§ 22. Mr. RONALD McNEILLasked the Under-Secretary of State for War whether Mr. F. C. Bovenschen, a gentleman of German parentage, who was appointed by Lord Haldane to be his assistant private secretary while Secretary of State for War, was promoted to the position of a senior clerk in the finance department of the War Office on Lord Haldane's resignation of office as Secretary of State in 1912, and is still employed in that department; whether Mr. Bovenschen is of military age and whether he is a naturalised British sub- 454 ject; and if he will explain why an alien enemy, or a person of hostile origin or association, has been allowed to remain in employment at the War Office during the War?
§ Mr. MACPHERSONBefore the right hon. Gentlemen replies to this question, may I ask you, Mr. Speaker, if there are any means of preventing questions of this sort from being published in the public Press before the, appropriate answer is given? In this case Mr. Bovenschen, who is a distinguished public servant, a public schoolboy, and a double first at Oxford, has been for days—
§ Mr. SPEAKERThe hon. Member is quite in order in asking the question, but he is not entitled to make a statement. I am not a censor. I have no power of censorship by striking out questions which are against the public interest, or which convey unfair imputations on Members outside or inside this House. I have no control over them.
§ Mr. McNEILLMay I ask, Sir, whether you intend to rule that this particular question makes an unfair imputation upon anyone?
§ Mr. SPEAKERI do not know what the answer is going to be. My private information is that Mr. Bovenschen is a gentleman of the most undoubted loyalty to this country, and has deserved very well of his compatriots, and that this is a very unfair and unjust imputation upon him. That is only my private information, because I have never had any official communication with him.
§ Mr. McNEILLMay I ask you, Sir, whether we are to understand that we are not entitled to ask questions for the purpose of getting information? May I say that I ask this question in quite good faith for the purpose of getting information, having no such private information at my command as you, Sir, appear to have?
§ Mr. SPEAKERA very little research on the part of the hon. Gentleman would have given him all the information necessary.
§ Mr. TENNANTPerhaps I may be allowed to give the reply. Mr. Bovenschen's appointment to be a private secretary was on the initiative of has Departmental chief, and came in the ordinary course of office seniority amongst the qualified clerks. Advancement to be an 455 acting assistant principal—there is no such grade as senior clerk—had nothing to do with Lord Haldane, and took place several years after he had ceased to be Secretary of State. Mr. Bovenschen is, as stated, serving in the Finance Department of the War Office, which he entered by open competition in 1908. He is a natural born British subject. I understand that his mother is English and that his father, who is now dead, became a naturalised British subject in 1887. I can assure the House that the loss of so valuable a public servant, who is neither an alien enemy nor of hostile origin or association, as the hon. Member chooses to assert, would weaken the Department and would thus be of material assistance to the enemy.
§ Mr. McNEILLWill the right hon. Gentleman say whether this gentleman's father was a German? I understood him to say he was a naturalised British subject. Is he of German parentage?
§ Mr. TENNANTI have no knowledge. He is now dead. He became a naturalised British subject as long as twenty-eight years ago.