ON 15th July, 1936, Mr. Oliver Locker-Lampson, M.P., a childhood friend of the Rothschild family, asked in the House of Commons whether the Attorney-General proposed to institute legal proceedings against the authors or publishers of The Fascist, the issue of that paper for July containing allegations against the Jews of the practice of ritual murder. The Attorney-General replied that the matter was under consideration.
As an ultimate result of this "consideration," I was sentenced to six months' imprisonment among criminals on 21st September, 1936, the Judge in the case being a 31st Degree Mason of the Scottish Rite. But it is important to note that the conviction was obtained, not on the ritual murder issue alone, which was not relied upon by the Prosecution for the purpose of silencing me, but on the whole contents of the July Fascist, and particularly on words used by me with reference to the disposal of the Jews.
Under the law of libel, the truth of my statements with reference to Ritual Murder could not be used as an argument in my defence; it was deemed sufficient under the law that the statements had been written, and that they "rendered His Majesty's subjects of Jewish faith liable to suspicion, affront and boycott" and so amounted to a Public Mischief.
I came to Court very fully prepared, if the truth of my statements was challenged, to justify the statements I had made in The Fascist, and was even ready to demand that "Rex," the prosecutor, should produce from the Public Records Office certain Close and Patent Rolls of the State wherein Jewish Ritual Murder is recorded as an established fact in this country! But I was forbidden by the Judge to use this line of defence; it did not matter who else had charged the Jews with ritual murder, or how often, or what historic facts proved it, or how many convictions there had been under proper juridical authority; thus, when I asked Inspector Kitchener, the only witness who appeared against me, "When you brought this case, were you under the impression that Ritual Murder was a thing of the past?" and he replied "Yes," the Judge intervened with the remark "The truth of a libel is no defense, I must point out again."
Again, the Attorney-General, who was acting as Prosecuting Counsel, interrupted another question of mine to the same witness, by the remark: "In my submission, it is correctly laid down that the defendant is in no case allowed to prove the truth of a seditious libel as a justification for having published it." The Judge then said, "That is the law as I understand it." He made it clear to me that to proceed further in such a line of defence would be contempt of court, as the "truth" of the "libel" was "irrelevant" to the issue of the trial! Such may be the law, but it is not justice!
The last thing the Judæo-Masonic Hidden Hand wanted was the truth about Ritual Murder!
Since I came out of prison on 6th February, 1937, I have, until recently, been too busy to write on the subject of Ritual Murder; but finding that there are, even among anti-Jewish workers, people who, never having investigated the matter for themselves, still imagine that Jewish Ritual Murder not only has not existed and does not exist, but is a fiction invented by crazy anti-Jewish fanatics, and as such, exploited by me, in my campaign against the Jews, it becomes necessary for me to take steps to defend my own reputation as a man of good faith by compiling and publishing this book.
What the court procedure prevented me from doing in my own defence, I do now in these pages, and I have no anxiety concerning the conclusions at which my readers will arrive on the matter.
The subject of Ritual Murder has always been one that the Jewish Money Power, which controls this country as well as most others, has taken all possible steps to suppress. The reason is that Ritual Murder was the dynamite which finally blew the Jew out of England in 1290, out of Spain in 1492, and out of Germany in our time. The Jews know it; and I know it too!
But there is no British law, and no 11th Commandment, which makes Ritual Murder by Jews a forbidden topic in this country. Sir Richard Burton's book about it was published shortly after his death near the end of the last century; Strack's book, defending the Jews against the accusation, was translated and published in England in 1909; whilst the Jew, C. Roth, published his Ritual Murder Libel and the Jew in 1935. In France, as in Germany, there is free speech on the subject.
I challenge and defy the Judæo-Masonic Power, which rules this country, by publishing the present work in 1938, not only in my own defence, but in the public interest to break the attack on Free Speech that is rapidly developing wherever any criticism of the past or present conduct of Jews is concerned, an attack which relies for its success upon the ridiculous charge that a breach of the peace is likely if the truth about them is spoken! I do so in order that the Jews shall not escape simply through the power of Money and Masonry from bearing the burden of a charge which, in my opinion, has been proved against some of them through the ages. My object is, and always has been, in spite of what my Masonic Judge had to say about it, to alter "a matter of State established," namely the status of Jews in this country on an equality with Britons, a condition which is imperilling our civilization, and to enlighten the public on their true nature as beings possessing instincts utterly incompatible with our own, so that they may be removed, legally and peacefully, to a National Home in which they will be required to live together. In this aim, I keep troth with the greatest of English kings, Edward I, who expelled the Jews from these shores in 1290.
The maintenance of Free Speech demands that Jewish Ritual Murder shall be a subject for open discussion, like Suttee and Thuggee and the sacrifices of Aztec Mexico, all of which were ritual murders which, like the Jewish variety, would be practised to-day if the Aryan had not interfered to prevent them. If the world thinks that I have not, in this book, proved my case, let it laugh! I can bear it! But can the Jews? The Jewish Chronicle (25th September, 1936) complained after my trial was over that there had been no opportunity for the Jews to refute the charge of Ritual Murder. Well, they have one now!
ARNOLD LEESE.
1st March, 1938.