Thomson Disgraced?

COMMONWEALTH (British Commonwealth of Nations)

On Good Friday, April 21, 1916, the German submarine U-719 eased up out of the sea off the west coast of Ireland. As the conning tower hatch was raised, a tall, thin, cadaverous Irishman with thick black hair and a pointed beard looked out. His complexion, deeply tanned during the long years he had spent serving the British Crown in the tropics, was now grown sallow and his forehead showed a network of tiny lines. Though Edward VII had knighted him, he was now about to commit the last act in a conspiracy of high treason against the realm of George V.

From the depths of the U-19 a collapsible canvas rowboat was produced. The tall gaunt man and two Irish companions stepped into it and commenced to row ashore. The commander of the submarine called after them, "Sir Roger Casement! Is there nothing more that you require?"

Standing up in his. canvas cockleshell, the man, who had spent two years attempting to organize Irish prisoners of war captured by the Germans into an "Irish Army," reflected. He had been able to seduce but 56 Irish prisoners into his "army." And he so distrusted their loyalty that he had left them behind in Germany, decked out in handsome green uniforms with harps worked in embroidery on the collar. Now the Germans, having partly lost faith in him, were insisting that he prove his own loyalty to them by landing in Ireland and directing a revolt, to be supported by smuggled German arms. To Sir Roger Casement, strange, brilliant, unbalanced adventurer, it seemed that his chances, even of life, were slim enough. Jauntily he called back toward the U-719, "I need nothing, Herr Kapitan, except my shroud!"

A few hours later the long arm of the British secret service had reached out and seized him. For months Mr. Basil Thomson, Assistant Commissioner of Scotland Yard, had been waiting for Sir Roger to appear. During the course of the trial before Lord Chief Justice Reading,* Mr. Thomson was not only instrumental in securing the conviction and subsequent execution of Sir Roger Casement, but rose to such prominence himself that he was knighted, and then made Director of Intelligence of the British secret service. Since that day he has been a symbol to Britons of the maintenance of law and order at any cost. Ecclesiastics have pointed with pride to the fact that he is the son of the late Archbishop of York.

Last week Sir Basil Thomson, now 64 years of age, was arraigned in a London police court on the incredible charge of having misconducted himself with a young girl in Hyde Park. The more inflammatory despatches did not hesitate to link mention of the crime of rape with the arrest. Stolid Englishmen were literally aghast at what seemed to be a national scandal.

Late despatches carried Sir Basil's unequivocal denial of the charges lodged against him. His friends assert that he has been "framed" by enemies among his former subordinates at Scotland Yard. His ill-wishers declare that unless the charges against him were true, the case against him would have been instantly dismissed. Meanwhile British Communists rejoiced at the discomfiture of one of their most tireless enemies.

* Now Viceroy of India and about to return from that office (TIME, Nov. 9).