance by Mr. Arnold White of responsibility for a matter for which primarily the noble Lord would be responsible. A Question was put to me in regard to the matter in the House on July 9th. I replied as follows:—The Admiralty understand that the letter referred to by the hon. Member was a private letter, written without any idea of its being published, and that its publication was unauthorised. In these circumstances it has not been thought necessary to call upon the Rear-Admiral for an explanation.I added, in answer to a further Question—We are informed that it was published on the sole authority of Mr. White.I admit that this was an inference, but I submit that it was a reasonable inference, and it was certainly made in perfect good faith. I submit that it was reasonable, because in the first place it seemed to me to be the obvious construction and meaning of the words. The person primarily responsible for a letter is the person who writes it. If he does not assent to its publication, it cannot be published. But if another gentleman informs me that he is responsible for its publication, it seems to me the obvious and logical inference is that the responsibility was his, and not that of the gentleman who wrote the letter. I would say in defence of the inference I formed that there were certain reasons which fortified me in thinking that my conclusion was not unreasonable. In the first place, I think the fact that for eight months no one has questioned the correctness of that inference is a relevant fact. I was on excellent terms with my noble friend; I was on terms of friendly and useful correspondence with Mr. Arnold White; and if either of those gentlemen had come to me in that period of eight months they 209 had no reason to believe that any explanation they had to make would not have been received by me. Indeed, I would have done my best to set right any wrong which might have been committed. But, at all events, no such suggestion was or ever has been made to me by Mr. Arnold White. There the matter rested until some abusive paragraphs appeared in the newspapers. But this conclusion, which was accepted by this House and by nearly all the newspapers in the country, was also accepted, strangely enough, by the noble Lord himself. If I may be allowed to go to another part of this question which is very relevant to this matter, I may say I that on the 29th April the noble Lord the Member for Woolwich wrote a letter to The Times in which he stated that my inference was wrong, that I had been mistaken in regard to Mr. Arnold White, and that he was the person solely responsible for the publication of the letter. Naturally enough, a Question was asked in this House, on May 5th, with regard to this letter, and I repeated my original statement, giving my original reasons. On that occasion the noble Lord made what appeared to me to be a very remarkable speech indeed, because, as I understood him, it endorsed the offensive charges which had been made against myself.
§ LORD CHARLES BERESFORD (Woolwich)No, certainly not.
§ MR. ARNOLD-FORSTERI shall show that, I think. The speech endorsed the charges which had been made against the Department I have the honour to represent in this House. I was the more astonished, because I held in my hand a letter received from the noble Lord two days before, on no solicitation of mine, in which he deliberately went out of his way to acquit both my self and the Board of Admiralty of any offence in either of these two matters. I did not rise in my place, because the letter to me was marked private, and I asked the noble Lord, considering the position in which he put me, if I was at liberty to state in public what he had told me privately. The noble Lord re fused. I think the matter was of sufficient gravity——
§ LORD CHARLES BERESFORDI beg your pardon. I ask you to say exactly what I wrote to you.
§ MR. ARNOLD-FORSTERI propose to do so. I then wrote the noble Lord telling him that this was an intolerable position—and I think it was an intolerable position. I do not want to trouble the House with that letter in extenso, but there is one passage I should like to quote. I said—
I have called your attention to these matters for two reasons.—that is the discrepancy between the speech and the letter—In the first place, because, as you have doubtless observed, your action in the matter has made me the object of attack by Mr. Arnold White, who considers himself aggrieved. In my opinion Mr. White has no ground of complaint. My action throughout has been perfectly straightforward, and Mr. White knows well that if, at any time during the past eight months, he had given me reason to believe that I was doing him, or had done him, an injustice, he would have found me ready and anxious to make amends for it. When I find, however, that you, while sharing my view as to the reasonable character of my action, are not willing to say so publicly, I think I have some reason to be dissatisfied. I have no duty to Mr. Arnold White, to whom, consciously, at any rate, I have done no wrong; and I therefore do not feel bound, or desire to enter into any controversy with him. But as a Member of the House of Commons, I think it right to let you know, as my colleague, that I take exception to the course you have adopted.That is a portion of the letter that I wrote. In reply, the noble Lord did accord me permission to make public a portion of the letter I had asked leave to quote from. I propose, if he desires, that I should communicate to the House the portion he himself selected. This is what he said—On June 25th Mr. Arnold White wrote you a letter in which he stated that he was responsible for the publication of my letter. This letter to you was published in The, Times of July 6th. On that letter you were perfectly justified in making the statement you did in the House relative to Mr. Arnold White's being responsible for the publication. As a matter of fact, I told Mr. Arnold White he could do what he liked with the letter when he asked me might he publish it; and I said there was nothing in it. Neither was there anything in it which could by any means be declared as having been a trespass on confidential reports. But I was absolutely wrong to allow it to be published at all. The Admiralty never asked me the usual question, 'whether directly or indirectly, I had caused the publication, etc., etc.' If they had done 211 so, I should naturally have told the truth, with the result that I should probably have been ordered to haul down my flag. But why should they have asked me the question after Mr. Arnold White's letter to you stating he was responsible. There is no palliation or excuse for disobeying the Service regulations. I take all the blame, and am prepared to accept the dictum of the constituted authorities with submission.In a speech the noble Lord delivered in this House he made two statements He endorsed this accusation against the Board of Admiralty, which I represent. He said—The constituted authorities never wrote to me to ask me if I had written that letter. If they had, I should have told the truth.But why should they have done so in view of Mr. Arnold White's letter? In his letter to me the noble Lord said—On that letter (Mr. White's), you were perfectly justified in making the statement you did in the house, relative to Mr. Arnold White being responsible for the publication.What did he say in his speech? He said—When I came home the other day there were some insinuations that another gentleman was responsible for this letter; that he tried to publish a private letter which I had written.There were no insinuations. That statement was made by me in this House in July last year, and I resent the suggestion that there was any insinuation on my part or on the part of anybody else. It was a straightforward statement, and the noble Lord has had eight months to consider whether he would repudiate it or not. He continues in his speech—When I came home I immediately took steps to show that I alone was responsible for the letter.The noble Lord did not. He hauled down his flag on February 3rd; he sent his letter to The Times on April 29th. During the whole of that period of nearly three months, this accusation, which he feels so bitterly as being brought unjustly against another man, remained unanswered, and it was not until April 29th, the day following the publication of the leading article in The Times, that this gentleman was relieved of the charge which, I am told, I had unjustly put upon him. I do not understand this method of procedure, and I am very glad to have had the opportunity of stating my views with regard to it. That is all my connection with this matter. I have 212 done no injustice, consciously, to Mr. White or any other person. I have attempted to represent the views of my Department—on a matter in which I am personally perfectly indifferent—adequately and justly. I am unable to see that any apology is due from me to Mr. Arnold White. I think that the only wrong I have done him has been to accept literally, as I believe others have clone, his word, and now he says that that was a misapprehension on my part. I do not say that in blame; but it is the situation. Perhaps there is an apology due from another quarter. This is a matter which does not concern me personally, or which I desire to press. It seems to me a trivial subject with which to have occupied the time of the House so much but perhaps the House will excuse the warmth with which I have, spoken.
§ * MR. SPEAKERI am sure the House will be of opinion that the noble Lord also may be allowed to explain.
§ LORD CHARLES BERESFORDI must at once preface my remarks by saying that the Secretary to the Admiralty certainly was in a false position, and did get into that false position through an act of mine, which I owned to the other day. But when the Secretary to the Admiralty reads only part of the correspondence I have sent to him, it is not quite fair to myself. The Secretary to the Admiralty asked me if he might make certain extracts from a private letter which I wrote to him. I said I object to any extract being taken from a letter, because it is never done without false impressions being adduced therefrom. If you want to know anything, and you want anything made public, write to me and I answer you in any way you wish.
§ MR. ARNOLD-FORSTERNo, no Mr. Speaker. I must correct the noble Lord. He knows perfectly well I said that I would quote any passage out of that letter or the whole of the letter. The only passage I desired to omit was one so offensive to Mr. Arnold White that I thought he would not wish me to publish
LORD CHARLES BEEESFORDI must answer the Secretary to the Admiralty at once. The offensive phrase was that I said Mr. Arnold White was a very dangerous man. So he is a very dangerous man. Mr. Arnold White is carried away with enthusiasm, and, as I told him to his face, he is a very dangerous man. He said—
What do you mean?I said—I am called a dangerous man because I sometimes blurt out things I regret.That is the whole of the offensive remark. The Secretary to the Admiralty must stick to the point. I said—and he has got it in writing in a letter he has not read out—I refuse you permission to publish extracts, but if you write me I shall send you for publication the whole of the letter.I did so, and left out that part referring to Mr. Arnold White because it was not to the point. Then I turn to the other point about the insinuation. I never said anything about the Secretary to the Admiralty in this House. The insinuation I referred to was the letter in The Times, and directly I saw that letter I wrote to The Times and said I was responsible. The Secretary to the Admiralty is an extremely clever man, and I acknowledge that he has put the case against me, as it appears to the House. I admit I made a mistake as far as my writing to the Press at all is concerned, although I never before confessed it to the House. I know I was wrong, but I can prove to this House that though I was wrong I did right. I shall be in the hands of the House and I think that when I sit down they will agree with me. The House does not know the whole case. The Secretary to the Admiralty does know the whole case. What is the whole case? When I went out to the Mediterranean I found the Fleet dangerously weak—
§ * MR. SPEAKERThe noble Lord must confine himself to a personal explanation on the matter before the House. He is not entitled to go into the whole condition of the Fleet in the Mediterranean. That would be going beyond the limit of a personal explanation. The noble Lord wrote a letter in which he stated that he ought not to have written a letter on a certain matter. He is entitled to deal with the circumstances arising out 214 of the publication of the letter, but not to go into the merits of the question about the Fleet.
§ LORD CHARLES BERESFORDBut there are two letters. One letter is so intimately connected with the other that I cannot explain myself unless I say I had written an official letter to my Commander-in-Chief containing the strongest animadversions about the strength of the Fleet a year before. The Commander-in-Chief sent the letter to the Admiralty, and I never received a word of reprimand about it. The fighting efficiency of the Fleet was very deficient in essentials, as compared with the Fleets of other countries. After a year I consulted my brother officers as to whether I should not go home, and beg leave to haul down my flag. My brother officers said—and I agreed with them—that that it would not be loyal, that it might create a panic, that it might not be patriotic. A year afterwards I wrote this other letter to Mr. Arnold White, who has ample evidence that I wrote it for publication and that he could publish it when he liked. Why he did not publish it then, I cannot tell. I suppose he thought that it would hurt me. I said to him I did not care whether it hurt me or not. I told him that it was important that the letter should be published in order to get those things put right which were essential to the fighting efficiency of the Mediterranean fleet. Then the public knew nothing about the letter of 1900. In June, 1901, the letter appeared. Now, what was that letter, which has been made so much of, which shows how I have been so insubordinate that I ought to be cashiered or shot, which shows that I am not a loyal naval officer, that I am not loyal to my seniors, and other nonsense of that sort? This is the letter—
H.M.S. Ramillies, at sea, June 10, 1901. My dear——It would be most improper and prejudicial to discipline if I were to give you details as to why I am so extremely anxious, when considering the want of strength and the want of proper war organisation of the British Fleet in the Mediterranean. I have communicated my views, in as strong and clear Anglo-Saxon language as I can command, to the properly constituted authorities. My duty and business out here as second in command are simply to obey any orders that I may receive to the level best of my ability, and not to offer any criticisms which might become public. The real point to be considered is not so much the necessity of expending a further sum of 215 money on the British Navy, as the necessity of allocating the money now voted in a different manner.That is the letter that the Secretary to the Admiralty holds up to this House as grossly insubordinate, as trespassing on confidential reports to which I gained access through my position as second in command, for he said in this House—It seems highly improbable that the Rear-Admiral would take a step so contrary to the discipline of the Navy as to make public a matter with regard to the confidential reports transmitted by him with respect to the Navy in which he serves.Well, Sir, I say that the charge with regard to that letter is very extravagant acknowledge fully that I was wrong to write to the Press at all, but when I wrote that letter I thought I was going to be called home. Never before has anything appeared in the Press in my name—and many things have—when I have been on active service, when I have not received the usual letter asking whether I directly or indirectly caused it to be put into the Press. It constantly happened—it happened four times before I wrote this letter. Things were put into the Press in my absence and in my name, and I had never said a single word, and I gave the natural answer that I had nothing to do with it. I was away when this letter was published, and both my Commander-in-Chief and I thought I was going to be called home. I had made my arrangements to go; but I received no letter from the Admiralty asking me about it, and, remember, I was at sea, and I had not seen these letters at the time of publication, though I saw them afterwards, for which Mr. Arnold White was responsible. I was waiting for the letter, asking me whether I was responsible for this, and that letter I never got. I quite see that the Secretary to the Admiralty, looking at it as I do now, was justified in making the statement he did. It was a fair statement. And I say before the House now I deeply regret that he found himself in the position he did through any action of mine. I do not regret writing the letter itself. I express no regret for that, and I do not confess to have made any error, because I say the Fleet was in a very dangerous position with regard to it fighting efficiency. Between June, 1900 and June, 1901, there were a few additions made to the Fleet—
§ * MR. SPEAKEROrder, order! The noble Lord asked leave to make a personal explanation, but he is now travelling rather beyond the limits of a personal explanation.
§ LORD CHARLES BERESFORDI have been driven into it, Sir, owing to the circumstances of the case. I did not wish to mention these things. I repudiate with considerable warmth any suggestion of the Secretary to the Admiralty that I have acted dishonourably in any sense of the word. I may have acted carelessly. He suggested I was afraid for my skin. I was perfectly ready to come out at any moment. Mr. Arnold White had several letters of mine authorising him to publish this one, and then I found myself in a false position. The only thing I regret in the whole matter is that the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Admiralty should have been, by any action of mine, put into the position in which he was placed.