§ Brigadier-General CROFTI desire your permission, Mr. Speaker, to ask your ruling on a question of privilege in connection with something which happened on Tuesday of last week. I desire to say that, as I left very early on Wednesday morning for the North of England, this is the first opportunity I have had of asking your ruling on this subject. It is in connection with an Order under the Defence of the Realm Regulations, of which I should like to read a paragraph to show you what it is:
I, Colonel V. G. W. Kell, C.B., being a competent military authority under the said Regulations, do hereby authorise you Lieutenant Colonel G. Stanley Clarke to enter, if need be by force, the premises known as 22, King Street, St. James's, London, at any time of the day or night and to examine, search, and inspect the same or any part thereof and to seize anything found therein that you have reason to suspect is being used or intended to be used for any purpose prejudicial to the public safety or to the defence of the realm or in contravention of the said Regulations.The question I desire to put to you, Sir, is this, whether a Member of this House, acting, as he believes, in the interests of the nation, if he uses information in the House of Commons with a view to exposing a public scandal, when it is 1407 authoritatively stated that he came by that information innocently, is liable to have his offices or the offices of his associates or his private dwelling-house ransacked by soldiers and other Government agents; and whether such action does not constitute a violation of the privileges of a Member of Parliament?
§ Mr. SPEAKERThe question of the violation of the privileges of Members of Parliament is not a question for me. That is a question for the House. If the hon. and gallant Member had wished to take the sense of the House upon it, his proper course would have been to have formulated a Motion suggesting what the breach of privilege was, and to have submitted it to the House. If it had appeared to me that primâ facie there was some breach of privilege, it would have been my duty to have allowed the hon. and gallant Member to have proceeded with it at once. I give no decision—I am not called upon to do so—and I make no pronouncement whatever as to whether there has or has not been any breach of privilege. I am not in a position to do so. I do not know what privilege the hon. and gallant Gentleman suggests exists. I should be very doubtful whether there was any privilege in Members of Parliament to be outside the law, and to be in a position to break the law without being subject to visitations from the military or the police. I have never heard of such a privilege. But I do not inquire with regard to that. I take the point, which I am bound to take, that the hon. and gallant Gentleman, if he wishes to raise a matter which is a breach of privilege, is too late. The matter was first mentioned in the House last Monday by the hon. and gallant Gentleman himself. On Tuesday I understand a visit from a competent military authority took place. On Wednesday a question was asked here by the hon. Gentleman sitting on his left and a reply was given. If it be alleged that any breach of privilege took place on Tuesday it should have been raised on Wednesday, when the reply was given by the Under-Secretary for War, or at the very latest on Thursday. Therefore I am bound to say nothing has arisen which would take this question out of the ordinary coarse. It is always open to the hon. and gallant Gentleman to put a Motion down and find his own time for bringing it out. All I say is that I could 1408 not accept any Motion at present which would set aside the ordinary Rules of the House.
§ General CROFTI thank you for your ruling, Sir, and I beg to give notice that on an early occasion I will call attention to this matter. I realise that under your ruling notice ought to have been given at once. I want to ask the indulgence of the House to make a short personal statement in connection with another side of this question. I shall endeavour to keep altogether free from the actual debating points of this case. It seems to me to be a question which clearly reflects upon the honour and integrity of my colleagues and myself. On a certain occasion I charged a certain Member of this House with having, whilst in Government employment, asked for and obtained preferential advantages of great value for a private firm of which he was the largest shareholder, which advantages were denied to competing firms. These facts were not disputed by the Prime Minister and the Leader of the official Liberal party, who censured me on the ground that I was the possessor of secret Government documents. Immediately the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Asquith) sat down my hon. Friend (Sir R. Cooper) rose on my behalf to deny the imputations made. He unfortunately did not catch your eye until about an hour later, when he very explicitly stated that the correspondence was sent anonymously, and was neither sought nor asked for by any of us, and in order to make doubly sure I acquainted the Press that evening with the whole of the facts, and they appeared, I think, in practically every paper the next day. In spite of the declaration of the hon. Baronet (Sir R. Cooper) and myself, a raid was made upon the office of the National party at 22, King Street, St. James's, by officers of the Army and their attendant satellites. I submit that this action impugned the good faith of my hon. Friend and myself, for it clearly indicated that our word was not accepted, and that these officers went to seek evidence which would involve those who had placed the information before Parliament. I have not the remotest idea whether this information came from the office of Messrs. Harris and Dixon or from the Government Department, or from the private house of the right hon. Gentleman himself. Obviously there would be copies of this correspondence in 1409 all three quarters. They are not marked confidential or secret. Presumably some clerk in the business, or some officer or clerk in the Government office, considered it proper in the interests of the country that the transaction should be made public. Whoever he or she is, the individual appears to me to have risked his or her career in the interests of the country, and more than that I know nothing whatever about this subject. It was suggested that I should lay this matter before the Prime Minister for him to give his judgment upon, but I had the suspicion that possibly he might take the same view as was taken by the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Asquith), that it was a trivial irregularity, and I think the House will agree that that was borne out by his speech. That is why I placed the matter before the House and read this document. These are the whole of the facts, and I understand the hon. Baronet (Sir R. Cooper), in my absence, expressed the belief that I would hand it over to the Government. I am at a loss to understand why I was not asked to hand this document over, when I had it in my hand in this House, if it was wanted; and I am still further at a loss to understand why the raid was made, and although the House has permitted me to say this, one does not want to use strong language, but I feel, personally, that it was an outrage and an insult.
§ Mr. SPEAKERThe hon. and gallant Gentleman is taking advantage of making a personal explanation to help exculpate himself and to inculpate others. That is quite contrary to the practice here, and cannot be permitted. If the hon. and gallant Gentleman has anything to say in explanation of his own conduct, the House will be prepared to listen to him, but will not be prepared to listen to charges made against outsiders or others.
§ General CROFTI bow to your ruling. I am, of course, prepared to give this document to the right hon. Gentleman who represents the War Office, or to any member of the Government who may ask me for it, but I hope the Government will completely exculpate all my colleagues and myself, because it seems to me there has been a good deal of misapprehension, and I think it involves the whole question of the privileges of a Member of Parliament.