§ 67. Sir J. BUTCHERasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many of the former enemy aliens who were granted exemption by the Secretary of State for the Home Department in 1915 were again granted exemption on the reconsideration of their cases in 1918; how many of them were on such reconsideration in 1918 interned; how many of them were not reconsidered at all in 1918; and whether the Advisory Committee, pre- 1936 sided over by Mr. Justice Younger, has considered, or will consider, the cases of men who were granted exemption in 1915, and whose cases were not reconsidered in 19181?
§ Mr. SHORTTOwing to the extreme pressure under which the Committee did its work and the circumstances in which it stopped work after the Armistice, the records kept do not enable me, without a detailed search involving more time and labour than I feel justified in imposing on my Department, to give a precise answer to this question. About 350 persons were interned, and about 250 repatriated in the course of the Committee's work. The Committee, which is now sitting under Mr. Justice Younger's presidency, is dealing with interned persons. It is not dealing with uninterned persons except where, having occasion to review an exemption, I find circumstances on which I desire to have the Committee's advice and refer the case specially to it.