§ A certificate of exemption granted under Section two, Sub-section (1), of the principle Act on the ground of a conscientious objection to the undertaking of combatant service may be either absolute or conditional, but, where a conditional certificate is granted, the condition upon which it is imposed shall be the performance of some work of national importance that does not involve service under any military authority.
§ Clause brought up, and read the first time.
§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Clause be read a second time"
Mr. E. HARVEYMy hon. Friend (Mr. Morrell) has asked me to move this Clause for him, and perhaps it might be convenient to the Committee and the Government if it were made the occasion of a general Debate in regard to the question of the conscientious objector.
§ The DEPUTY-CHAIRMANI would point out to the hon. Member that when he rises to move a Clause standing in the name of another hon. Member, I must see that it is done with the consent of the Committee, and I, therefore, give that intimation in order to prevent this indulgence being quoted as a precedent.
Mr. HARVEYI only want to make the suggestion that it would probably save a good deal of time if we took the general discussion now, so that the various Clauses could be put without any intention of a prolonged discussion.
§ The DEPUTY-CHAIRMANI cannot give any ruling on the point. If it is desired—and it would seem the more convenient course—to take the general discussion now, I shall not withhold my consent.
Mr. HARVEYIn moving the Clause I hope that the Committee may be able to 1017 see that a very difficult situation has admittedly arisen in the administration of the Act with regard to the conscientious objector. It is very largely due to the questions raised by the position of the conscientious objector being so difficult that no system that I ever heard of can be expected to give an absolutely satisfactory solution. With the best intentions there must be liability to mistakes, in dealing with the conscientious objector, which cannot be avoided by any machinery of legislation. At the same time I think anyone who has studied the administration of the Act must have felt convinced that there have been a number of serious cases of miscarriage of justice. The inequalities of the decisions of the tribunals is an admitted fact, and it is one which the existing Act provides no remedy for, one set of tribunals deciding one way on a given set of facts, and another set of tribunals acting in a diametrically different way. There are cases in which there are most painful results. In one case a schoolmaster was taken from his school, though the wish was to retain him. He was taken off, and was granted exemption from combatant duties only. He was not willing to accept this, because he could not conscientiously accept that form of exemption, and he is now in a military prison. His place was immediately taken in the same school by another conscientious objector, who has already received in my own district, from a different tribunal, exemption conditional on his continuing to teach. The injustice of that particular case, which I happen to know, is so patent that I think anyone will feel that there ought to be some method of obtaining greater regularity of decision by those tribunals. I believe that those who are administering the Act in these tribunals themselves feel that there is this inequality, which the present Act does nothing to avoid.
But, over and above that, I think it must be admitted by anyone who has gone into a large number of these cases, that since the beginning of the Act very inadequate use has been made of the provision for exemptions conditional upon engaging on work of national importance. And quite a mistaken use has been made of the chief alternative form of exemption from combatant duties only. There are a certain number of men who feel that they cannot conscientiously undertake the duty of a soldier in the fighting line in the actual taking of life, but who may be able to undertake other military duties. The vast 1018 majority of conscientious objectors, however, cannot take that position. Their objection is to undertaking military service. The great majority of these men are prepared to take other service, even under very difficult conditions. They do not ask for an easy task or a soft job. That they cannot feel satisfied with the form of exemption which has been allowed by the tribunal is already shown by the large number of men who have gone through very severe hardships in consequence of the belief which they hold, thus proving the reality of their conscientious objection. Parliament did not intend that the sincere conscientious objector should have to go to a military prison in consequence of his creed. That is what is actually taking: place. It is bad for the Army and it is a trouble to the courts-martial that a number of extremely difficult cases which must be painful to the officers should have to be dealt with. It cannot be good for the discipline of the Army to have this very difficult problem introduced, and it certainly is not good for the men, because it must tend to produce a sense of injustice that men should be put into this position. It is not good either for the State or the individual. It is particularly bad for the nation which permits this to go on. In many cases these men are people who have given great service already to the community. In their spare time they do social work, and in some cases they have devoted the whole of their lives to work which is obviously of national importance. In consequence of the way in which the Act is administered they are taken away from where they are really useful and wanted and put into a military prison to be a cause of anxiety and trouble and ill-feeling. That cannot be a good thing, and I very much hope that the Government will find some way of dealing with it.
9.0 P.M.
It is quite clear that it ought to be made evident to tribunals that this form of exemption conditional upon undertaking work of national importance is the one which should be used in all cases of the kind, and that it is the form which will alone satisfy the convictions of the men in question. That has not generally been done in the past, and, unless it is, this problem will increase in gravity. Secondly, it is necessary that some way should be found of dealing with these men who, in many cases through quite pardonable ignorance, were given exemption from combatant duties only without the tribunal realising that that necessarily involved the 1019 man becoming a soldier. I know in one case a very distinguished chairman, after pronouncing that decision, said, "The new Government Committee can now deal with your case." He referred to the Committee appointed by the Board of Trade, but they were quite unable to do so. There were quite a number of cases brought to my notice where verbally the applicant was informed by the tribunal that they would be satisfied if he undertook work of national importance The certificate has been granted in the form of exemption from combatant duties only, and that has been quite useless for the purpose intended. I believe that in general the purpose has been that the men in question should engage in useful work. In one case I consulted the vice-chairman of an appeal tribunal on this point. I understand the President of the Local Government Board to consider that tribunals might be offended if decisions on this point were varied in any way. This gentleman informed me that no such thought ever entered into his mind and that in making that decision they merely wished to hand the man over to the Government so that they should decide to assign him some useful work, and that they had no intention to apply military machinery against which the man's conscience revolted. I think that was a common-sense attitude and I think in the name of common sense as well as of justice we ought to find a better way of dealing with this problem. This Clause makes it clear that where exemption is not absolute it should be conditional upon work which does not involve service under any military authority. If we only had this form in the Bill I believe that nine-tenths and perhaps ninety-nine hundredths of the difficulties which have arisen with regard to the conscientious objector would be swept away. It is a painful thing that such cases should exist. I am sure it is very painful to many of those in the Army who have to deal with these cases. Officers do not like to have to deal with these men and in some cases even the soldiers dislike it. I believe the whole institution of the non-combatant corps has been a most regrettable mistake. It was an honest attempt, no doubt, from one point of view to make use of service placed at the disposal of the Army, but it was made without any comprehension of the point of view which led these men to take con- 1020 scientious objection to military service. When the proposal was first brought forward it was treated with ridicule in the country, and I believe in the Army as well. I know that in France the very idea of a non-combatant soldier was treated with contempt as a contradiction in terms, as indeed it is, for if these men are soldiers they are necessarily part of the fighting forces, and it is really absurd to treat them as soldiers and at the same time have this peculiar exemption given to them respecting their conscience. Personally, I ask no easy position for the man who receives exemption. I do not think the great majority of them desire it. They are perfectly prepared to prove the reality of their convictions by undergoing sacrifices. At the moment the country is needing labour in all directions, urgently needing it in particular in the field of agriculture, it would be far more economical, and far juster and fairer, that the willing services of these men should be employed in fields in which their labour is required, in which they would gladly give their work, than that they should be made the cause of embarrassment to the Army and a source of bitterness to the country by unjust and unfair treatment under martial law, which was never framed to deal with such cases, and which was meant for a far different set of conditions. I very much hope that the Government will make it quite clear in some way that they may be able to meet these difficulties, and, if not by the form proposed, by some other method which, partly by administration and by necessary legislative change, may alter the situation and remove from this country this grave stigma of injustice.
§ Mr. C. HARMSWORTHI approach this subject from a point of view entirely different from that of my hon. Friend opposite, but although I am an out-and-out supporter of this Bill for present War purposes, I have felt it my duty to support some measure—I do not want to be precise—but some measure of alleviation of the difficulty in which the genuine conscientious objectors are placed. I have been in very close touch with three or four genuine cases—I do not want to put it higher than that, but in matters of conscience three or four genuine cases are very important—of conscientious objectors who are now undergoing very severe discipline and privation, and who as far as I know are prepared to go to extremities for conscience' sake. 1021 I do not share this prejudice myself. If I were of military age, and of military antecedents, I would very much rather be actively engaged in warlike operations than spending my time in this House. I do not share this prejudice. But there are a great number of other prejudices, perfectly honest ones, which also I do not share. We have during recent days seen an extraordinary uprising in Dublin, conducted as I believe by people acting under a conviction of some kind or another. I do not share it. If I may say so with great respect, my right hon. Friend near me (Sir F. Banbury) has deep-rooted convictions which I do not share, and which I find it almost impossible to understand.
§ Sir F. BANBURYMay I explain, then?
§ Mr. HARMSWORTHMy difficulty with my right hon. Friend in the past has been his too frequent explanation of his views. We all have political prejudices, and some of us have religious prejudices, which may be very unreasonable and very uncomfortable from the point of view of other people, but they are entitled to respect. At all events they are entitled to respect in this country of ours, and always have been respected. I am not sure that I ardently support this proposed new Clause, and I will say quite frankly that I will not go into the Lobby against the Government in respect of any Amendment on this subject. I am one of those Members of this House who are prepared to support the Coalition Government so long as they are not insupportable. But I submit to my right hon. Friend opposite that there is a case here which can very easily be met. I venture to suggest that one step at least might be taken, even if it were only with a view to securing some kind of uniformity. There is an Amendment later on the Paper in the name of the hon. Member for Leeds (Mr. T. E. Harvey), which, in point of fact, practically embodies a suggestion which I at one time ventured to make to my right hon. Friend. But I am not particular myself what measure is adopted. All I submit humbly and respectfully is that in some way or other this scandal must be removed. I hear of men being immured in darkened cells. I hear of their being thrown into irons. I hear of their being deported to France. I can only say that in my knowledge of our country's history, I cannot associate these mehods of discipline and punishment with genuine con- 1022 scientious objection. We are all anxious that the bogus objector should be frustrated, but I venture with all submission to the Treasury Bench to suggest that here is a case which ought very properly to be met by this Committee.
§ Mr. L. JONESI wish to join in the appeal to the Government to take some action in regard to the genuine conscientious objectors in different parts of the country. The number of conscientious objectors is not very large, but there are a certain number of people whom no amount of compulsion by Parliament will compel to take part in anything that savours of military action, and this House and the Government must provide in a measure of this kind for dealing with those cases. One of the main difficulties which have arisen under the working of the last compulsion Act has been the inequality of treatment dealt out to men of exactly similar opinions when they have come before the tribunals. I have in mind the case of three brothers who are all conscientious objectors on religious grounds. I have known the family for thirty years. They were brought up in a strict Nonconformist sect, hating all war; taught by their father to hate war. They are all conscientious objectors on account of their religion and past teaching. They are an extremely obstinate family. These three brothers—aged eighteen, twenty-two, and twenty-five, I think—have all been before tribunals, and declared against undertaking any sort of military service. What has been their fate? This is what I want to put to the Government with most emphasis. The brothers are in different parts of the country. One secured absolute exemption at the hands of his tribunal. The second was granted exemption from combatant service by the local tribunal. He appealed for absolute exemption, to which he thought himself entitled, and the Appeal Tribunal, not content with dismissing the appeal, actually said that he must go for combatant service. The third was sent to combatant service by the local tribunal. I defy anybody to distinguish between the religious opinions of these brothers. They hold exactly the same views, and put them in practically the same way. I do not share their views at all. I am not a conscientious objector. If I were a young man, I suppose I should be fighting with the other young men now. Therefore I am not putting it from that point of view. But the view is there, it is real, and I say that it 1023 is absurd and wrong that this House should allow men to be treated in this way. This unequal treatment is arousing more resentment in the country than any other feature connected with the matter. One of the brothers has got total exemption and the other two are in a military prison awaiting court-martial. I do appeal to my right hon. Friend to do something now which shall give greater equality of treatment for men of identical opinions. These cases are not very numerous. Our people are a fighting people. I have never believed very greatly in the statement of there being a large number of slackers—as some Members imagine. The men who hang back from the fighting, unless there is a great temptation, in some way or other to keep them back, is not a very large number in this country. You are not dealing with a very large class, but you are dealing with a class with whom compulsion is the worst possible method of dealing. I say that the Government, and the House—if we are fit for our places here in this legislature—are bound to devise some system by which we shall utilise for national purposes the powers of these people, which you will never get by forcing them to become part of your military system.
These three lads have all been taken from most useful work. Two of them are now in prison. One of them was employed on a farm School, where he was doing most necessary work for the country. The other was a gardener growing food for the country. They were doing necessary and useful work. If the work which they were doing was not satisfactory to the country it would be quite easy to draft them to work which they would be willing to undertake. All I want to say, and to say with all the emphasis I can command, is that you will never by compulsion make these men part of the military machine. You may put them into your military prisons. It is not them you will break. You will never get useful work out of them by trying to make them soldiers. You may get useful work out of them if you have the wit and wisdom to devise a scheme which will allow them to be employed apart from the military system. It ought not to be beyond the power and goodwill of this House to meet this comparatively small number of cases. They are not numerous, but they are very real. The failure to deal with them in the last Act created an amount of 1024 bitterness in the country that was considerable, and I implore the House not to allow this Bill to become an Act of Parliament without dealing more thoroughly with this question.
§ Sir A. SPICERI would not like to pass this matter by in silence. There are a great many of the conscientious objectors with whom at the present time I am not in sympathy, but there are those with whom I have been working for many years of my life, and with whom I hope to continue to work. I cannot, however, shut my eyes to the fact that there has been, I think, a good deal of injustice, because of inequality of treatment. There is no doubt that there was a great deal of misapprehension as to what was permitted to conscientious objectors under the first Act. A great many of those with whom I have been in correspondence overlooked completely the fact that the tribunals might give exemption. There is no doubt a very large number of objectors believed that the first Act enabled them to get exemption if only they could show that they were genuine conscientious objectors. On the other hand, I know from long experience and correspondence with them that a great many of them must have been uncommonly trying people for the tribunals to deal with. They are the sort of men who put one's back up, and I am not at all surprised that a great many of them do not in the least realise our military necessities.
The correspondence that I get shows that they have not attempted really to read the statements that have been made by responsible Ministers in regard to the subject. They write on the evidence of those newspapers which are friendly to their side, and they do not, and will not, look at the other side. At the same time they are good and true men in their way, and we want to find some way by which they shall be enabled to do important work for the country at a sacrifice, for we have no right to let them off. If they are not willing to go into the fighting line, we have no right to let them off with an easy job. Personally, I maintain that we are fighting for our own liberty. Therefore the State is justified in taking away a man's liberty for the time being. At the same time, I do not think it ought to be beyond the wit and wisdom of our Government to find some equality of treatment that, as I say, shall not allow them off with an easy job, but shall give them something 1025 to do of a real importance to the State. After all, we have to do with all sorts of people in our individual lives. We come across these people who are difficult to deal with. We have to live with them, and we have to try and find some method which shall enable them to be employed usefully, even if they are not willing to go into the fighting line. I do hope the Government may be able to devise some method to meet this difficulty, which, in many cases, is growing to be a scandal in some parts of the country. I am not at all surprised that these people are difficult to deal with. So many of them will not realise the position of the country at the present time and the military necessities of the case.
§ Major NEWMANI was very glad to hear that the hon. Member for West Leeds agrees with me as to the non-combatant corps. I made a fairly strong speech some weeks ago and the hon. Member gave me no support on that occasion. I am glad he supports me on this occasion. I confess that I did not think much of the proposal of the Government in respect to the non-combatant corps, and I am very glad that the hon. Member for West Leeds agrees with me it has been a failure. He tells us—I think quite frankly, fairly, and truthfully—that these conscientious objectors do wish to be employed in some form of useful service. They want to give willing service, to give heart service. I do not know exactly what he means by that. So far as I can make out; what they are willing to do is something in agriculture or forestry, or some form of local government service by relieving the men who have gone to the front. That is not a really noble ambition. We talk about agriculture being for the national service as an employment for men. It is not, really, because we have thousands of women coming forward now willing to do hard agricultural work. Surely the hon. Member for West Leeds must wish something better than that these men should merely shelter themselves from the bullets of the enemy by engaging themselves in agriculture. We have also the hon. Member for Luton, who talks about a scandal which must be removed, about conscientious objectors being put into darkened cells—some of them in irons—and others deported, to France. What does he mean by being deported to France? I have been deported to France as a soldier. He means that a man has been deported to France in a non-combatant corps. There 1026 is no case of deportation there. He was sent to a non-combatant corps specially devised for him, and, having done some short period of training, he has gone to do his duty as a soldier in that particular form in which he was ordered to do it. It is not a case of being deported.
§ Mr. C. HARMSWORTHI must distinguish between a man who goes to France as a conscientious objector, hating the whole business, and probably wholly useless from any military point of view, and my hon. and gallant Friend who goes there in a martial spirit.
§ Major NEWMANThese men, when they go out to France, will be made use of for road-making and other things, not very glorious work, but still it will be work, and I say you cannot speak of a man being deported to France if put in a corps in England and ordered out to France. It is not fair to the British Army to talk of a man being deported to France wearing the uniform of the King. The hon. Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. L. Jones) had a good deal to say, but let me remind him that we get before the tribunals a great many individuals with very queer consciences and not the clear consciences he talked about. For instance, a tribunal close to my Division had before them the case of a youth who had been employed as a clerk in the War Office, and in the War Office he would have remained if he had not been combed out by the process which a great many Departments are undergoing at the present time, and he had it up to him then to become a soldier, and he at once developed a conscience. Here is a man in the War Office who is combed out, and gets a conscience at once. He appeals on conscientious grounds, objects to even being given non-combatant service, and appeals to this Commission on work of national importance to get him a job which will take him away from non-combatant service to munition work. Is that really a fair case for a tribunal to have to deal with?
§ Mr. L. JONESMay I point out that ten men who are hypocrites do not justify punishing or ill-treating one really conscientious man, and the difficulty of the problem, I agree, is to distinguish between the man who is a conscientious objector and the man who is a shirker.
§ Major NEWMANAm I to gather from that that this particular gentleman was a humbug?
§ Major NEWMANIf I may suggest, the only people to be pitied in the whole of this unfortunate business are the tribunals themselves, and therefore I welcomed the speech from the hon. Member on the Front Opposition Bench. You have a dozen, or perhaps less, local men drawn from quite ordinary walks of life, perhaps, and formed into a tribunal before whom come these people with a conscience—a perfectly new state of things—and these ordinary local men have got to deal with these gentlemen and their conscience. They are put in a very onerous and disagreeable position, and what we ought to do to-night, if we possibly can, is to devise some method to make the work of these tribunals easier when dealing with conscientious objectors. Only yesterday I had the honour and good fortune to introduce a large deputation of conscientious objectors from my Division who came to see me in this House. They were a gathering of about twenty—a mixed gathering, if I may so with respect. One was a Tolstoyian, one an Agnostic, two were Socialists, and others were, at any rate, men with consciences. They were electors of mine, but I do not know if they voted for me. I had an hour's very pleasant and interesting talk. We talked the thing round and round in every conceivable way. I put it to them very strongly what was the difficulty of these tribunals. Their complaint was against the tribunals. They said these tribunals did not give them a fair chance, and did not hear their evidence, and would not read the letters. One tribunal let a conscientious objector off, while another tribunal, perhaps only a few miles away, would not hear the case of a conscientious objector at all, and they wanted some uniformity of treatment. After a very long talk I drafted a Clause, which is on the Paper, and if I get the chance, or if the Chairman will allow me to move it, I shall very gladly move it. If it is carried it will, at any rate, give the tribunals some sort of a lead, and the conscientious objector some sort of idea of what he has got to do if he wants to get off. I notice the hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr. Snowden) shaking his head. I only wish the deputation had seen him; then perhaps he would have put his name to that Clause as well. At any rate, the Clause would be a method which would help the tribunal. I confess I cannot vote for the new Clause 1028 moved by the hon. Member for Burnley, and I only trust I may have an opportunity of moving my own.
Colonel HENDERSONI have probably had as much experience in attending Appeal Tribunals as anyone in this House. It has been stated that there is a differential treatment before different tribunals. I certainly agree that there may be in different parts of England, but, so far as the South of England is concerned it is nearly always consistent. The difficulty which occurs is how these men can find employment of national importance, and I put a question to my right hon. Friend yesterday asking him that a list of these men might be kept and made available for employers who have work of national importance for them to perform. These men largely exist in the urban areas, and the work of national importance which appeals to me in the first instance is the production of food, and if something could be done to have an organised list, so that farmers, or persons producing food could avail themselves of the services of these conscientious objectors, I feel sure that these men would thereby be put to really good use. A tribunal presided over by a very well-known gentleman holding very different views from my own in politics, has at the times when I attended the tribunal over which he presided, always urged that these men were not to have employment in their own locality. Other people have got to be put to the discomfort of a foreign country, and he insisted that they should go well away from their own homes to do good work elsewhere, and that they must not be given any particular facilities for work near their own homes. I think there is a great deal in it. Incidentally, I would remark that I was rather struck at a tribunal I attended the other day to find that out of seven cases I heard tried three were conscientious objectors who held no particular religious views, and had married within the last four months. I cannot help thinking that the new state of matrimony had influenced their consciences, and I cannot help thinking that these men should not be given a particular advantage over men who have signified their willingness to fight; but I do hope where work of a useful nature can be found for them—and I say that agriculture has first claim upon them—they should be made available for those who are producing food for the country. I hope a list of men holding these views may be made available, and that men may 1029 be immediately put to what I believe to be very useful work, namely, to reinforce that class of the community which has already contributed, I believe, a very fair quota to the service of the State, I mean the industry of agriculture, and replace those men as far as possible.
§ Mr. J. W. WILSONI do not want to go over the ground which others have laid before the Committee this evening. The hon. Member in moving this Clause put many of the difficulties very clearly before the House. One of the great causes of discontent and dissatisfaction to those who were watching the proceedings of the tribunals and to the tribunals themselves is the great inequality of judgments and verdicts which are given as between one part of the country and another, and even as between adjoining districts. Another reason for the difficulty which has been experienced is that there was considerable haste in getting the tribunals to work and organised, and many decisions had to be given before full instructions were able to reach them from the Local Government Board. By his repeated new instructions the right hon. Gentleman has gradually made the course for the tribunals clearer and clearer, so that in many cases the decisions given in the last month have been much more uniform, and I contend more in the spirit in which it was intended the Act should be administered than the earlier decisions. But the fact remains that a very large number of tribunals have set themselves to agree, when a conscientious objector proves his case, it was not what degree of exemption he should have, but he should just have exemption from combatant service, and that was taken as a matter of course. That has led to a great many difficulties. Some men are quite ready to join the Royal Army Medical Corps or to give non-combatant service, but none of these things meet the case, and the country does not sympathise with the position of these men, although they are ready to render service to the State provided it is not military service. There have been one or two plans. One or two channels are being used for some of these men, and tribunals are now referring them to the Pelham Committee and other similar bodies who devise or find work suitable for this class of objectors. In the interests of true economy it is much better to find these men work they can do in England where labour is short than sending them abroad. It is 1030 not a case of deporting them abroad. I know some of them have had to be conducted abroad under escort.
§ Major NEWMANThey are liable to be shot.
§ Mr. WILSONYes, they are liable to be shot, and that is what has been causing so much anxiety. Not long ago an attack of measles stopped a number of them going across under conditions in which they would have refused service. I am now speaking from an economic point of view. With regard to these committees or the efforts of individual tribunals to satisfy the applicants by authorising work of national importance, I contend that it is not possible to carry that out either by the tribunals or any independent committee that is set up, because they are up against the question that if a man says, "I am doing work of national importance and I claim exemption," they have to face the question either of refusing him or allowing him to stay in his work of national importance. The man draws the wages he has been getting hitherto, and that places him in a better position than the man who has had to enlist as a soldier. But they are not bound to leave a man where he lives. A tribunal cannot undertake the administrative work of shifting a man to another part of the country even if they give him time to find a job himself. Even then he may get a job just as remunerative as his other job. I contend that a practical test for conscience is whether the man is willing to make a sacrifice. Take, for example, the committee I have been working upon for several days a week. There we are up against the difficulty at once. If we put these men on to transport work, dock work, or farm work, we have to face the fact that we are giving them wages which are better than the soldiers are receiving, or else we are putting them out at a lower wage, which is sweating the labour market,, and that is an undue advantage to the employer who takes them. It is the Government and the country's finances that ought to benefit by these conscientious objectors. Only a Government Department ad hoc, the Board of Trade or the Local Government Board, are able to undertake gang labour. I would suggest that you should have transport brigades or dock brigades, pay them no more than soldiers, and when you come to married men you will have to give a separation allowance, but take them away from their 1031 home, put them to some work of national importance, and see that their lot, from a financial point of view, is not better than the soldiers. That is a test which the Government alone can apply, and no committee is able to do it without trespassing in one direction or another.
§ Mr. LONGHow can we do that? It is an extremely interesting suggestion, but will my right hon. Friend go on and explain how, having set a man to this particular class of work in those conditions we are to keep him there, what is to be the treatment and the method? All these things come back to the power of compulsion. We may order the men to go and order that they shall not be paid more than a certain sum; but supposing they dislike the work, are we to resort to compulsion, which means, of course, shooting them? You are going to say to them, "You must stick to that job," and if he does not do it you must either put him in prison, shoot him, or let him go.
§ Mr. WILSONI feel to a certain extent that my proposal may be open to criticism.
§ Mr. WILSONBut I thought I made it plain that I am speaking on behalf of the willing server who says, "I am willing to give service to my country, providing it is civil service and not under the military machine." Personally, I should have thought that a Government Department, either the Local Government Board or the Board of Trade, or a Department organised for the purpose, was just as well able to manage these men and just as economically likely to manage them as the prison warder or the military officer at the front. The War Office has to organise them by six months' training, but any organisation the Government started for providing them with civil work could be created in six weeks. The exemption which they would receive from the tribunal would certainly be conditional upon their obeying orders and upon their remaining on this civil work of national importance. There are some, I quite admit, though they are not in the majority, who would say, "I am not able to render either military or civil service." I am not speaking of them. By weeding out those willing to serve, and turning their labour to profitable account in the country, I believe the Government would have the sympathy of the country 1032 with them instead of antagonising it by mixing up the willing and the unwilling and putting them all in prison, or going to the extent of trying to compel or force them into unprofitable labour which they are unwilling to do.
§ Mr. MORRELLI would like to say, in the first place, how very much gratified everyone must be at the tone of the Debate with regard to these men, and our hope is that it may really lead to some solution of the problem. It is a problem which the Government ought not, and cannot properly, leave alone. You may break the bodies of these men, but you cannot destroy their spirit, and, if there is anything like persecution, it will finally react to the disadvantage of the country. I do not want to pursue that, because it may be a controversial topic, and I do not want to use language which may be of a controversial kind. I would like to put three points with which I think the Government might well be asked to deal. In the first place, something might be done to improve the procedure of the tribunals. They have had a very difficult task, and a great many that I have come across have done their work well. There are other instances where they have done their work badly, but I have never brought a general charge against them. I would venture to suggest that some of those temporary circulars which the right hon. Gentleman has sent out might in time, at any rate, be partially put as Regulatons, whch would more or less have a statutory binding on these tribunals.
The second point has been dealt with already at great length in this Debate. It is acknowledged on all hands that this idea of non-combatant service under military authority is not a satisfactory way of dealing with the conscientious objector, and I want to know whether you could not have some alternative service of national importance under civil control for those who will not accept non-combatant service as meeting their case. There would always be the condition that if they refused to do the work they would be dealt with as men who were liable to imprisonment. I believe that a large number of these men would be perfectly willing to do work of national importance such as the hon. and gallant Gentleman opposite (Colonel Henderson) has described if they were convinced that it was under civil control and not under military control. I cannot see why it would be very difficult for the Government either by a new Clause in 1033 this Bill or even by administrative Order to see that carried out. You might still have the Non-Combatant Corps for those conscientious objectors who say they will accept non-combatant service, but would it not be better to face this problem and find civil work of national importance for those who find it against their conscience to put on khaki and go into the Army—I do not agree with them—and who refuse and will not submit? Let me give two instances. Two brothers, dairy farmers, carrying on useful work, were given non-combatant work in the Army. They refused to do it, and they are now in gaol doing no work at all, when they might be doing useful work producing butter for the nation. Is it not a waste that these men should be kept in irons in the cells because you offer a form of service which will not meet their case? You may say that they are unreasonable and obstinate, but is it not worth while, if you set out to meet the case of the conscientious objector, to endeavour to do it more thoroughly than you are doing it at present?
There is one more point with which we might reasonably ask the right hon. Gentleman to deal. There is the case of men who have been before a tribunal, who have not got any relief, who are now in the Army, and who have proved the sincerity of their conscientious objection by the fact that they are willing to undergo these penalties and this persecution—you can hardly call it by any other name—rather than obey orders which they believe to be wrong. These men, although the tribunal may not have admitted it, have proved by their suffering and endurance that they are, in fact, conscientious objectors. I think we might reasonably ask the right hon. Gentleman not to retry their cases, but at any rate to extricate them and bring them before some other Court and give them the choice of some work of an alternative character. Then, if they are still obstinate, nobody would ask that they should be let off altogether. Let them be imprisoned in a civil prison. By all means punish them for refusing to be soldiers if it is the law that they should be soldiers, but punish them by civil means and not by trying to make them soldiers against their will, because if you do you will bring considerable dishonour upon this country by appearing at any rate to be guilty of persecution of a very disagreeable kind. I am perfectly certain, and I am sure everybody in this House must be certain, that it would be to the advantage of the Army— 1034 all the military authorities I have come across admit it—to get this problem dealt with once and for all satisfactorily. They do not want to have these men on their hands, threatening the discipline of their corps or unit. I know the commanding officers of these regiments do not want to have the disagreeable task of having these men brought before them and having to put them into irons when, however wrong-headed they may be, they are acting for conscience sake. I do, for the sake of the Army as well as for the sake of Parliament and the country, make an appeal to the right hon. Gentleman to find some way out of this problem with which we are now faced.
§ Sir G. YOUNGERI am very sorry I had not the privilege of hearing the speech of the President of the Local Government Board, but I gather the line he took from a reference which I have heard made to that speech. I do not suppose there are any two Members in this House who know more about the difficulties of this question than my right hon. Friend the Member for Blackfriars (Mr. Barnes) and myself, because on the Appeal Tribunal we have had a number of very difficult and troublesome cases to deal with. We have endeavoured most conscientiously to examine into every case. We have been most particular in having the papers carefully read by two of the members of the tribunal before we sat upon a case. We have not only done that, but where we have had some doubt as to whether or not the objection was really honestly taken we have had the man before us and have cross-examined him, I hope, in a very courteous way. There are two obvious difficulties before us in this matter. There are certain conscientious objectors who are perfectly content to be excluded from combatant service. But there is another class who will not undertake either combatant or non-combatant service. There are certain religious bodies which permit non-combatant service, while others exclude all kinds of service under military control. There are men who go so far as to object to any kind of service, and some are grossly illogical in respect of the fact that they work in munition factories, and the religious body to which they belong does not seem to take any exception to their doing it. We have actually had to deal with a case where a man born and brought up in Birmingham has thought it natural to engage in the production 1035 of shells and guns, and it has never occurred to him that that was contrary to his professions of faith. That man appealed, but we left him where he was as we thought that, after all, he was performing the best possible service.
There are cases where we are bound to exempt the objector, and there we have done our best to satisfy ourselves that the objector is perfectly honest. The Act of Parliament tells us to do that, and the House of Commons intended that we should do it. We have conscientiously acted upon that. That is all very well, but when we relieve the men from both combatant and non-combatant service we are faced with the difficulty of finding him employment on work of national importance. We feel that we require some assistance in that. In many cases what, we do is to give the individual a month's law to find an occupation of national importance which we can accept as such. But then the difficulty arises that you cannot follow that man, and I am going to propose an Amendment on behalf of the Central Appeal Tribunal— I am sorry it is not on the Paper—with the object of getting us out of the difficulty and to enable us to follow that man when we have sent him to some work of national importance in order to see that he either remains at it or, if he leaves it. that he goes to some other business which we can accept as being within the same category. We are faced at once with this difficulty, unless the House of Commons agrees, as I hope it may do, to relieve us of Sub-section (3) of Clause 2 of the original Act, which was put into that Act in the interests of the workmen, so that they may not be compelled at a specified place. We are under that Subsection precluded entirely from saying That a man must remain in the same kind of occupation. We cannot specify that he shall go to this person, or that person, and remain there, and unless that stipulation is cancelled in so far as the conscientious objector is concerned, the difficulty will remain, and it will be impossible for us to carry out, as we desire to do, the provisions of the Act of Parliament. There is no intention of using our powers in the least degree harshly.
I think the hon. Member for Leeds will agree that in these cases the objector ought to be put to a certain amount of inconvenience. If a man is teaching mathematics he will not suffer, although 1036 it may be considered—I do not so consider it—to be a business of national importance. He will be allowed to remain where he was. I do not think that is sufficient. I think he ought to be removed elsewhere. He ought to be called upon to make some sacrifice, and not be left in the position to do his work comfortably at home. I listened with the greatest interest to the suggestion of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Worcester (Mr. Wilson), and I did so for this reason. Only to-day we invited Mr. Pelham, Chairman of the Pelham Committee, to meet us in order to see whether we could not come to some kind of understanding about adumbrating a system by which to secure that these men can be placed in some business nationally useful, and not only that, but to keep a register of them, keep an eye on them, have constant reports about them, and, if they leave the employment to which they are sent, find some other work for them which can be equally approved by the Central Appeal Tribunal. I think we ought to have a committee or tribunal of some kind set up to do this, because it would be too big a task for us to undertake. A system of proper registration and proper control and inspection would involve a large amount of labour, which I know Mr. Pelham and his committee, anxious as they are to discharge it, fear would snow them under. I would, therefore, press upon the right hon. Gentleman the desirability of considering the suggestion made by the right hon. Gentleman for Worcester, and as far as the Central Tribunal are concerned, I am sure they will give every possible assistance in carrying it to a satisfactory conclusion.
§ 10.0 P.M.
§ Mr. LONGIt is a great satisfaction to me that this Debate has been conducted in substance and in tone in a way which must bring relief to all of us who realise that this is one of the most controversial questions that can be debated by Parliament. It is a question which is not only controversial, but which is probably less agreeable to debate in Parliament than almost any other question. It is a question which is closely allied with those religious differences which occasionally divide Members of the House of Commons. All of us invariably feel that the House of Commons is probably the last place in the world which we would select in order to discuss those questions, which 1037 are very much the personal possessions of the individual rather than the property of the community as a whole. I think I may claim that I have had as much experience of the difficulties of the conscientious objector question as anybody in the Committee during the last few weeks. I have had it before me in every phase, and I realise its difficulties, perhaps, more than some of those who have spoken to-night, although all of those who have spoken to-night have appreciated the difficulty, and have approached the question with an honest and a sincere desire to find a solution.
May I first of all summarise the criticisms of or objections to the present system which have been stated to-night. There was the hon. Member for West Leeds (Mr. E. Harvey), whose speech, unfortunately for myself, I did not hear because I happened to be absent from the Committee at the time. I have heard him often on this question, and have discussed it with him, and I know, as everybody knows, that he is absolutely sincere with regard to it, and that he is really anxious to help those who believe that they are doing their duty in the highest sense of the word in refusing to perform any service which is connected with militarism in any shape or form. Therefore, I very much regret to have missed his speech, but my right hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor-General was good enough to make notes of it for me. I gather that his two main criticisms were that the tribunals vary, that the opportunity of the adoption of work of national importance is not to any extent largely used, and that the fact is ignored that many of these people object altogether to military control over the service they are called upon to render. I am very glad to find that, generally speaking, there has been no tendency to attack or condemn the tribunals. It is quite true that their decisions vary. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear!"] Yes; but if their decisions vary, so do the conscientious objectors' vary. I can assure the Committee that if they had read, as I have had to read, long reports in different newspapers—it is not enough to read the report in one paper if you want to get an accurate representation of the facts—if they had read, as the hon. Gentleman and I have read, long reports in different newspapers of these inquiries where they have been held in public, they would find in many cases that if the con- 1038 scientious objectors failed to obtain what they regard as justice, the fault, if fault there be, rests with them and not with the tribunals.
I can assure the Committee that many of these so-called conscientious objectors —whether they are those for whom my hon. Friend the Member for West Leeds pleads, or whether they belong to those who seek to take advantage of the conscientious objection as a means of escape, I am not going to say—come before a tribunal, they lecture it, they assume an air of superiority, and they claim that they have some divine right to assume a position superior to that adopted by the great majority of their fellow-citizens. It is not extraordinary that in these circumstances the tribunals very often deal with their cases in a peremptory manner and that the result is a feeling of injustice on their part, a feeling of great irritation on the part of the tribunals, and the impression derived by Members of this House and the public that there is something wrong somewhere. As has happened to-night, when there is something wrong somewhere, it is the Government who have to find a way out and who are to be criticised if they do not find it. We have had these criticisms from the hon. Member for West Leeds. The hon. Member for Bedfordshire (Mr. Cecil Harmsworth) made a very interestiing speech, in which he concurred with those who realised the difficulties, and said he was not prepared —I am very glad to hear it—to vote for this particular Amendment, but ended his speech by saying that the Government must find a way out. Through all the speeches it really is the same thing—the Government has got to find their way out. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear!"] I will come to that in a moment. The Government are entitled to ask that, in finding a way out, they should receive more practical assistance than they have received to-night. Hon. Members are very fond, in various Debates here and outside, of explaining that the Government is a collection of the stupidest people they have ever come across, and some of them are not averse from declaring that they themselves have a monopoly of all the brain-power. In these circumstances it is not unreasonable that I should ask for a larger contribution to the solution of the difficulty and a smaller contribution to the statement of the difficulty than we have had this evening.
1039 There were two speeches we have had to-night to which I listened with unqualified pleasure and which really did put the difficulty in a fairer light than it has been put before. One was the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Hackney (Sir A. Spicer), and the other that of the hon. Member for Bedfordshire. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Hackney really hit the nail on the head when he said that the main cause of the inequality that we all admit, namely, the want of uniformity in the decisions of the tribunals is that the tribunals are in a difficulty owing to the manner in which the petition is put before them. One speaker to-night, in replying to an interruption, said that you must distinguish whether the man on whose behalf you are speaking is a genuine objector or not. If anybody would produce a formula by which we could distinguish between the genuine conscientious objector who is acting from high motives—although they are motives I am wholly unable to understand —who says that his conscience compels him to refuse to do anything of a military nature, and the man who takes advantage of it as an excuse to avoid fighting, to which he has an objection for some other reasons, we should have solved more than half this difficulty. We have had two sets of suggestions. One is that we ought to find employment. There is no difficulty about finding employment. Men are wanted for work. In almost every industry in the country there is room for more labour than they can get at present, and any conscientious objector who obtains relief from the tribunal on the condition that he is engaged on work of national importance can find work of national importance if he is willing to do it. There is no sort of difficulty in his way.
But then comes the question on what terms are you going to send these men to that kind of employment. Let the Committee bear in mind what is the problem that we are asked to face. It is that men for conscience sake decline to bear their share of the common burden of citizenship, the burden, which ought to fall upon every man according to his strength, equally of defending the privileges, the liberty, the rights, the lives of his country and of his people. They decline to do that for conscience sake. Then we are told that you should pass them into employment. I am dealing now with cases which get relief 1040 from the tribunals, cases where the tribunals admit that the contention is sustained and they give relief. Then we are told there is difficulty in finding them work. There is no difficulty in finding them work. There is work of national importance waiting for every man to do who is willing to do it. But what happens? In nine cases out of ten the work which the individual gets is not work which he thinks to be of national importance for him to perform. Here is one case. A man occupies a respectable position in a leading profession. He is a conscientious objector. He appears before the tribunal, which gives him exemption on condition that he takes up certain work. He does not rest content with the decision. He writes to say this is not what I regard as the kind of national work to which I ought to be sent. It is all very well to say, as some hon. Members do, "Deal with that man at once. You can withdraw his certificate." But if you withdraw his certificate are you meeting the difficulty that my hon. Friends have raised and which is supposed to be met by this Amendment. The conscientious objector says, "I will not serve in any service which is under military control." Then we have to find work that he will do. You have no system at all, and it is no good telling the Government we ought to find it. How are you going to find it? What do you propose? Behind the law there is force, and it is no good saying you can tell a man he is to do particular work unless you can secure that he is doing it. The right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Wilson) drew as his illustration work that is done under prison drill, and so on. But if we are to devise something in the shape of penal settlements, is it possible to do this in the middle of a war? I am not seeking to evade the responsibility of government, but I am trying to make the Committee understand what are the practical difficulties that come before us every day, and if they appreciate that they will appreciate the reason why up to the present, at all events, we have not been able to find a solution. The difficulty in regard to the men who get exemption is infinitesimal, because there is work for them to do. If they are willing to do it there is no difficulty at all. The difficulty disappears. Do not let the Committee run away with the idea that the great majority of these men are men who are willing to do any task that you set them, 1041 and to do it in the same conscientious way that they make their objection to military service. A great many of them raise every sort of difficulty. They say the work is not work that is suited to them. They say the work is not work of national importance. My right hon. Friend suggests that we should form them into brigades and send them to work for certain purposes. I ask the Committee to consider what would happen if you form these men into brigades when you have no control over them, no power of discipline and no power of punishment. Unless the Committee are prepared to say that we are to establish disciplinary divisions or brigades or penal settlements to which these people are to be sent, they must realise that the difficulty of compelling the men to work is as great as the difficulty of compelling them to fight.
§ Mr. L. JONESNo.
§ Mr. LONGIt is all very well to say no. But will anybody tell me if a man says, "I will not work," what we are to do? Send him to gaol?
§ Mr. L. JONESI only said "No" because the right hon. Gentleman said the difficulty of making these men do civil work was as great as making them do military work, and I think that to be a great overstatement. They object to military discipline, no doubt, but the real difficulty is in making them part of the military machine.
§ Mr. LONGNo, if that was the case this problem would be quite easily solved. But that really is not the case. It is not true that the majority of these people object to military control. They claim to have a conscientious objection to military service. Well, those who are given complete exemption, and on whose behalf a great deal has been said to-night, have got work waiting for them. Why does anyone complain of that? Why does any single man who has got absolute exemption find anybody here to-night to make a complaint for him?
§ Mr. LONGDo I understand that nobody does? I am very glad to hear that. There is no complaint then in regard to those who have got complete exemption on condition they are performing national service.
§ Mr. SNOWDENmade a remark that was inaudible in the Reporters' Gallery.
§ Mr. LONGOh, yes, the exemption is dependent upon the man performing national service. I am discussing this on the line on which it has been discussed to-night. Are we to assume that men are to get exemption on conscientious grounds and be allowed to do nothing for the service of the State? If that is the condition, I am not going to waste a moment of time in considering it; that is a problem which I will leave to others. That has not been discussed by anyone here to-night. We have been discussing the way in which you are to find work of national importance for men who object to military service. I say that for the majority of these men there is work waiting for them to do. These are not the real difficulties. These are not the cases which hon. Gentlemen who undertake the cause of the conscientious objector really have in mind. What have all the questions referred to that have been addressed to me and others? They have referred to the men who, as thy say, are in military gaols; the men who have been before the tribunals, who have failed to obtain relief at the hands of the tribunals, and we are. asked to find some special way of dealing with them. Why? This question of the recalcitrant recruit is not a new one. There are plenty of men who joined the Army voluntarily, long before compulsion, and who have found the conditions of service irksome, and they have objected to give service. I do not doubt for a single instant that if you once establish the principle in this House that a man who has had the opportunity given him of appearing before a tribunal, whose case has been fairly heard as it has been in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, and has been sent to the Service, should be taken from the Army and treated in some special way, you are going to spread this throughout the whole Army. I repeat what I have said. I regret more than I can say the form which this agitation has taken on behalf of the conscientious objector. I am not blaming or criticising anybody. It is for those who desire to advocate that course to makeup their minds as to the best way in which they are going to do it, but this agitation has done incalculable harm to the cause of the genuine conscientious objector.
§ Mr. SNOWDENWhat agitation?
§ Mr. LONGAll the various societies, the floods of questions in this House, and the representations that persons who object to serve their country ought to be 1043 protected by their country. What has been the result? Is it not inevitable—this is not a question which ought to raise controversy—that if you once let this idea get abroad that a man has only got to say, "I object conscientiously to serve in the Army," any man who finds himself called on to serve and wants to escape may try to rank himself among the conscientious objectors? If this movement had been confined to personal representations in the first instance, if there had only been a combined quiet effort to meet the practical difficulties connected with the real conscientious objector, I do not believe that there would have been any real trouble in dealing with their case, but now you have got a case which is quite different. It is not only the conscientious person who honestly objects to serve for whom you have got to find a way out. You have got the case of men who say, "If these men get off under this pretext, why should not we?" The difficulty to which my hon. Friend referred is the real difficulty. It is not to find work, or to find a tribunal, or to find some new procedure. It is to draw a distinction between the man who is an honest, though, I think, most misguided, conscientious objector and the man who adopts his faith because he finds it a convenient way to avoid service which he does not want to perform. That is the real difficulty. You are not manufacturing conscientious objectors by your agitation. They are probably not more numerous than before; but you are increasing the number of men who are anxious to adopt their excuses as a means of escape, and you are making the difficulty of the Government infinitely greater than it was before. The only suggestion that I have heard that offers a reasonable ground for fresh action is the one suggested by my hon. Friend the Member for Ayr Burghs (Sir G. Younger). It might be possible to arrange a committee which could act in the manner in which he described. I do not promise it. I have been doing my utmost. I have discussed this matter with my hon. Friends the Member for Leeds and the Member for York. I do not want, and nobody in the Government wants, the horror of men who for conscience sake are unwilling to serve being thrown into jail for a long time. I recognise that there are men who are serving their country far better. But at present I can see no solution except going before the tribunal, and in special cases, where the tribunal has acted with injustice, if the cases are 1044 brought before me, I am willing to bring them before the members of the tribunal to endeavour if I can to secure a re-hearing. Beyond that I can find no solution, and I should deceive the Committee if I held out any hopes that I have a remedy which would meet the difficulty—the reality of which I recognise the serious character, but which has got to be faced —a practical difficulty, which can only be dealt with by the action of the tribunals.
§ Mr. WHITEHOUSEI have listened with extreme attention to the speeches which have been made, and I listened with special interest to the speech of the President of the Local Government Board. If I may say so, I feel very deeply grateful for the spirit in which the discussion has taken place this evening. For this is one of the most difficult and painful controversies that has been aroused in connection with the whole subject of compulsion. Many hon. Gentlemen who made speeches to-night stated that they had no sympathy whatever with the position of the conscientious objector; they do not share his views; they do not approve his views; but they went on, nevertheless, to make most moderate and, I think, most helpful speeches towards the solution of the difficulty. I wish to be equally frank and candid with the Committee, and to say that I adhere entirely both to the position and views of the Member for Leeds (Mr. E. Harvey), who has put the case of the conscientious objector with so much sincerity and so much feeling on other occasions. I feel so deeply on this subject that I always speak upon it with the greatest reluctance. One always regrets, I think, having made strong statements, lest those strong statements have done harm or injustice. I am myself very conscious of the enormous difficulty with which the tribunals are face to face. I suppose I have said as strong things about the tribunals as any Member of the House. I say frankly that I believe many of the tribunals have been struggling with a difficulty almost beyond the power of any tribunal to deal with properly under the present system. I am quite sure that they have tried to do their duty sincerely. The principal Act is very complicated, and on this subject many interpretations are given, and there is even uncertainty as to whether the power of exemption is contained in this Act. I think it is perfectly clear that Parliament intended this exemption to be given, but it does not exist on the lines of the tribunals. I 1045 repeat that I am deeply sensible of the enormous difficulty of this question which the tribunals have to face. I do not desire to offer any criticism whatever of the spirit in which the great Departments of State have endeavoured administratively to deal with this problem. I think, if my right hon. Friend the President of the Local Government Board will allow me to say so, that the circulars that he has issued and that the advice which he has given to the tribunals in his circulars would in themselves very largely have solved this problem, if only those circulars had the authority of the Regulations made under the Act. The right hon. Gentleman asked for suggestions. Grave and great as the problem is, I think he overstated the difficulty of solving it.
There is throughout the country, in the widely differing schools of thought on this subject, all the elements which make for a satisfactory solution. There is good will on the part of many of the people directly concerned. The genuine conscientious objector desires to help his country and to help mankind and to sacrifice himself for mankind; to spend himself for mankind in every possible way. Long before the principal Act was passed, many of these men were eager volunteers to help to repair some of the ravages, some of the destruction and of the suffering caused by war. There is nothing these men would count a higher or greater privilege than the opportunity of proving, without reward of any kind, that they were "willing to undertake any service, however lowly and however arduous, which was outside the military machine and military direction, aid therefore did not conflict with their principles and to enable them to keep faith with their consciences. This being their spirit and these being their views, with good will on each side, I say without any hesitation to my right hon. Friend, that there is really no reason under the conditions that exist why a satisfactory solution should not be reached. It is a very old problem. It was a problem that began immediately after the death of Christ, and it is a problem with which we have always been familiar in this country in connection with all kinds of subjects. We have in the past, I believe to the eternal honour of the country and to the lasting benefit of the country and of manhood, honoured the scruples of conscience. I believe it is desired by us today to respect the scruples of conscien- 1046 tious persons of whose sincerity we are convinced. That being so, I say that we can reach with good will a solution of this problem. I will only offer this final suggestion. My right hon. Friend is wrong in thinking that there is a considerable number of these men who refuse to do any work. My right hon. Friend will find that the bulk of this problem relates to men who, though they cannot assist in the military machine will yet do any work good for the country that is outisde that machine. If he will devise some means by which the conscientious objector who does not get absolute exemption is referred to a Committee, or to a Department of State, or to some authority set up by the Government to supervise, approve, and organise the work that he can render to the community, he will have solved the greater part of this problem, prevented this painful subject from attaining greater dimensions, and taken a great step towards solving also many social and economic problems.
§ Mr. SNOWDENI had not intended to take part in this discussion, although I have been very deeply interested in it. The Debate was going so remarkably well from our point of view that I thought that Members like myself who might be considered as extremists on the question might possibly do more harm than good by intervention. But one or two observations made by the President of the Local Government Board induce me to offer one or two comments. The right hon. Gentleman began by a defence of the tribunals. I have been something of a critic of the conduct of the tribunals, but my criticism has never been wholesale and universal. I am quite ready to admit— indeed, I admit it with gratitude—that many tribunals have regarded their duties in the most conscientious manner and have been most anxious to administer the Act in a fair and impartial way. But that testimonial certainly cannot be given to a very considerable number of tribunals. The defence of the tribunals took the form of putting the blame for any grievance that might have been created upon the applicants for exemption, whose manner members of tribunals have reported to the right hon. Gentleman was very irritating and exasperating. Surely that is a very weak excuse for the, in many cases, illegal, and, in a far larger number of cases, unjustifiable conduct and decisions of the tribunals. Most of the grievances have taken this form—that the tribunals 1047 refuse to give adequate consideration to the cases. In many instances the tribunals have disposed of the application in one or two minutes. They have refused to hear the applicant's statement and in an enormous number of cases they have refused to hear material witnesses who were in a position to give evidence of an important and substantial character. The right hon. Gentleman said that if somebody could suggest some practical way of distinguishing the genuine conscientious objector from the man who was not genuine he would make a great contribution to the solution of this difficult question. May I say that one of the best ways of doing that is to take the evidence of reputable persons that know the applicant. There is an Amendment to that effect on the Paper, and I trust that when we reach it it will receive the favourable consideration of the right hon. Gentleman. A great many grievances are due to the fact that the tribunals have in a great many cases, refused to hear the evidence of ministers of religion, Sunday-school superintendents and teachers, who have known the applicant for a great many years. I come now to the important question of work of national importance. The right hon. Gentleman made what to me was a very surprising statement. If I understood him correctly that statement was in direct conflict with the very important and admirable regulations and instructions issued just after the first Bill was passed. I understood him to say that absolute exemption from combatant or from non-combatant service would only be given on condition that the applicant was engaged in work of national importance.
§ Mr. LONGNo, no. I was discussing the case of exemption contingent on national service. I was not dealing with the other case at all.
§ Mr. SNOWDENThe right hon. Gentleman, then, must have misunderstood the objection I made. I am very glad I mentioned the matter, because it makes it clear. The right hon. Gentleman does not deny that under the Act absolute exemption—"unconditional" would perhaps be the better word—absolute and unconditional exemption can be given by the tribunal. As a matter of fact, there have been quite a number of such cases. It was very unfortunate that the power of the tribunals to grant exemption, conditional upon the person being employed in work of national importance, was not fully 1048 known in the early days of the tribunals. These tribunals had been at work many weeks when they became aware of the fact, and a good many of those who are now suffering are suffering because they refused to accept the certificate which was then given by the tribunals. The right hon. Gentleman will not deny that I know something about a good many of these conscientious objectors. I am personally acquainted with as many of them as, perhaps, any Member of this House. Therefore my opinion about what I may describe as the degree of their conscientious objection is of some little value. Placing my opinion, knowledge, and experience to the fore, I do not agree with the right hon. Gentleman when he says that those who have refused to accept conditional exemption constitute a great majority of this class. In my opinion that is not so. On the contrary, they constitute a very small number indeed. May I give a very important fact in support of that opinion? At present there is a Non-Combatant Corps in North Wales. There has been sent to the right hon. Gentleman—certainly to the Under-Secretary for War— a week or so ago, a memorial signed by no fewer than seventy of the very men—all conscientious objectors. That memorial, asked that their cases might be reconsidered. They were, they said, willing to undertake work of national importance. There was set up against the name of each, man the kind of work he was qualified to do. In every case it was work of a most important character—certainly work of the utmost national importance—agriculture, engineering, mining, electrical engineering, joinery, and the like. It is the height of folly at a time like this that these very men should be putting the country to the expense of courts-martial, and be detained in prison when they might be rendering, very valuable service to the community. Now I have this practical suggestion to make, and the right hon. Gentleman asked for practical suggestions. I use the illustration I have just given in order further to illustrate my point. It maybe said that it is very difficult from an administrative point of view to deal with the men who have already been put into-the Army, but I do not think it is. There is a Clause in the Act which entitles the holder of a certificate to claim from the tribunal a rehearing. The word used in the Act is "review" of his case. I understand that that right is not confined to 1049 those who are outside the military organisation, but that those who are in the Army are equally entitled to it, and therefore facilities might be given to these men who are already in the Army, and who are proving so obstinate and difficult, to have their non-combatant certificates reviewed, and the decision might be to put them on work of national importance.
There are two problems here involved. There are two classes, roughly speaking, of conscientious objectors. There are what we might call the out-and-outers—those who refuse to be organised in war time even for civil work under civil authority. I admit the difficulty of dealing with these men, but by far the larger body are men who fully appreciate the present national situation and who are willing to do what they conscientiously can do to help the country in this great difficuty. They constitute, in my opinion, the overwhelming majority of these men, and, therefore, if we could begin first and immediately by dealing with that problem on the lines of offering these men work of national importance, the number who remain would be small—from the military point of view altogether negligible—and when we have solved the first part of the question I do not think it would be impossible to deal with the rest. That is one practical suggestion I make to the right hon. Gentleman. Although he has not given us what I really expected, in view of the tone and character of the Debate, I think he had a fine opportunity of making some concession, but I have been encouraged by his tone. It is an advance on what we got the last time I raised this question. With the extension of this Act this difficulty is not going to get less, but is going to get a good deal greater. There are, from my own personal knowledge, a very large body of conscientious objectors who are now going to be called up for military service. Therefore, I would press the urgency of this. Let us have some practical scheme devised, ready to be put into operation at once, so that this difficulty will not arise in the case of the men who are going to be brought under this Bill.
§ Sir WALTER ESSEXI should not like this portion of the Debate to conclude without raising one or two points which have occurred to me on the much vexed question of the conscientious objectors. I suppose that we all feel ourselves greatly perplexed by this question, and wish that the conscientious objectors of Europe 1050 numbered 100 per cent. of the population, and then many of our troubles would be at an end. If that be accepted as a truism, may we not stiffen the respect which some of us have for the true real high principle of the conscientious objector if we may be permitted to see in him the forerunner of a nobler and a loftier future? I admit the number of them is a small one, but it is because I regard him from that standpoint that my mind reaches out in all possible directions to see if I can possibly save this small bit of the salt of the earth from this engulfing strife. In pondering over these various Military Service Acts I have felt what may be regarded by some of my colleagues as strange, that perhaps we may have made a mistake and added needlessly to our difficulties of legislation because we had not the courage to boldly recognise the existence amongst us of a certain number of those who are constitutionally timid. I believe a number of those are to be found amongst what are classed as con-scientious objectors. Let me not be misunderstood. There is a very clear and sufficient line of demarcation between the one class and the other, but even for those poor abject persons I am bound to express some real sympathy. I cannot conceive any worse position in which a human being can be thrust than to be asked to take up a lethal weapon to engage in war when he is of this particular temperament and constitution and shudders at the very thought of strife.
11.0 P.M.
Let us pass from those considerations and bring ourselves rapidly to note the courageous way in which, after a long and very fatiguing Debate, the President of the Local Government Board addressed himself to-night to the suggestions thrown out by several hon. Members of this House for the constitution of a machine which should provide some means whereby all those of the two classes of objectors who are worth regarding at all by us elderly Gentlemen who are disposing of the life and service of those who are younger may be allocated their proper contribution to the service of the State as citizens of it. Every man owes a debt to the State, and every man ought to be ready to perform it. That, however, is only stating the problem in another way and offering no solution. When the President of the Local Government Board made a reply to the suggestions made by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Worcestershire (Mr. J. W. Wilson) and the points which 1051 were added in the delightful contribution of the hon. Baronet the Member for the Ayr Burghs (Sir G. Younger) and others, I listened to him with even more than that constant regard I always pay to his never stinted utterances in this House, and I wondered whether he might not presently have arrived at some conclusion upon a problem which I know has engaged him day by day and by night for a long time. I cannot help feeling, however far he has gone in forecasting a scheme for the relief of those who find themselves in difficulties, he may easily find himself presently, if he travels heedlessly along that road, in the seductive company of the hon. Member for Black burn (Mr. Snowden) who faces me to-night. The suggestion has been made that we should set up some machinery—some thing might be done along those lines—in the form of a Committee. Some of us half-employed persons in the House might be clothed with adequate powers to discover what are those classes of employment to which we might draft these difficult persons and enable them to make their proper quota in this time of national distress to the national cause. He spoke of agriculture. Supposing you have an operative goldsmith, or a carpenter, or a jeweller, or a clerk, you cannot put him, or a brigade of such at once into agriculture. Agriculture, I need not tell hon. Members, is by no means an unskilled occupation, and you would, to use a vulgarism, "raise Cain" in the agricultural districts if you dumped down upon them any considerable body of these men and hoped thereby to solve the acute problem which the injudicious working of the Act has already laid upon the country. Supposing, on the other hand, you decided that you would employ these men upon dock labour, another sorely—
§ The CHAIRMANI agreed three hours ago to allow an unusual width of debate upon this Amendment, but that did not mean that we should go into the details and proposals of that kind. I must ask the hon. Member really to deal with the suggestion set out in the Amendment, and followed by other hon. Members.
§ Sir W. ESSEXI am glad to have your guidance. I was working in my mind upon the lines, as I understood, of the Amendment of the hon. Member for Burnley (Mr. Morrell) which speaks of the 1052 condition being the performance of some work of national importance that does not involve service under any military authority.
§ The CHAIRMANQuite so. We are now on the question of the Second Reading of this Clause, and to enter into the pros and cons of all the various kinds of service of national importance would really be abusing the latitude which I agree to allow the Committee.
§ Sir W. ESSEXAccepting that, may I point out one of the difficulties of so employing these persons in these trades? All of them would be skilled trades, trades that are in urgent need of labour, and trades upon which large gangs might be employed, and that would necessitate the conscription of labour, and would mean the enlargement of the scope of the Bill. Personally I am not now canvassing whether that is a desirable thing or not, but may I not fairly urge that as an argument, seeing that the right hon. Gentleman a moment or two ago said that he would very earnestly welcome some suggestion which would get him out of his difficulty in dealing with these persons, with whom we all believe he has very real sympathy. It will be clear to people who have thought this out that if we did employ these people on some labour other than that which is uncharitably described as "mere military work" we should have to give them military pay, otherwise we should have a goldsmith working at 15s. or 16s. per week in Gloucestershire as an agricultural labourer and another man in Birmingham getting £3 per week as ammunition worker. I may point out that you would be bound to standardise the pay of all the men of military age. You cannot say to this man you will be exempted and can earn £4 a week and to the other you shall risk your limb or life for a shilling a day. Whatever labour is decided upon you will have to make it a military rate of pay. And then you will be brought up against this new difficulty, namely, that those at present of military age working in this occupation will be able to turn round and say, "You are working for 1s. a day; I am getting £4 a week." The result will be that you will have to take all those men there working of military age, and they must all receive military pay, or whatever is the lower pay. Then there would come a time when, if you had agreed 1053 to do that boldly, a man would be working for 1s. a day and at five minutes past twelve he would pass the forty-one year barrier and become entitled to the higher scale of £4 a week. These are some of the many difficulties, and we have to find a way out of the trouble. I rather doubt if we have time to think about a solution now, but I am sure everyone will be willing to thresh the question out and to try to arrive at a solution of this terrible problem. For myself, I am more than ever moved with sympathy with those who are roughly treated by the tribunals. But that is not the question at present before us. We want to carry the whole of the people with us in this great problem, whatever labour the solution of it may cost us. It may even involve the sacrifice of old-time associations and ideals, but for the sake of those who are, as to some of them, the best of our people, we ought not to begrudge any labour to bring about a satisfactory and amicable solution.
Mr. E. HARVEYIn view of the appeal from the Chairman and the latitude of the discussion we have had, I would like to ask whether, if the proposed New Clause is withdrawn, the President of the Local Government Board will follow up his invitation to hon. Members to make practical suggestions with some assurance that if such suggestions are put before him as will unite those made from various quarters of the House in a workable plan, he will be prepared to bring up some plan on the Report stage which will give favourable consideration to the proposals?
§ Mr. LONGI have no hesitation in responding to that suggestion. I shall be only too glad to receive practical suggestions, and if there are two or three Members of the House who believe that they can produce a working plan I shall, of course, be very pleased to consider it. But it is not so easy of solution as it would appear to be from the speeches made to-night. It is quite easy to state the difficulties, and even they have not been completely stated, but to find a real solution which will do justice to the genuine sufferer and not open the door wide to the malingerer and the shirker is a problem which I frankly confess, on behalf of the Government, I have been unable to solve. Certainly, if anybody in any quarter of the Committee thinks he has a practical suggestion I shall be only too glad to consider it.
§ Mr. RADFORDI should like to express my sympathy with the President of the Local Government Board in the difficulty in which he finds himself in dealing with the conscientious objector, a difficulty he seems to think almost insuperable. I particularly regret the tone of despondency which marked the latter phrases of his speech. The co-operation of Members of this House—there is a great deal of feeling tending to one end in the Committee— ought to help him to find a solution of this difficulty, which really is not insuperable. His courage is well known, his energy is indisputable, and his other qualities are shining. The right hon. Gentleman made a remark with regard to the tribunals which ought not to pass without some observation. He never mentions the tribunals without a eulogy. It is quite right that he should praise them. The tribunals were created by him, and he sees his creation and says "It is very good." The tribunals divert from him to themselves the odium which is necessarily incident to the administration of any system of compulsion, therefore it is quite right that the right hon. Gentleman should praise them. But I am bound to say that if he regards his eulogy as one that is applicable to the whole of these tribunals or to the tribunals at large he makes a very great mistake indeed. My experience of the tribunals, judging them from the newspapers, my own Constituents, and my correspondence, is that their administration is very frequently bad in the extreme and that, as the right hon. Gentleman himself admitted, there is a frequent miscarriage of justice. That is, I believe, happening every day in this country and is one of the causes why the odium attaching to the original Military Service Act has increased, is increasing, and, after the passage of this Bill, will increase greater yet. I feel bound to say that word about the tribunals.
Yesterday I received a deputation consisting of fifteen passive resisters. I told them that I had voted for the Second Reading of the Bill and had no more respect for a conscientious objector than I had for any other honest man. I said that if after receiving that confession from me they still wished to see me, I should be glad to receive them. They came. I found they were fifteen persons who had placed their cases before a tribunal, some, I think, before the Appeal Tribunal. What had happened to them was that the tribunal— God knows what a tribunal is; it is as 1055 different from a court of justice as chalk is from cheese—refused to allow them to state their case, and decided the case on its intuitive knowledge of all the facts. What was the result. These people came away with a rankling sense of injustice which they will never forget, which will be communicated to their friends and which will be shared by every honest Englishman who dislikes to see injustice done. I tried to soothe these people. It was a very difficult job, but I elicited from them that they were all ready to do work of national importance and they did not know how to get it, and they asked me if I could help them. I suggested that if they could get into communication with the Pelham Committee it was just possible that something might be done. I knew it was difficult, if not impossible, for them to do. Probably next week these men will be in prison, and they are ready to go there and rot. They are only fifteen men out of 15,000.
§ Mr. RADFORDDo not flatter yourselves that these men are few. They are not. They swarm in my Constituency. They will go to prison and you will have the cost of keeping them, of watching them and warding them, while they are ready to do work of national importance. Work of national importance is gaping to be done and we are doing something which is an act of national folly. The right hon. Gentleman has only to apply his brain and his energy and his courage and his other qualities, with the help of Members of the House, and the difficulty will be solved.
§ Lord HUGH CECILI was not fortunate enough to hear my right hon. Friend's longer speech, but I was a little depressed to hear the note of philosophical despair in the few words which he said just now. In common with a great many people of all sorts of religious opinions in this country, including a great many members of the Church of England, I feel a sense of very real uneasiness at the idea that sincerely religious people, often of the highest character, are being made to suffer because they hold opinions perverse and foolish indeed, but entirely genuine and founded upon the most deep religious convictions. I do not at all agree with the hon. Gentleman behind me that those who are animated by constitutional timidity, however true it is to say they are objects of pity, ought to be in any way relieved, 1056 and I do not wish to relieve the religious conscientious objector on the ground that I am sorry for him. I want to relieve him because it seems scandalous and discreditable to us all that any penalty should be imposed upon him. All history is full of these cases. The precise process that has been gone over in this case has been gone over times without number, sometimes against people who are in the right, sometimes against people who are in the wrong, but always calamitously to those who inflict these penalties. Therefore, I earnestly hope my right hon. Friend will address himself to the subject with the intention of finding a solution. If there is no other way, there is always the prerogative of mercy which could be used when it becomes perfectly clear that by a perfectly honest mistake on the part of a tribunal a sincere and genuine man has been put in the position of incurring a penalty. It appears to me that the Royal prerogative of mercy ought always to be used in such cases as that. Let us be sure, however, that we gain nothing for the Army, the country, for any purpose whatever by disregarding or locating with contempt religious convictions, however untrue they are, and there already is a very great sense of uneasiness in quarters not in the least associated with any opposition to the Bill who feel very deeply indeed the danger of oppression of the religious conscientious objector.
§ Mr. OUTHWAITEI am sure we are all grateful who have been associated with this cause in any way for the speech we have just heard. I think the right hon. Gentleman is quite mistaken if he in any way thinks that those who have taken up this question have done so in a spirit of desiring to promote some agitation. Some weeks ago the right hon. Gentleman in answering a question said a great deal of harm was being done to the cause of the conscientious objector by these questions. Since then I have put down no questions at all. Every day I get numbers of letters. I have had scores and hundreds of letters. In fact, they have been too much for me, and I have come to the condition when I cannot read them and have to put them on one side. They are not appeals in the main from the men themselves. In nearly every case they are from parents, a mother or a father, who say, "We have brought up this boy in a certain religious belief, and he is maintaining that belief and tells us he will die for that belief, and we think he is right and that the State is 1057 wrong to force him." The difficulty the right hon. Gentleman is going to be in, and a serious disadvantage will arise from it and to all those who desire to keep the minds of the people clear in support of the War, is that it is not the cowardice of these men that is involved, it is the courage of the men. I am sure you will find numbers of these men if they are sent to France and refused work there, and are in the position of a deserter, who will be ready to be shot. They will not do that in any spirit of martyrdom. There is no desire to indulge in any sort of bombast. I do not think anyone could go before a firing line in that spirit. These men will face death, and that will, do no good from the military point of view or from the point of view of those who desire to get general support of the War in the country. We have seen the horror that has arisen in Dublin, and its effect on popular opinion there and throughout this country, and I am sure the same thing will arise if the death penalty is carried out upon these men. When the hon. Gentleman speaks on the question of finding alternative employment he always seem to regard it from the point of view that everybody is being called to the Colours, and, therefore, to leave anybody out or give them alternative employment would inflict some flagrant and obvious injustice. We have to remember that millions of men are remaining in civilian employment in this country, and cones-sequently to provide some sort of civil employment for the few thousands, or whatever the number may be, would not create some obvious injustice or the appearance of dereliction of duty. I hope there may be some settlement of this question because of the very great and grievous strain it lays upon those to whose notice it is particularly drawn. It is, as the noble Lord has said, a strange religious motive which I am, perhaps, not entirely able to appreciate, but which shall be recognised.
Mr. E. HARVEYIn view of the assurances of my right hon. Friend, his kind willingness to consider the suggestion made, and the very kind consideration that has been given to it by the Committee, I ask leave to withraw the Clause.
§ Mr. KING rose—
1058§ The CHAIRMANIt was on the suggestion of the hon. Member, and on his initiation, that the Committee agreed to have a wider Debate on this particular Clause. Of course, he is entitled to speak before it is withdrawn.
§ Mr. KINGI gave way, having the first Amendment on this subject, in order that the Debate might take a course which might be convenient to the Committee. I have sat through the whole of the Debate, and I have risen on every possible occasion, and now the House wants to shout me down, when I am absolutely convinced that I have a solution of this question. At this time of the evening I should like to take ten minutes to give it. I pity my fellow Members who have set here so long; I pity especially the right hon. Gentleman opposite; I shall therefore, in the shortest possible way, tell him what I think is wrong and how it can be cured. The real reason why this difficulty is so serious, and why he is so hopeless, is that there is inequality all round. There is inequality, first of all, amongst the conscientious objectors themselves. You cannot cure that. But you can have a definite method of treating them equally in the tribunals. If the right hon. Gentleman had given fuller directions, and if the House had, in the first instance, made the duty of the tribunals more clear, we should not have had so many difficulties. Then there are great inequalities in the Appeal Tribunals. I have heard people say that if you are on one side of the street in Westminster you get no hearing, while if you are on the other side of the street you get a fair hearing and probably the relief you ask for. That in itself is a scandal and a difficulty, and it creates the greatest sense of injustice. Beyond that, there has been the greatest inequality in the way in which these men have been treated.
§ Sir S. COLLINSWe want the solution.
§ Mr. KINGI will give the solution if my hon. Friend will have patience. You must give clear directions to the tribunals that they must see to this question only: Has the man a conscientious objection? Of that question the man himself is the prime judge, in this way—that the onus of proof must lie upon those who say he has no conscientious objection. The action of the War Office has been most unequal all round. There are certain cases in which the War Office have handed the men over to the military authorities to be thrown into a darkened cell, loaded with irons, 1059 given practically starvation rations, and had every indignity, injustice, and hardship put upon them. On the other hand, there have been may cases where the treatment of the officers, noncommissioned officers, and men has been most reasonable and kind and altogether exemplary. In some cases the War Office have found the solution in finding after two or three weeks that the men were totally medically unfit for any service whatever and discharging them. In other cases they have discharged the men or given them indefinite leave and sent them back to their homes and businesses. In a great number of cases they have sent them out to France, and in other cases they have adopted various other solutions. The whole real difficulty is the inequality and the variety of methods from beginning to end. If there had been a clear course settled by reasonable men on such lines that everybody would have understood and known what the men had to do, what they had to expect, and what in certain circumstances had to be adopted, we should know where we were, and there would be no sense of inequality or injustice. I can only tell the right hon. Gentleman what I believe to be the solution, and if he will take a solution of this kind into his judgment, and consider it as far as is practicable, I am perfectly certain a solution may easily be found.
§ Motion and Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
§ The CHAIRMANI think that a number of the other Clauses are covered by the discussion which has taken place. There are one or two which raise some particular point which might be taken without a long discussion. The hon. Member for Blackburn has two Amendments on the Paper. The point of one has already been covered, but the second raises a point which has not been discussed.
§ Mr. SNOWDENIt has been suggested that Members shall not make speeches on the Amendments, and in my case that suggestion is unnecessary, because I have been a conscientious objector for the last half hour, for I have never believed in the suspension of the Eleven o'Clock Rule. I. think the point of my first Clause has been covered, but the second raises a distinctly new point, and I propose to submit it to the Committee.