Final Dramatic Scene at the Casement Treason Trial.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 5, Issue 207, 8 September 1916, Page 4 (Supplement)

Final Dramatic Scene at the Casement Treason Trial.

CASEMENT SENTENCED TO DEATH.

PRISONER'S PASSIONATE PROTEST AGAINST "OPPRES= SION OF IRELAND."

"I AM PROUD TO STAND IN THE TRAITOR'S DOCK."

In the High Court yesterday, says the London "Daily Chronicle," Sir Roger Casement was found guilty of high treason and was sentenced to be hanged. When the jury returned their verdict of guilty, the prisoner, in a long and passionate statement, protc nert against the jurisdiction of the Court and declared that he, an Irishman, had a right to be tried by a jury of his peers. He ended by a violent condemnation of English rule in No evidence was offered against the pi-isoner Bailey, who was found act guilty and discharged.

By HAROLD BEGBIE

Was it coincidence that made the last day of this trial, with its verdict of guilty and its sentence of death, a drama of three men —the Lord Chief Justice of England, the Attor-ney-General of England, and Roger Casement, Irishman and traitor? The Lord Chief Justice of England has devoted his political life to a party which sought to give Ireland that for which she asks as a healing for her wounds. The Attorney-Gen-eral of England has devoted his political life to a party which denied this Irish plea. And U-day thty met face to face, the one as judge, the other as accuser, with an Irishman between thein, made mad by that struggle, and who represented for all who had eyes to see the political tragedy of his country's soul, over whose body the political parties of England have made immemorial battle. It was a strange meeting for those three men, full of much ancient history, and very vital with immediate memories. This must be said for Sir F. E. Smith, that the speech which he addressed to the jury was a great and powerful speech, free from political bias. "From the moment," he said vigorously, "when Germany made that tiger spring at the throat of Europe, the past was the past." Would that the past could be so easily buried by a fine phrase!

Irish prisoner and his English accuser, balancing the two scales till the scale of truth descended visibly before our eyes. THE VOICE OF IRELAND. And then, when this was ended, anc! the jury after an absence of an hour, brought in their inevitable verdict, there followed the voice oi the traitor. You can imagine nothing more different from the cold and scornful words cf the Attorney-General, o: the grave, measured and noble suminLif»'uji of the Judge, than this protest of the Irishman against the rig.it oi England to try him for his life. Ci.sement, dn.t. : fd solemnly In bl?.cu, very worn looking, his hands trembling, his voi"i husky and lev. his hair roughened like a man who has been working, and who is tired out, Casement, still handsome, distinguished and refined, stood at the rail of the dock, and, mastering his terrible emotion, read his protest to the Court

A RE3EI/S PROTEST. For the first time almost during the trial the Lord Chief Justice turned deliberately and looked at this man. For the first time the Attor-ne3'-General turned in his seat and aI&G looked deliberately .at this man. And there was such a silence, such a tension of human interest as I have never before experienced. In this silence, the paper in his hand shaking violently, (he was only a few feet behind me), Roger Casement read his protest—the intellectual, scholarly, and dignified protest of an !rl?h rebel. But there was something in this protest characteristic, pitifully characteristic, of Ireland's tragedy. It was too long. One thinks that a man speaking for the last time to his fellow men before he makes the great discovery of death could not wear out the patience of mankind But it was not so. Casement wearied the Court. He not only wearied it; he lost its sympathy. For he ventured on sarcasm, rather elaborately addressing himself to the Attorney-General, half bowing, and even smiling. It was terrible. The judge looked down at his papers. The Attorney-General ,put his hands behind his head and lounged back in his seat. Some of the shorthand writers began to paraphrase these last words which had lasted too long And people whispered togeth er, looking at the shaking pipers in the hands of the prisoner, and wondering how many more pages remained to be turned.. But it was the tragedy of Ireland which w.is striving to speak to the world from the edge of the grave. Casement may be a good man or a bad man, he may be a martyr or a great criminal, but his husky, trembling, struggling voice was the voice of the tragedy of Ireland. Ireland has wearied us. She has dwelt too long on her ills. They have injured her judgment. They have distorted hei vision. There are things in life greater than Irish self government And Casement, speaking of Irish freedom, at a time when the pillars oJ civilisation are shaking, and when the very foundations of Europe are trembling under our feet, was this Ireland who had wearied the world. There was nothing more tragical in this tragic case than the too long tost words of a man whose hatred of England -and love of Ireland have betrayed him into dreadful crime.

SIR F E. SMITH'S POWERFUL SPEECH.

But his speech, fine as it was, by its very nature, was the speech of an advocate. His duty was to assemble the evidence In such a manner as should end in the nanging of Cas?ment. And this duty he performed, powerfully and conclusively. As an advocate's speech it could hardly have been better. Less moving and brilliant than the passionate speech of Mr. Sullivan it was more scornful, more convincing, and far more deadly in it 3 effect. He rose Languidly from his seat In the centre of the court, with stooping shoulders, a piece of red tape la his hands, and at first addressed the jury conversationally; but soon he threw the tape aside, and his strong, agreeable voice, gathering power, presently rang through the court with indignation and scorn. He never looked at Casement. When he referred to him particularly, he halfturned, and over his shoulder jerked an impatient finger in the direction of "the prisoner," or "that man," keeping his eyes always on the jury.

"WHAT IS IT?" One of the Crown solicitors, sitting just in front of him, attempted to whisper a suggestion, at the same time handing up a document. "What is it? Is it anything important?" demanded the Attorney-General, impatiently, hardly dropping his voice. And he went on with his proud scorn and his deadly facts, ending on the solemn and confident note of duty—the jury's duty (he almost flung the word nt them) to bring in a verdict of guilty. When he sat dowa, languid and tired, anotrer voice was heard in court, not the voice of the Irish defender, not the voice of the English accuser, but the voice of Justice. I think that few men who heard him will ever forget the summing-up of the Lord Chief Justice. Instead of passionate defence, on the on© hand, and instead of cold and deadly accusation on the other, we heard tho quiet, even, passionless voice of Justice seeking neither to take a man's, lite nor to save it, but seeking to find something which transcends human hie, something which is spiritual and not physical, something which is above the fate of individuals and tut: fortunes of nations, Trutn. For many cr us, as the deep voice <ounded through the breathless! court, it seemed that justice Is so immeasurably a higher and a grander thing even than mercy, that pity for the prisoner ceased to move oui minds.

SENTENCE PRONOUNCED. Nevertheless, uneasy must be the sou Is of .hose men who first armed a minority of Ireland to resist the law. Madness has come of it. madness and death, and the end is not yet. He stopped, faltered tv.ice. and waited. He had finished—-at last. Pieces of broad black cloth were placed upon the heads of the thre* judges. Then, making no reference whatever to this long and argumentative protest, never raising his head, never changing the tone of hi. \oic9. ana never once looking at the exhausted prisoner, the Lord Chief Justice pronounced the formal sentence of death. Formal, but of all words uttered in this trial, the most -iipressive. were the last of all. uttered with almost intolerable deliberation, with Ion? and trying pauses between each, and with so deep a sincerity that they sounded at once like a judgment and an epitaph—the words: "Aiul may the Lord have mcrcv on your soul."

The brilliance of Mr. Sullivan anil the power of the Attorney-General appeared to us small, paltry and Interior. Here was something to which all men could look up, all mun coula honour, all men could reverence—truth and Jusice unswayed by interest; truth and Justice impersonal, unprejudiced and unsparing, truth and Justice such as strong men—in every civlised race have always named as attributes oi God.

So spoke the Lord Chief Justice of England, holding the scales of justice with deliberate hand between the