Colonel Lynch.

Manawatu Herald, 27 January 1903, Page 2

Colonel Lynch.

In the charge against Colonel Lynch, M.P. for Galway, of high treason, the case for the prosecution has closed. Defendant’s counsel raised an intricate point regarding the technical interpretation of the British Naturalisation Act of 1870, contending that it protected defendant from any criminality involved in the acts charged against him.

The Judges (Lord Chief Justice Alverstone and Justices Sir Alfred Wills and Sir A Mosely Channel}) unanimously over-ruled the plea.

Evidence was then submitted that Colonel Lynch went to South Africa as a war correspondent. Colonel Lynch was found guilty of the charge of treason in connection with his services in the Boer war and was sentenced to death.

Justice Sir Alfred Wills, as senior Judge of the Court, delivered a powerful speech in sentencing the prisoner. He emphasised the gravity of the crime, and said the prisoner was a citizen of no mean city, inasmuch as he was born in Australia, a country which had shown the utmost devotion to the Motherland.

The prisoner, continued Sir Alfred, had sought for the price of gold, in the country’s darkest hour, by joining the ranks of her foes, to dethrone Great Britain and make her name a by-word and a reproach. He had shed, or done his best to shed, hia own countrymen’s blood. How many wives had been widowed or children orphaned through the contingent which he had commanded Heaven only knew.

Sir Alfred Wills went on to sa,y that the prisoner, misjudging his country, had lifted his paricidal hand, thinking doubtless that Britain would shrink from her gigantic, struggle, or at the worst, that peace would bring an amnesty covering his treason.

“ And this,” concluded the learned Judge, “ against Victoria, the best beloved and most deeply honoured of all the long line of British Sovereigns, and against his own country, the home of freedom and progress.” It is expected the King will release Lynch after a short imprisonment.