I know it sounds confusing—
But as Mr. Lammle said,
The anger of a gentleman
Is boiling in my head.
The hearing of the case against Le Matin came on March 19. As that paper had withdrawn and apologised only three days after printing the story, there was no actual necessity for statements by Rufus Isaacs and Samuel. But they had decided to answer Maxse's question, to admit the dealings in American Marconis which they had not mentioned to the House of Commons: or rather to get their lawyer to tell the story and then answer his questions on the matter in a Court case where there could be no cross-examination because the Defendants were not contesting the case. Sir Edward Carson mentioned the American purchase at the end of a long speech and almost as an afterthought— "really the matter is so removed from the charges made in the libel that I only go into it at all . . . because of the position of the Attorney-General and because he wishes in the fullest way to state this deal, so that it may not be said that he keeps anything whatsoever back." As The Times remarked (9 June, 1913): "The fact was stated casually, as though it had been a matter at once trifling and irrelevant. Only persons of the most scrupulous honour, who desired that nothing whatsoever should remain hid would, it was suggested, have thought necessary to mention it at all."
The statement was not really as full as Carson's phrasing would seem to suggest. The court was told that Rufus Isaacs had bought 10,000 shares—but not from whom he had bought them: that he had paid market price, but not what the price was, nor that the shares were not on the market: that he had sold 1000 shares each to Lloyd George and Elibank, and had sold some on their behalf, but not that these two had had further buyings and sellings on their own. It was stated for Sir Rufus and reiterated by him that he had lost money on the deal—the reason being that while he had gained on the shares sold, the shares he still held had slumped. (It is difficult to see why Rufus Isaacs and later Lloyd George made such a point of the loss on their Marconi transactions. They can hardly have bought the shares in order to lose money on them, and their initial sellings showed a very large profit. Indeed Rufus Isaacs' loss depended on his having paid his brother £2 for the shares, and again upon the 7000 shares he sold on the opening day being only partly on his own behalf, and there is only his own word for these two statements. If Rufus lost, he lost to his brother, who had been willing to sell at cost price, with whom he had a pooling arrangement, and who made an enormous profit. If Rufus lost, the loss remained in the family.)
A week after the hearing of the Matin case, Rufus Isaacs appeared for the first time before the Parliamentary Committee, almost five months after its formation. His problem was not so much to explain his dealings in American Marconis, as to account for his silence in the House of Commons. His one desire that day in Parliament, it seems, had been to answer the "foul lies" being uttered against him, which he was "quite unable to find any foundation for, quite unable to trace the source of, quite unable to understand how they were started": obviously his dealings in American Marconis could have no possible bearing on these rumours, so he did not mention them: "I confined my speech entirely . . . to dealing with the four specific charges which I formulated."*
[* Italics mine.]
The Chairman, Sir Albert Spicer, suggested that one way to scotch the rumours would have been to mention his investment in American Marconis, "because both being Marconis you could easily understand one might get confused with the other." This question always drove Rufus Isaacs into a rage and indeed he met all difficult questions with rages which to this day, across the gulf of thirty years, seem simulated, and not convincingly.
Why had he not earlier asked the Committee to hear the story of the American shares? "I took the view . . . that I had no right to claim any preferential position . . . and it seemed to me that it might almost savour of presumption if I had asked the Committee to take my evidence or any Minister's evidence, out of the ordinary turn in which the Committee desired it." All the same he had once written a letter to the Committee asking to be heard but "on consideration did not send it."
During his examination the element of strain between the two parties on the Committee, which had been evident throughout the enquiry, was very much intensified—Lord Robert Cecil and the Conservatives courteously but tenaciously trying to get at the truth, the Ministerialists determined to shield their man. There is a most unpleasing contrast between the earlier bullying of the journalists (who after all were not on trial) and the deference the majority now showed to Ministers (who were).
Rufus Isaacs twisted and turned incredibly. But he did admit to Lord Robert Cecil that he had obtained the shares before they were available to the general public and at a price lower than that at which they were afterwards introduced to them. He tried later to modify this admission by saying that he had been told of dealings by others before April 17, but he could give no details: and the evidence of the Marconi Company's broker (quoted above) is decisive.
Two points of special interest emerged from his evidence. The first was that he had not told the whole story in the Matin case. He now mentioned that Lloyd George and Elibank had sold a further 1000 of the shares he held for them on the second day, July 20; and went on to tell of the purchase of 3000 shares by the same pair, the so-called "bear" transaction of May 22. The second was more unpleasing still. He admitted that he had told the story of the American Marconis privately to two friends on the Committee— Messrs. Falconer and Booth—who had kept the matter to themselves and had—or at least appeared to have—continually steered the Committee away from this dangerous ground. Rufus Isaacs' son actually says that his father "had informed Mr. Falconer and Mr. Handel Booth privately of these transactions, in order that they might be forearmed when the journalists came to give evidence."*