The unexpected release of Mr Howard-Wolferstan, after he had been held for three months in the Tower of London upon a charge of High Treason, gave rise to comment in which the readiness of a healthy democracy to argue from unjustifiable hypotheses was only equalled by the vehemence, no doubt legitimate, with which they were expressed. Had this document at that time seen the light, a clearer but not necessarily more favourable view of Mr Howard-Wolferstan’s motives and morals would have been available to such leaders of public opinion as are able to read with ease and accuracy. As it was, Mr Howard-Wolferstan being a prisoner on remand, the document was privileged. It could be, and in fact was, handed by him to his solicitor, but might not be divulged to the prosecution and still less to the public. The essential facts, however, were freely admitted in the prisoner’s statements to the police and in his markedly cordial replies to War Office interrogators.
