favours, Belcher's view was more relaxed, an attitude that Stanley was able to exploit. The gifts themselves were relatively small – a suit of clothes, a gold cigarette case, a week's hotel expenses in Margate – and Belcher saw nothing wrong in accepting them. He considered them as no more than gestures of friendship, that would not influence his decision-making in any way. He would later acknowledge that this attitude was "inadequate". Stanley was not Belcher's only provider of largesse; the distiller Sir Maurice Bloch, who was seeking licences for the importation of casks, presented the minister with dozens of bottles of wine, sherry and whiskey, scarce and highly valued commodities at the time. The licences were duly provided. Lynskey tribunal Rumours of possible corruption in the Board of Trade began to circulate during the summer of 1948. The Metropolitan Police began an investigation. On 27 October, Attlee moved a motion in the House of Commons to set up a tribunal, under the provisions of Section 1 of the Tribunals of Inquiry (Evidence) Act, 1921, to enquire into the rumours. Consequent to this motion, the Home Secretary, James Chuter Ede, appointed a High Court judge, Sir George Lynskey, to chair the tribunal, assisted by two King's Counsel. Belcher was asked to take leave of absence from his ministerial duties while the tribunal was in session. The function of the tribunal, it was said, would be to establish facts rather than to allocate blame or guilt. Hearings began on 15 November 1948, and continued until 21 December. Sixty witnesses testified during this time, but much of the focus of press and public interest was in the relationship revealed between Belcher and Stanley during the latter's testimony, which extended over fifteen hours. There were allegations that, apart from the gifts that Belcher acknowledged he had received, regular sums of cash had been paid to both Belcher and his wife, although no evidence was presented to support this. Despite the supposedly neutral nature of the tribunal, Belcher was subjected to a particularly harsh cross-examination by the attorney general, Sir Hartley Shawcross who, according to Lewis Baston's account of the proceedings, "had prosecuted Nazi war criminals at Nuremburg [and now] turned his aggressive courtroom tactics against a junior minister in his own government". Notwithstanding this treatment, there was general agreement that Belcher was a good witness who answered questions with candour and, occasionally, good