MILITARY SERVICE. (Hansard, 25 June 1918)

Sir H. DALZIEL
I do not propose to refer to the larger issues that have been raised in the Debate to-day, although I hold very definite opinions in regard to them, and I hope to get another opportunity on which to express my views. I rise now, in pursuance of notice I gave to the Chief Secretary this afternoon, to ask him a definite question with regard to a matter closely associated with the subject debated to-day, to which the last speaker in the Debate alluded indirectly—that is, how long the Government are going to allow the scandal of young men going to Ireland to escape military service? I raised this question eighteen months ago, and I raised it nine months ago. From the late Chief Secretary I got no satisfaction whatever. I made personal investigation, and found that between the Home Office and the Irish Office continual correspondence was going on, but nothing was done. I call this one of the greatest scandals of the War, that, with the connivance of the Government, young men of eighteen, twenty, and up to thirty years of age have been allowed up to this moment, this very week, this very day, to go to Ireland and carry on business there. Some of them, I know, are spending thousands of pounds a year, which I can prove, in telegrams in order to carry on their business in Dublin, with their head centre in London. The Chief Secretary is just new to his office, but I want him to give us a definite pledge on this point. The Government are trying the patience of some of their supporters because they are taking men fifty years of age and ruining their business prospects, while they sit still and look on at these young men going to Ireland. They introduced a short time ago a so-called passport system for Ire- 1016 land. There was never a greater fraud introduced so far as this matter is concerned. What is the position to-day? If the Chief Secretary goes over to Ireland to-morrow, he will find, if there is room on the boat, plenty of young men. I do not know why they are not stopped by the Government. All the Passport Department does is to keep a black book. If the names of the men are not in that black book, they can go to Ireland at the present moment. That is a scandal. If you go to any of the cinemas in Ireland you will find they are full of young men from England. [An HON. MEMBER: "And from Scotland!"] Probably some of them come from Scotland. They are simply defying the authorities. If you go to any race meetings in Ireland you find that the greater proportion of the people there are not Irishmen. They are men who have gone from this country—bookmakers, with all their paraphernalia. Is the Government sincere in this matter of trying to get men, when they allow these men to cross on the very boats on which members of the Government themselves are crossing? They have all gone to Ireland to escape military service. I want the right hon. Gentleman to tell us that he is going to deal with this matter at once. The Government are trying the patience of many people in this country in regard to this and other matters. I will not detain the House by going into the scandal in London, where you see thousands of young men who are escaping military service at this moment. I will take another occasion to deal with that, and give my impressions. I ask the right hon. Gentleman is he aware of these things; does he admit them, and is he prepared to take immediate action to put a stop to them?

§ Mr. SHORTT
I quite agree that this scandal, to which my right hon. Friend has alluded, exists. It has existed for some time. But there are very considerable difficulties in the way. In the first place, most of these people who go over to Ireland change their names. They are very difficult to identify, and, unless they can be shown to be absentees, there is no means by which they can be arrested and brought back to this country. This matter has been engaging the attention of the Irish Government for some little time, and the Attorney-General, with the representative of the Ministry of National Service, has gone into the subject very carefully. They have now 1017 arranged that these men can all be called up by Proclamation, and the Proclamation is actually prepared, and will be published in the course of a day or two, and all these men will become Reservists and will be, therefore, absentees, and can be taken and handed over, under military escort, to this country. If my right hon. Friend can help us with names, because identity is one of the greatest difficulties the Irish police meet with, it will be of the greatest possible assistance; but I can assure him that the so-called scandal is fully realised, and steps have been taken to meet it and defeat it, and I think when the Proclamation is issued, and these men become, in fact, absentees, they can be dealt with and brought back to this country.

§ General McCALMONT
Is sufficient attention paid to the fact that anyone who crosses to Ireland in uniform is practically allowed to pass without any question at all, and anyone wearing the uniform of an officer has only to go to the gangway of a ship, give a name, and say where he is going, and, as far as I have seen, he is allowed to pass without 1018 question? Is it not possible that people are making use of that means of going to Ireland?

§ Mr. BOOTH
Thanking the right hon. Gentleman for his sympathetic reply, I would ask the Whips when we may hope to find a copy of Mr. Justice Atkins' Committee's Report upon emergency legislation? It is now three weeks since I stopped this Motion going through. It was called after Eleven o'clock and I objected. We had not yet got a copy of the Report on the subject which this Committee was appointed to consider. We have patiently waited. Surely it cannot be the fault of the printers any longer. Is there any explanation?

§ Mr. JAMES HOPE (Lord of the Treasury)
I can only say, as my Noble Friend said last night. The hon. Member cannot be more solicitous in regard to this matter than we are. The Report is not yet printed. All we can do is to urge the printers.