MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: I think nothing. I thought I was saving time. I begin to doubt it.
THE PRESIDENT: Mr. Justice Jackson, I think the Tribunal would like to know exactly how far your suggestion went. Were you really making any further suggestion than this: That the defendants’ counsel should not think it necessary to read every document in their document book in the course of the presentation of their defense, or were you intending to move the Tribunal to order that they should not be allowed to read any document in their document book at this stage?
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: I thought their document book should be directed to be filed as an exhibit at this stage of the case, without reading. I would not be particular about it if they have passages they think are of particular importance which they want to call to your attention, but this document book consists of speeches made 15 years ago and published in the press in every complete library in the country, largely, together with a good deal that has been excluded. It would seem to me that they should go in, so they are available to them, and that if there are matters in them which particular countries wish to object to, they might raise the question by motion to strike or raise it now if they desire. As far as the United States is concerned, we have no objection to any of it. I think some of it is highly objectionable on the ground of relevancy, but it would take longer to argue it and it goes to certain large questions of reprisals and things of that character that will have to be settled in larger ways than questions of admission of evidence.
THE PRESIDENT: Would you, on behalf of the Chief Prosecutors, have any objection or think it inadvisable to adopt the suggestion which Dr. Dix made that we should see how far the defendants’ counsel were prepared to limit the amount of the documents which they read at this stage and see how long it takes and see whether it is necessary to make any further ruling in order to accelerate the Trial?
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Well, I am quite willing to experiment, but I do suggest that we are now handed a document book containing a number of documents that the Court has passed upon, and, as I recall, Your Honor called Dr. Stahmer’s attention to this at the opening of his case. I do not have so much faith, perhaps, as I ought to have.
THE PRESIDENT: I think it is very likely that documents have got into Dr. Stahmer’s book by mistake, owing to the fact that he, being for the first defendant, there were some difficulties in preparation for instance, and I have already drawn attention to it. I think there is in Dr. Stahmer’s book—I am not quite sure—a speech of Mr. Paul Boncour which has been expressly denied by the Tribunal, and those are the sort of documents to which you are referring, no doubt. And I had to draw attention also in the case of one other counsel, I think, or one other witness to a document being put to him which the Tribunal had expressly denied. But of course, that is very wrong that any document should be put into a document book which the Tribunal has expressly denied, but as I say, I think that is very likely due to some mistake.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: I am quite ready, and I am sure my colleagues are, to experiment with this and see how it goes.
It is—and I think I should say this for all of us—it is a difficult thing where we come from different systems and do not always understand what the other man is driving at; it is a difficult thing to reconcile these different procedures, and I am quite willing to be patient and forbearing about it and see how it works.
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you.
You must quite understand, Dr. Stahmer, that I am not making any ruling on behalf of the Tribunal at this moment as to whether or not Dr. Dix’s suggestion will be adopted, because the Tribunal will proceed now to consider the matter, and then the ruling will be made.