WAR MANIA

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 224, 10 June 1918, Page 6

WAR MANIA

!; AUTHOR- FINED FOR CRIMINAL LIBEL

A VICIOUS ATTACK

London, June 6. Henry Murray, author, has been' fined iEIOO for criminally libelling Sir William Marwood, Second {secretary to the Board of Trade. 'Mr. Justice Darling remarked that Murray was evidently suffering from a sort of wamiauia which was affecting many people in the country. Murray suggested .that Sir W. Marwodd was a subsidised German agent.' He, like 'others recently involved in. this Court, was affected by a crazy condition of niind due to the war, otherwise he would have been sent to prison. Mr. Justice Darling evidently alluded to the evidence in tho Billing trial — Aus.-N.Z. Cablo Assn.

The case against Murray, who is described as an author and journalist. 58 years of age. arose out of a vicious attack upon Sir William Marwood in' connection 'with railway transport. In 1911 and 1912 Sir William Marwood was Assistant Secretary to the Railway Department. At that time a schemo known as the "Gattie schema" for the handling of railway goods traffic by means of a central clearing station was brought before the Board of Trade, and there was a vigorous effort to secure a favourable recommendation by tho board for'its adoption in London. Correspndenco on the subject continued between Mr. Gattie and the Board of Trade until the beginning of the war.' ' In July, 1915, the defendant, Murray, began writing to Sir.William Marwood advocating Mr. Cattle's scheme, and early this year the defendant carried on an energetic canipaign by issuing "open letters" addressed to various officials, 'including tho Prime Minister and tho President of the Board of Trade. Tho first of these, dated February 18, 1918, was "a plain word to Sir Albert Stanley, M.P., President of the Board of 'Trade,",and was marked "read and' pass on." The letter was as follows:—

' "Sir,—The country is in imminent danger of famine, and the transport ;of American, troops and American material of war to Europe is severely bumpered at a moment when •every man and every Hhell is a matter of supreme importance. This condition of affairs is tho rcBult of the abominable condition of our railways, and that condition ha 3 been brought about by the treasonable conduct of. the Department of State over •which you preside, the Board of Trade, and especially by tho conduct of your nominal subordinate and real master, the branded liar, rogue, and traitor, I'rancis .■"William. ll'arwood, ex-chief of the Railway Department of the Board'of Trade. . . . Your one preoccupation is not to Bave your couiitry from famine and the Alliance from deleat, but to save "n gang of impudent and colossal thieve,, of whom Lord Claud Hamilton, chairman of the (ireat Eastern Hail way, is a typo in excelsis, and William, Erancis ilar.wood their subsidised tool and bureaucratic shield from tho social obloquy and legal punishment they so richly deserve. Tour effort will be vain. "Sou cannot savo these people. You can only chare their ruin and disgrace. If you have not, the common-sense to recognise plain facta, nor the'. pluck to do your plain and imperative duty, in God's aame resign your office • and. make room for some man who possesses the courage •and the brains ydu lack.—Henry Murray."

in a.letter to the Prime Minister Murray said he had distributed a thousand copies. of the above document, and that "Sir Albert Stanley is botraying the country to defeat,-and Germany has no more powerful ally'than ho." .

At the preliminary hearing of the case counsel for the defence said that Murray had no financial interests, and had acted' as he thought in the public interest. To this counsel for the prosecution Tetorted: "Then there is only one thin" left, that the defendant is a person with a bee in his bonnet. The amount of buzzing ho emits leads one to think that he has the entire denizens of an apiary at his disposal," '■ ' ' ' '"■■■■