Government Appointed a Committee to Investigate—Terms of Reference.
On December 15th, 1914, the Government took the important step of appointing a Committee:—
"To consider and advise on the evidence collected on behalf of His Majesty's Government, as to outrages alleged to have been committed by German troops during the present war, cases of alleged maltreatment of civilians in the invaded territories, and breaches of the laws and established usages of war; and to prepare a report for His Majesty's Government showing the conclusion at which they arrive on the evidence now available."
Careful Selection of Members of Committee.
In order that the findings of the Committee should command the confidence of the public, the Government was careful to appoint upon it men whose judicial outlook, training and experience for their responsible task could not be questioned.
The Right Hon. Viscount Bryce, O.M., the distinguished British Ambassador at Washington from 1907 to 1912, was appointed Chairman, and the other members of the Committee were:—
The Right Hon. Sir Frederick Pollock, Bart., who was Corpus Professor of Jurisprudence at Oxford University, 1883-1903, and is Judge of the Admiralty Court of Cinque Ports. He is one of the leading authorities on the laws of this country;
The Right Hon. Sir Edward Clarke, K.C., was Member of Parliament for Plymouth (20 years) and London City (1906); was Solicitor-General from 1886 to 1902;
Sir Kenelm Digby, G.C.B., K.C., who was a County Court Judge from 1892 to 1894, and Permanent Under-Secretary of the Home Office from 1895 to 1903;
Sir Alfred Hopkinson, K.C., LL.D., represented Manchester and North Wiltshire in the House of Commons; was Principal of Owens College, Manchester, from 1898 to 1904; and Vice-Chancellor of Victoria University, Manchester, from 1900 to 1913;
Mr. H. A. L. Fisher, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Sheffield;
Mr. Harold Cox, the well-known Journalist and Editor of the "Edinburgh Review," who represented Preston in the House of Commons from 1906 to 1910.
How the Committee Worked.
The Committee laboured for three months, examining the evidence, and more than 1,200 statements made by witnesses were considered. These depositions were in all cases taken down in this country by gentlemen of legal knowledge and experience, and the greatest care was exercised in the task.
Doubt Removed as Work Proceeded.
The Committee approached their responsible task in a spirit of doubt, but, to use their own words, "the further we went and the more evidence we examined, so much the more was our scepticism reduced.... When we found that things which had at first seemed improbable were testified to by many witnesses coming from different places, having had no communication with one another, and knowing nothing of one another's statements, the points in which they all agreed became more and more evidently true. And when this concurrence of testimony, this convergence upon what were substantially the same broad facts, showed itself in hundreds of depositions, the truth of those broad facts stood out beyond question."