at at the first blush,
and regarding the matter superficially--if I may say so--it certainly
would seem that I had taken an unfair advantage of those fellows by
compelling them to speak the truth, and so `give themselves away', as
you expressively put it. Yet why, I ask you, should they not be made to
do so? Are evildoers to be permitted to shelter themselves from the
consequences of their misdeeds behind a protective screen of lies? Is
right to be handicapped in its battle with wrong by what, after all,
seems to me an overstrained if not altogether false sense of justice?
There can be little doubt that skilful criminals have escaped the just
punishment of their crimes simply because they have refused to
incriminate themselves. This, of course, is all right from the
criminars point of view; but is it right from the point of view of the
community, who look to the law to protect them from him? My own view--
which I give for whatever it may be worth--is that the criminal has no
right to be protected from himself. It is the interests of the
community and not of the criminal that have to be considered. If by
speaking the truth he furthers the ends of justice he ought to be
allowed to do so, ay, or even compelled, where compulsion is possible,
as in the case of these conspirators. Here we have certain men who, for
their own selfish ends, deliberately planned to plunge this Makolo
nation into all the horrors of civil war, and deluge it with the blood
of its own people; also, in pursuance of their plans they foully and
treacherously took the lives of six of the most important chiefs and
endangered that of a seventh. Were they `playing the game', or, in
other words, were they acting openly and above-board? On the contrary,
their acts were wrapped in secrecy, and were characterised by the vilest
treachery; and they would have been successful but for my intervention.
For it is certain that the facts could never have been brought to light,
had I not compelled Sekosini to speak the truth. That being the case,
how could their nefarious scheme have been defeated by our side playing
the game, if by `playing the game' you mean that we were not to compel,
or even permit them to incriminate themselves? To me it seems to
resolve itself into this--that if one side insists on playing the game
while the other side refuses to do so, the first must always suffer
defeat while the other triumphs; and where the side which insists on
pla