Mr. Piddington, K. C.’s Opinion
The following are the chief points made by this gentleman, who is not a member of the T. S., and therefore represents an impartial legal and public view of the moral issue at stake:—
My resignation is based on the ground that the Society ought to withdraw its invitation to Mrs. Besant until the matters involved in her defence of Mr. C. W. Leadbeater have been settled by a trustworthy tribunal.
Grave allegations were recently made against Mr. Leadbeater by Mr. Martyn [see ante, p. 18,] for his letter to Mrs. Besant, and Mr. Leadbeater’s precept and practice in the training of boys have been quoted. Mr. Martyn is supported by other reputable Australians.
Before landing here, and since, Mrs. Besant has refused any inquiry into these matters, and taken up positions which, in a teacher of morals disentitle her to be heard by an undergraduate society which exists for the pursuit of truth. These positions are:—
1. That there is a class of beings so high in the religious order that to accuse them is presumption on the part of the common people. Indeed accusations are ‘persecution,’ which proves the sanctity of these higher beings, and is (in Mrs. Besant’s words) the “seal of their apostolate.”
2. Mrs. Besant refers Mr. Leadbeater’s challengers to the courts, though to propagate in private the abominable tenet held by him does not constitute an offence against any law, but only against common decency as understood by ordinary men.
3. She writes that she does not believe, and will not discuss Mr. Martyn’s allegations, though she writes from India of what Mr. Martyn says happened in his own home in Sydney.
If these are good reasons for refusing to hold an inquiry, then immorality can be safely taught and practised in high places so long as the teacher belongs to Mrs. Besant’s way of thinking. From the public point of view such a claim cuts the ground from all morals.
In her letter to the Daily Telegraph [of Sydney] for May 18, Mrs. Besant asks the public to believe that Mr. Leadbeater has to meet charges relating to 1906 [see ante, p. 27], and disposed of [?] by some private investigation in 1908. The fact is ignored that Mr. Martyn’s accusations relate to conduct since 1914, Worse than this, the fact is suppressed that Mrs. Besant in 1913 was herself ordered by the Madras High Court to return to their father two boys whom she insisted in placing in Mr. Leadbeater’s care, in spite of the father’s protest. [See ante, p. 40]... Mr. Justice Bakewell said that, from Leadbeater’s evidence, he was “certainly an immoral person, and highly unfit to be in charge of the boys.” He also found that Mrs. Besant had violated her stipulation made with the father before parting with the boys, that they should have nothing to do with Mr. Leadbeater. (London Times, March 8, 1913.)
In the following year Mr. Leadbeater came to Australia and now “trains” Australian boys.
Mrs. Besant lent herself and her oratory to the acquittal, without evidence, of Mr. Leadbeater at a public meeting... In my view it is as bad to rescue a man from public justice (which is a wider term than criminal law) by the exercise of a dominating personal veto, as it is to do it by money or social or any other ‘influence’—‘influence’ which is the bane of any system of justice.... She may effect a master-stroke of salvage, but she offends every canon of fairplay, let alone of that ordinary morality by which all men, high or humble, must be content to be judged. These sombre facts stand out:—
1. Mrs. Besant’s chief colleague has stated as late as 1913 in open court that he still believed in teaching a detestable vice to boys, which he had previously taught them.
2. An English Judge for this reason declared him to be an immoral person.
3. Mr. Martyn accused Mr. Leadbeater of being still what the English judge said of him, and alleged fact upon fact in support of this.
4. Mrs. Besant has shielded Mr. Leadbeater from inquiry.
5. Mr. Leadbeater says nothing.