CAPTAIN CRAIGI beg to ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he can now state the result of his demand on the Russian Government for compensation to Mr. Luxenburg for wrongful arrest and imprisonment.
§ MR. J. A. PEASEThis case has been considered carefully in consultation with the Home Office and the Legal Advisers of the Crown. Mr. Luxenburg was arrested by mistake, kept in prison for a fortnight, and then released. There is nothing in international law on which we could found a claim to compensation as of right, nor is it the practice in this country to admit a claim when a man has been arrested by mistake and afterwards acquittal or released, though compensation has occasionally been given as an act of grace. In this case there is no doubt that Mr. Luxenburg has suffered severely from the conditions of his imprisonment, and in view of this fact, my right hon. friend is submitting the whole circumstances to the Russian Government, and is asking that some compensation should be given. He does not propose to publish Papers.