I insisted that he read the warrant for my arrest
and with much grumbling he finally did so. It had been issued under
the Official Secret Act that had been rushed through the House of
Commons. I was charged with endangering the safeguards of the British
Empire.
I spent the night in the Glasgow City Prison, and was taken the next
day before a magistrate and formally committed to a sheriff's court.
On July 12 my case came up before the Sheriff's court. Waiving
preliminary examination, I was committed for trial to the Edinburgh
High Court. It is significant that the extreme length of a committal
without trial under British law is one hundred and five calendar days,
which hundred and five days up to the last minute I certainly waited.
They were trying to find out my antecedents but they did not succeed.
A letter from the Lord Provost informed me that all material for my
defense should be in his hands a day before the trial. I had no
defense. I neither denied nor admitted anything. I replied to his
Lordship that as I was unaware of any offense there was no need of any
defense. My attitude was a profound puzzle--which was as I wanted.
If you care to look over the back files of the English and Scottish
newspapers of the time you will read that my trial was "the most
sensational court procedure ever held in a Scottish court of justice."
Now I shall reveal every circumstance of it.
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