A CAUSE CELEBRE TO COME.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXII, Issue 147, 22 June 1901, Page 1 (Supplement)

A CAUSE CELEBRE TO COME.

SENSATIONAL CHALLENGE TO! ' SOUTH AFRICAN FINANCIERS. ■

Mr A. B. Markham, M.P. for the Mansfield Division of Nottingham, has fulfilled the pledge" he gave to the Commons in March last by publicly denouncing Messrs Alfred Beit and Messrs Eckstein as "iaothiag more nor less thau thieves and swindlers in connection with the part they have played in their financial operations in Soitth Africa" Mr Markham so branded them in the House of Commons, but his remarks there were privileged. He has now, after six weeks' consideration, deliberately repeated his charge at a meeting of his constituents, held primarily for the purpose, and has definitely challenged Messrs Beit aud Eckstein to give him. the opportunity of proving that he speaks the truth in substance and iv fact. Like a wary litigant, Mr Markham has not yet disclosed his particulars. His charge is general. The gentlemen in question are, he says, "a common gang of thieves and swindlers." And the "unscrupulous methods" of some of them, he adds, were closely bound up with the war. There are here two questions involved. One is personal, and concerns Mr A. Beit and others. They are very ; well able to take care of themselves, and it will go hardly with Markham if he cannot convince a jury of the truth of his very serious charges. The other question is political. This may not come fully within tike- purview of the Courts, but it is to be hoped it will. Insinuations »of Corrupt motives were made against Mr Beit with regard to the raid It was suggested that he embarked' in that enterprise for stock jobbing purposes. The Select Committee, found that the charge was "entirely without foundation." Is there foundation for Mr Markham's suggestion that the war was brought about "by the unscrupulous methods of the financial firms?" Sir Alfred Milner has called such suggestions "a perversion of the truth." Now that the statement has been definitely made, it is to be hoped that means will be found for putting* t to the test of exhaustive inquiry. As to the personal side of the question, it is scarcely possible that the gentlemen braDded by Mr Markham. can refuse to prosecute him for criminal libel; in fact, one has presumed they will do so without delay. Mr Arthur Basil Markham is not a great figure in Parliament, but he is by no means a man whose public utterance's can be ignored. He is a Radical, but a man of substance, and has travelled the world over. He was one of those, who subscribed to the policy of the Imperial Liberal Council. Ho is not a Little Englander, nor a pro-Boer, and at the time of the general election he appeared to give support to the Government policy in. regard to South Africa. Since then, his views have altered considerably, , owing, he tells us, to having come into possession of certain facts concerning the intrigues'of South African financiers, which intrigues, he seems to suggest, were the main causes of President Kruger's adoption of- the suicidal policy which has resulted in Oom Paul's exile and the destruction of the Republics.