Mr. Ahlers was accused of assisting German reservists to return to Germany after the declaration of war. It was alleged that he sought out our enemies, impressed upon them the necessity of returning to Germany, and gladly paid their fares. The striking feature of the affair was, it is alleged, Ahlers' own statement, "Although naturalised, I am a German at heart."
On December 9th, the prisoner was convicted of high treason, and sentenced to death. Yet anything more farcical could not well be imagined, and was certainly well in keeping with the tactics of the Home Office. Mr. Ahlers was prosecuted for having "adhered to the King's enemies." Yet he had only, after all, succoured the King's enemies to the extent actually allowed to him by the Order in Council! As Mr. Justice Bankes justly observed at the appeal, it is abhorrent to the mind that a man should be sentenced to death for doing what the Home Secretary's circular expressly permitted.
As exposed in the Court of Appeal, the whole prosecution was simply another effort of the authorities to mislead and gull the public, and to play to the gallery.
When this amazing prosecution was undertaken, and the Solicitor-General was sent down to Durham to invoke the majesty of the law, the Home Office must have known that the Order in Council, issued by that same department, gave alien enemies—up to August the 11th—the right to leave our shores! Therefore Mr. Ahlers ought never to have been prosecuted and sentenced to death. What was presented to the public as a grim and terrible tragedy, turned out to be an amusing, though hollow comedy. Yet we find, even in the final scene at the Court of Appeal, the Solicitor-General gallantly protesting that the Order in Council had nothing to do with the case.
Of course, as the Press pointed out, had the matter been anything but the merest jest produced for the purpose of making the people of this country believe that the Government were at last tackling the spy peril in earnest, the Minister, or other official, who drew up the Order in Council might have found himself in an awkward position. It allowed alien enemies, without any distinction as to whether they were combatants or not, to leave this country and join the King's enemies for a full week after war had been declared, and whoever was responsible for it was much more deserving of condemnation than the unfortunate "German at heart."
But a further fact seems to have escaped the notice of the public. It is this. When the conviction for high treason had been obtained against Mr. Ahlers—a conviction improperly obtained—the Government, with their conscience awakened, hastened to prepare the public for the comedy by issuing from the Press Bureau the following illuminating communication:—
"The conviction of Ahlers is subject to appeal, the judge having granted a certificate of appeal on certain points of law which arose at the trial. The sentence of death was the only one which the judge could pronounce in accordance with the law on a conviction for high treason. If, on the appeal, the conviction is affirmed, the Secretary of State for Home Affairs will consider the question of advising a commutation of the death-sentence with a view to substituting a term of penal servitude or imprisonment."
The whole prosecution was a ghastly hoax, for Mr. Ahlers had committed no legal offence. The proceedings, so dignified and realistic, which resulted in him lying under sentence of death for a crime which he had not committed, was merely a hollow pretence in order to give a sop to the public.
It reflects no credit upon our authorities, whoever was responsible, and such proceedings are, surely, not in accordance with the high morality of British justice. It is important, however, as serving as yet another example of the pitiful rule-of-thumb methods which are being adopted towards this grave peril.