THE AFTERMATH OF THE WAR.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXI, Issue 447, 7 January 1909, Page 3

THE AFTERMATH OF THE WAR.

The part the Joels played

therein.

Mr Markham’s Astounding

Avowals

On October 24 Mr A. A. Markham, M.P., made a remarkable statement to his Mansfield constituents in the Nottinghamshire village of Kirby. It will be remembered that his name was mentioned and that he was subpoenaed but never called as a witness in the Joel - Siever trial at the Old Bailey. In addressing his constituents he said that he felt it to be his duty to explain to them how he came to be mixed up with the scandal. “ Holding strong views as to the part played by the South African capitalists in bringing about the war, he devoted the greater part of 1901 to going through the files of the South African papers in the British Museum, and in doing so he came across the history of Mr Joel. On March 7, 1902, he gave notice of his intention to ask in the House of Commons a question, the object of which was to get information on the following points:Was Mr Joel arrested in Kimberley in 1884 on a charge of illicit diamond buying ? Was he released on bail, and was his bail estreated on his flying the country ? Was his portrait circulated in the Police Gazette ? Was he, or his brother Solomon, accepted by His Majesty’s Government as a guarantor for the new meat contract in South Africa ?

The then War Secretary (Mr Brodrick) replied that he had no information, but he understood that the name of Mr “ Jack ” Joel was given to the House as one of the guarantors. Two hours before the House met on March n—the day he put his interrogotaries—he (Mr Markham) received the following letter at the Reform Club from Sir George Lewis : Dear Mr Markham, —Mr Jack Joel has no connection whatever with the contract with the Consolidated Johannesburg Investment Company, which guarantees partially the contract with the Imperial Storage Company. His brother is chairman of that Company, but Mr Jack Joel has no connection whatever with it. I send these particulars to you to reconsider whether, under the circumstances, you should put the question to-day. 1 strongly urge you not to do so, but to postpone the question until you have ascertained what the real lacts are. Mr Joel is the bearer of this letter which I give him as an introduction to you, as he is anxious to give you any information you desire —Yours very sincerely, G. H. LEWIS.

He (Mr Markham) saw Mr Joel, who said he had come to him to beg for mercy,' as the asking of these questions in Parliament would ruin him socially. He asked Mr Joel if he could point to any untrue statement and the reply was that he was not a director of the Johannesburg Consolidated Investment Company, and derived no benefit from the meat contract. Mr Markham proceeded to tell the next stage of the narrative as follows :—“ I replied that I thought he was lying. He then cried and whined, and appealed to me to spare him for the sake of his wife and little children. I told him that at that time thousands of women and children were dying in the concentration camps ; that he and his firm were partly responsible for the war, as they had used their newspapers to spread lies.broadcast, and that I had no intention to spare him. Mr Joel then said that his firm were forced into politics by the firm of Wernher and Beit; his firm wanted to be left alone to make money. I believe that is probably true, because the Joels were probably more intent on making money than in interfering with politics. Joel then said that the charge was eighteen years old. I replied that his company had, through their influence, passed the Illicit Diamond Buying Law through, the Cape Parliament, and that hundreds of men have served twenty years’ penal servitude for this offence of buying a single diamond and that I would lay hold and send him back to his trial. Mr Joel then became a pitiable object ; he kept crying and saying : “Spare me. spare me. I will make amends and give 3’ , ou as many free institutions for your electors as you wish.” I replied that I should not for a moment consider such an offer, and he then made a second offer—namely, that he would give me £IO,OOO to any good cause I liked. I told him to go, and he then said if I would only spare him he would give me every assistance to prove that the late Mr Beit was a thief.

“ Now, Joel and the late Mr Beit were partners in the diamond syndicate, and to save his own skin Joel was willing to give me information to assist me in an action which I had brought against Beit. So far as the late Mr Beit was concerned, I did him a great injustice in 1901, but my motive in that matter ’ was misunderstood. He was a man who in many ways did great kindnesses to many people, and it has always been a source of great regret to me that I made a charge against him in the words 1 did.” Mr Markham went on to relate how, after consultation, with Mr Speaker, he put on the Order Paper, the questions given above, and afterwards replied to Sir George Lewis’s letter, informing him that Joel had suggested bribery. Producing the report of the Johannesburg Consolidated Company (1902', of which it was stated that Joel was director —a fact that

he had denied at the interview in the previous March—Mr Markham declared that “ he lied to me ” on that occasion. When the Sievier trial came on Joel, when on the witness stand, was asked by Mr Rufus Isaac as to his interview with him (Mr Markham), and referring to this phase of the trial the hon. gentleman said : ‘ ‘ Joel was on his oath ; Sievier’s liberty was at stake; yet Joel committed wilful and deliberate perjury, as I shall prove to you, as badly as ever was committed in a court of law: Mr Rufus Isaacs: Did you not go to see Mr Markham ? —I did. With reference to the question that was going to be put ?■—No. What did you go to see him about ?—I heard he was going to say something about me. Did Mr Markham ask you to point to any untrue statement in the question he was going to put ? —I did not know what question he was going to put. He did not ask me that.

The simple facts were that Joel heard that I had placed the question on the notice paper of the House of Commons, which became public property. It was impossible for him to have heard that I was going to say anything about him, and I could not have said anything in asking a question. But he forgot one thing the letter from Sir George Lewis, which I hold, in which reference is made to the question, and proposes that Joel should explain his position fully in connection therewith. In 18S4 Joel, who came from Petticoat Lane, in the East End of London, was a Jew in Kimberley in partnership with his uncle, Barny Barnato. “He was charged with receiving stolen property, and the case was heard in the Kimberley Police Court, when a more serious charge was laid against him. Bail for ,£4,000 was taken, and with the aid of Barney Barnato he fled to Delagoa Bay, was afterwards in hiding in Spain for a considerable time. Now, why is Joel today able to be in England, and, as he had been for years, one of the principal men in the City of London ? An arrangement was made by which the warrant was withdrawn, so far as this country is concerned, but it has not been withdrawn in South Africa I did my duty

by allowing the facts to become known. If Joel had got his deserts he would have been in prison. But no man can continue to do wrong without sooner or later meeting with retribution. I have no doubt that through my asking that question his life, wealthy as he is, has been % ‘ hell on e arlh.’

There is not a shadow ol doubt that Joel did lay a trap for the purpose of catching Mr Sievier.”—Daily Chronicle.