HC Deb 23 March 1932 vol 263 cc1143-73
Mr. BUCHANAN

I wish to raise other subjects of which I have given notice to the Home Secretary, but before I go on to them I must confess that I have sat here to-day in a fever of torment through wanting to take part in the Debate on unemployment. The one thing that strikes me as being similar in the two subjects is the difference of treat-merit meted out to the rich and the poor. Places like Glamorgan, where they are going to treat poor people more or less decently, are attacked, while those local authorities which rob the poor are to be aided and abetted in that robbery. It seems to me that the only resource of this National Government is to attack the poor. Times without number I have asked the Labour party to accept their share of responsibility for what has been done, and I shall continue to do so, but at the same time I hope the Parliamentary Secretary will be none the less manly in asking his supporters to take their share of responsibility for the wrongs done. If wrongs were committed, the chief man responsible is the head of the Government, and it is as dishonest for him to run away from certain of the things for which he is attacking others as it is wrong for the Labour party to try to avoid their share of responsibility for the means test.

There are three subjects which I wish to raise with the Home Secretary to-night—the question of political prisoners and their treatment, the question of two persons who wish to be admitted to this country to attend a meeting, and the question of Dartmoor Prison and certain recent happenings there, particularly as reported in this morning's Press. According to the information I have, it is a very difficult thing to define a political prisoner. Certain people say this and other people say that, but my own description of a political prisoner is a. person who associates himself with a movement or a cause not for any personal gain but with the object, no matter how mistaken it may be, of benefiting others than himself. Taking that as the definition of a political prisoner, although he may commit a wrong in the eyes of the State, I should say that it is no wrong, nothing that would defame his character in the eyes of his fellow-citizens. There are Members of this House who have been in prison who come within that category, and because the cause was one out of which they did not seek any personal gain their fellow Members have always regarded them in a different light from other prisoners.

At the moment there are about 230 men and women who have been sentenced for what I should term some form of political activity. Most of them have been sentenced for taking part in unlawful gatherings, riotous mobs, threatening, as we say in Scotland, danger to the lieges, threatening the peace of the neighbourhood. There are persons in prison because they have gathered with their fellow citizens to protest against what they think is a wrong. Apart from the question of political offences, when there is such a thing as the means test, when the standards of living of unemployed people are being attacked, it is inherent in the nature of men and women to demonstrate to the full. It would be wrong to expect such people to demonstrate in the calm fashion of other folk who are bringing grievances forward. If people thought, for instance, that their religious liberty were being taken from them, it would be conceivable that those folks, who were fed, would march out in an orderly way; but in the case of men and women whose lives, almost, are at stake, and who see their kith and kin being reduced to worse than penury, to starvation, it is not reasonable to expect that they will demonstrate in a quiet and orderly fashion.

Such people have demonstrated in order to bring their wrongs before the public, and they may have been disorderly, they may have gone to certain quarters carrying danger with them, but when the Government reduce the standards of life of those people they are more responsible for the danger than are the people themselves. They are arresting those men and interfering with their liberty, and more than 200 of them are now in prison. No one questions the right of those people to demonstrate. In these cases the police and the authorities, instead of trying to see how far those poor people can demonstrate without doing any harm, immediately proceed to use the baton to suppress them, and they arrest them at the earliest possible moment. Those men are afterwards tried for an alleged offence—it is not for embezzlement, or theft, or anything of that kind—and they are given sentences. After looking over a number of the sentences in these cases and comparing them with the sentences passed upon rich people for much more serious offences, I find that they are very much out of proportion. In the case of the rich people, the sentences are for deliberate and sheer theft by men who never knew what it was to see their wives and children starving, and yet they get off with sentences of nine months. On the other hand, some poor fellow who has watched his wife going down the hill day by day, who watches his bairns grow up without the education they so much need, takes part in a demonstration, and he receives a most wicked sentence.

I am not going to raise the question of sentences now, because Members of the official Labour party have had negotiations with the Home Secretary on that matter, and they think that there is a chance of those negotiations being successful. I hope there will be some kind of success, and I do not want to prejudice the chances of success by interfering at this moment. If those negotiations are not successful, I shall return to the subject. There is the case of the printer in connection with the Invergordon affair who received a sentence of 18 months, and a man in Battersea was sent to prison for 12 months for taking part in a demonstration in London. The Home Secretary has told me that those men have a right of appeal. In the last case I have mentioned the man did appeal, but he was turned down. Take the case of the men who criticised the Invergordon affair. Those men had a right to take action, and may I point out to the Home Secretary that those men never said half the hard things that Home Secretaries and Under-Secretaries said at the time of the Ulster business? These men never tried to do one-tenth part of what was done at the time of the Ulster crisis, and yet some of them for their writings upon this subject have received heavy sentences and the printer was sentenced to three years' imprisonment. Two men were sent in connection with the Invergordon affair to get the sailors and soldiers to mutiny and to work them up, and those men afterwards gave evidence which was used against the men themselves. I think that was a mean and contemptible thing.

As far as I can gather, the law in England is that political offenders are dealt with in the first division, but in Scotland the practice is slightly different, and it is for the Prison Commissioners to say whether a case is a political offence or not. If it is decided that a man is a political offender he can wear his own clothes, have his own bed and food sent in from outside, and a certain paper approved by the Governor can be sent to him. I ask that the men I have referred to should be treated as political offenders, because they are not criminals or blackmailers. Blackmailing has been looked upon by the judges as one of the worst crimes in the country, and yet blackmailers have not received sentences as long as some of the men to whom I have referred. Could not these men be treated as political offenders? Theirs is not a crime of personal gain, but is purely associated with a political movement. It was not even a movement like that of Ulster. Other men in this House have been associated with movements of a similar kind. In 1917 the Prime Minister, in the midst of the War, tried at Leeds to organise a soldiers' and sailors' council, and to get them to unite, but he was never touched. The Home Secretary's predecessor in the last Conservative Government, then Sir William Joynson-Hicks, now Lord Brent-ford, is a man whom I once described as the most stupid, honest man in this House. There was the general strike. If the strike was wrong, who was to blame? At the end of it he got justices taken off tale Bench. It was the poor people who followed that suffered. Lord Brentford gaoled the poor people who followed, and then he invited the General Council who led the strike to meet at Buckingham Palace.

9.30 p.m.

The Prime Minister in the midst of the War could attempt to organise a movement. Everybody knows he cannot resist making an appearance where he is a great man. He must be among the plaudits. He was not the only one. The Lord Privy Seal was there, too, and, worse still, Viscountess Snowden was there. It was a movement during the War which had for its purpose the usurpation of Parliament, the overthrowing of the Constitution and the setting up of a new form of Government. They occupy honourable places, but the poor man suffers. The Prime Minister sees them rot in gaol, and has not the decency to treat them as political offenders. That is contemptible conduct. I do not want to say anything unfair to the Home Secretary, but he belongs to a race that has given much to the world and this country. It is a race that has been tolerant, and has given us a good deal in the way of culture. You would have thought that, being of such a race, he might in this connection have extended, as many of his race have done before, clemency to the poor. He has very many benevolent thoughts and actions and so I ask the Home Secretary, if he cannot release these men—as a matter of fact he ought to let them out—whether he cannot treat them as political offenders? It is not being kept in prison that worries these men, for, after all, their standard of life is not much different. What worries them is that they have children, and they are wondering what is happening to their bairns outside. They have committed no criminal offence. If you cannot release them, treat them in accordance with that great heritage that Britain is supposed to have, namely, with toleration, such as other countries have not got.

There is another matter I want to bring to the Home Secretary's notice. A meeting is to be held in London to-night under the auspices of the Workers' International Relief Committee. Two men were to take part in that. I must apologise for not knowing how to pronounce their names very well, but I have never posed as a foreign affairs expert, though I represent more nations than any other Member, as mine is a constituency composed of all nations. One of them is an author. I have read his books published at the end of the War. His name is Barbusse, and the other, a member of the German Reichstag, is Herr Munzenberg. One is a Communist and a member of the Reichstag, and the other the author of a well-known book. The right hon. Gentleman will not let them come in. Maybe the Home Secretary will say that it is a Communist meeting. I am not concerned about that. Why should not an Author and a member of the German Reichstag come over here and make an appeal for funds? Why should they not come and give their views? Am I to be told that while Communism is legally to be spoken of in this country, a meeting with fellow-Communists from abroad is to be illegal?

It may be said that these men stand for the overthrow of the established order by unconstitutional means, though I think the right hon. Gentleman would have difficulty in proving his case. I would admire the Home Secretary if he were logical even in that. Hitler in Germany stands for the overthrow of the German regime, as we now know it, by violence and unconstitutional means. His lieutenant and first in command was over here a few months ago running about the whole country. Then in Spain there are the governing men, who, apparently, will take power by any means, and who are allowed to run about Britain. These two clean men, however, cannot get in, though ex-Royalty from Spain and rich men can come in. Such men are allowed to come across here and express their ideas and policy without the Home Secretary interfering. I hope the Home Secretary will not say, "Ah, but it was my predecessor who agreed to this kind of thing; it is his decision that I am adhering to." That may be, but please do not blame me for his predecessor. I am not accepting it from him, and I am sure that most of the Labour party in this House will not accept it. I never held myself responsible then for it, and am not doing so now. I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether, if this had not been done by his predecessor, he would have done it were he starting the matter anew.

I turn to the third issue that I want to raise, that of Dartmoor. I think we ought to have discussed the whole inquiry at Dartmoor much earlier than we have done. I am not suggesting that the slightest blame for that attaches to the official Opposition; I do not think they are to blame. There were other urgent subjects, such as unemployment, that must be tackled first, but I often wish that we could have had a day to discuss the question of Dartmoor and the last inquiry in connection with it. Why should not that inquiry have been held in public? It may be that this question is one concerning criminals, but it is a question of great concern to a large number of people in this country. The men who are being dealt with in Dartmoor may be bad men; it may be that their character is indefensible; but the worse they are—this may sound funny—the more defenceless they are, and, therefore, the greater is the need to see that you are fairer with them even than you would be with anyone else.

This inquiry was held in private behind closed doors. Again this may appear funny, but I am deadly serious. The convicts had no representative. If an inquiry is held into, say, the conditions of labour, if there is an inquiry into anything, the men whose conditions are to be inquired into will be represented in some form or other. Why should not the convicts have been represented at this inquiry? After all, it was their conditions that were being inquired into; why had not they the right to have someone there, and why should the inquiry have been held in private? The report has been issued. I am not going into its details. The Sunday Press put it in better language than I could. It was a mixture of melodrama that might have put "East Lynne" to shame. There was nothing in it but melodrama, and on this report the Home Secretary brings prosecutions against the men. I should not be in order in discussing the prosecution, but I think I am in order in saying that it has been ordered by the Home Secretary. It would have been better for him and for everyone else concerned if, instead of taking this melodramatic action, he had not prosecuted them at all. There comes this morning the Press intimation that, according to the "Manchester Guardian," 46 convicts have been dealt with for certain alleged forms of uprising in Dartmoor. The "Daily Herald" makes it 50, and heads its paragraph: Fifty Dartmoor Men put on Bread and Water. Nerve-racked Convicts talk of Suicide. Fifty men who took part in last Sunday's disturbance at Dartmoor have, it is understood, been put on bread and water. I do not know that men in prison are very different from men who are outside prison. The great difference, probably is some turn at the beginning of life. Someone got a chance, and others did not. I am in Parliament, and, when I look at fellows who are in prison, I feel that it would have been quite easy for me to get, not into this House, but into a prison cell. If I had not got in here, I should have had no job, and God knows where I should have been. It was only a twist that kept me from being in their position, and them from being in mine. It is useless and stupid to talk about their being bad. Take the case of murder. What usually constitutes murder? A sudden flash; the quickness of the mind; it is done, and he is there.

These men behind prison doors, when they rebelled, had a reason for it. It is the same as in a trade dispute, when men strike. They may be wrong, but, depend upon it, they have a good reason. That reason may be shown to be wrong afterwards, but at the moment there is a reason. In the same way, when men in prison, under the restrictions of prison, rise and rise again, there is a reason, and there is more than ever a reason when, after all the discipline and all the suffering that they have to endure as a result of their previous actions, even while the prosecutions are pending they do it again. They have a reason for doing it; they do not do it just for fun. The Governor has been changed, and still the men are prepared to risk all. Some of them would sooner accept death as a way out.

Why cannot the Home Secretary have a proper inquiry from the men? Why cannot he see what is wrong, and give the men every facility, with someone to represent them at a proper inquiry? Is he himself satisfied that the men are getting a fair and square deal? Why is there the difference between the men in Peterhead Prison and the men in Dartmoor? In both cases they are criminals, and yet up there there is quiet, and down here there is nothing but trouble. What is the cause of the trouble? Is it only the prisoner? If you like to do so, you can shove it all on to the prisoner, because he is defenceless and has few friends. I ask the Home Secretary: Is that straight? Is it honest? To sum up my three points, I ask if the right hon. Gentleman will release almost all the prisoners now in Invergordon, and, if he cannot meet us there, I ask that they should be treated as the Prime Minister would have been treated had he been put in prison during the War as a political offender. I ask the right hon. Gentleman to allow the eminent French author and the German Communist from the Reichstag to come and address his meetings and develop intercourse with those who hold his views in this country. Lastly, I ask him to see that the conditions of the men in Dartmoor—they may be felons, but they are still human—are improved and that the prosecution shall be withdrawn. While he may earn some criticism for doing that, in my view it would be the wise and courageous thing and future generations would thank him for his statesmanship and courage.

Mr. LANSBURY

Some months ago I wrote to the Home Secretary on the subject of the suppression of meetings of the unemployed. I think a lot of the difficulty that has arisen in London is due to the fact that meetings have to a very large extent been suppressed near the exchanges. Holding meetings outside the exchanges was regarded as causing disorder and inconvenience to those inside. I think I suggested that places might be set apart near the exchanges where meetings could be held. I still think that, if you are going to prevent marches, and to prevent meetings at certain places and not provide others, you are bound to have resentment and trouble and difficulty. I do not take the view, strange as it may sound from my history, that the police can do other than lock people up who break the peace or attempt riot. The police must preserve order. But I think the authorities have another duty, to take every precaution to prevent disorder arising. This question of public meetings in the streets has been a subject of controversy ever since I was quite young, but nearly always a Liberal Minister, and certainly a Labour Minister, ought, it seems to me, to take the line that the meetings should be held so long as they cause no inconvenience. Knowing London as I do, and knowing most of the exchanges as I do, I think it is always possible to get a place near an exchange where meetings can be held. The Home Secretary ought to be glad to give facilities for people to air their grievances and to be addressed.

I know I am open to be told that I was a Member of a Government that did not do the things I am going to ask for now. The very first thing that I took a hand in in the House was the question of the imprisonment of Tom Mann and two printers because of the printing of the "Don't Shoot" manifesto, and meetings held in support of it. A committee was formed to preserve the right of free speech. It was a committee of very prominent Liberals, as well as Socialists and strong individualists like my right hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Colonel Wedgwood). We took our stand on the principle that a constitutional Government such as ours ought to allow people to say what they like and not interfere with them unless they actually break the law. There was never a more seditious leaflet issued than the "Don't Shoot" manifesto, and no one did more to distribute it than I and my right hon. Friend and a gentleman whose name I forget now, but he was a leading Liberal and the Home Secretary would know him very well. We never got locked up, but the others did. We carried on the agitation, and in the end the then Liberal Government released the prisoners before the expiration of their sentence.

I recall that because I want to go on to another agitation which the right hon. Gentleman knows a good deal about—the Suffrage agitation. Not one of these men that my hon. Friend has pleaded for has done anything worse than the lady whose statue is in the gardens outside here. The statue was unveiled, to his credit, by the Lord President of the Council. He made a very nice speech on that occasion and paid a great tribute to the lady for the services she had rendered and for her unselfish work on behalf of a, great cause. I know that, if anyone breaks the law, he must expect to be dealt with. I do not question that at all. I myself have been dealt with on one or two occasions. But I am certain that, if the Liberal Government had taken action against the Carsonite rebellion, the same demand would have been made that was made for the prisoners in the Jameson Raid, that they should be treated as political offenders. I want to support that for two or three reasons. The chief one is one's own experience. There is nothing so bitter or so horrible in a prison, however decently you are treated, as the loneliness of it. It is a terrible feeling that you are apart from everyone and that, in a way, you are denied all the ordinary privileges of life.

The Home Secretary may say there is no such thing as a political prisoner. That was said to 33 of us in Brixton Prison. But Mr. Shortt, the then Home Secretary, broke through all the ordinary rules, and allowed the 33 Poplar prisoners, of whom I was one, for the six weeks that we were there, newspapers and a good many other privileges of association and so on. That was done without any Act of Parliament and without any new law or new regulation, just as the suffrage women received no end of advantages and privileges that ordinary prisoners did not get. We 33 were treated as people who were in prison. We had committed an offence, but it was recognised that our offence was one which had to do, as the hon. Member says, with something that was impersonal, and, from our point of view, for the good of the community. We obtained those privileges as far as the prison was concerned without any alteration of rules or alteration of the law in any way. Mr. Edward Shortt did it himself, and therefore I ask the Home Secretary to consider whether these are not cases, and especially those who are on penal servitude, where he should give some amelioration.

None of us, I think, can, deny the truth of what the hon. Member has said, that, comparing crime with crime or offence with offence, the worst that can be said of the Communists is that they have on occasion made speeches which have led to breaches of the peace. Other people have committed offences which in my view are actually very much worse, and, as to the sentences, there is no comparison between them at all. I would beg of the right hon. Gentleman to let those men have some reading matter other than from the prison library, and to see that they have useful occupations, not merely in making mats or sewing mail bags, but so that they can use their brains and their hands and thus relieve the deadliness of prison life.

10.0 p.m.

Henri Barbusse is one of my friends, and I am not ashamed to stand here and say that in my judgment he is a fine man to have for a friend, and I count it an honour that I possess his friendship. I think, whoever did it, whether it was the Home Secretary or whoever was responsible, that it is a disgrace to this country that the man who wrote "Under Fire" and "Jesus" should be kept out of this country. Barbusse is one of the great figures in liberal Europe, and that he should have been denied admittance because apparently the Government are afraid that he might make a speech on Communism—I do not know that he is a Communist even—but that he should make a speech of which they might disapprove is, I think, something which is a little unworthy of the right hon. Gentleman. The member of the German Parliament, too, ought to have been allowed to come in. Surely we have not reached the point in this country when we are afraid of allowing people to make speeches upon subjects of which we happen to disapprove, and surely it cannot be that we are afraid of allowing even propaganda. I remember asking the predecessor of the right hon. Gentleman, Lord Brentford, when he was Home Secretary: Is the advocacy of Communism illegal in this country? He said: "No, certainly not; anyone is at liberty to say and preach whatever doctrine he pleases, but we stop them short of action." That summarises what he said, and that is my position, and it is the position which ought to be taken up in regard to speakers coming from abroad. I do not wish to prevent other hon. Members from speaking and I should not have risen except that I feel that public meetings, certainly in London, ought to be encouraged by the Home Secretary rather than discouraged, and that if they are held at inconvenient places the authorities ought to try and find places less inconvenient.

I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will not say to us that there is no such thing as first-class imprisonment and first-class prisoners, or treatment for political offenders, because there is. There are 1,000 precedents for dealing with one set of prisoners differently from another set. Although this House may hate Communism, hon. Members must admit that many of the men and women who advocate Communism are as decent and as good as any of us in this House. It was because the House and the country recognise that the women who were advocating the suffrage and who did no end of illegal things and brought themselves within the clutches of the law were in earnest and were fighting for what they thought was a great cause, that all the privileges were granted to them during the agitation. That being so, I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will consider these cases, and if he cannot release the prisoners that he will give them at least the treatment for which we are asking this evening.

Mr. HOLFORD KNIGHT

The matters which have been raised place upon my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary a responsibility which I have no doubt he will hasten to discharge, and I beg his pardon for intervening for two minutes. I was not aware that these matters were to be raised, but I desire to say a word or two upon the second subject raised by my hon. Friend opposite. I confess that I was shocked this morning to read somewhere that M. Barbusse, and a member of the German Parliament, whom I do not know, had been refused admittance to this country. M. Barbusse I know as one of the most distinguished literary characters of the world, and I beg of my right hon. Friend, who has now resumed the office which he held some years ago with great distinction, not to accept responsibility in that office for any action which may bring the administration of justice in this land into disrepute. It really is a matter which will excite comment up and down this country and outside this country that a man of the distinction of Monsieur Barbusse should be refused admission to this land. Putting matters at their worst, supposing Monsieur Barbusse intended to address a, public meeting, even for the advocacy of Communism—a subject in which I have not the slightest interest and for which I have no respect—that exercise would be within the meaning of the law of England. If M. Barbusse proposed to do that, it would be no reason for interfering with his actions here.

I would, with the greatest possible respect, because we are very old colleagues, ask my right hon. Friend to hesitate to refuse to allow this distinguished literary man to enter this Realm, except for reasons, substantial and compelling reasons, which can be placed before the House. As to the other matter, I have no knowledge of the Member of the German Parliament to whom reference has been made, but I would point out that many Members of this House belong to the Inter-Parliamentary Union, where we are in association with Members of Parliaments in all lands. The knowledge that a Member of any Parliament had been excluded from this Realm, is a matter which strikes me with astonishment. Therefore, in accordance with the traditions of this land and the traditions of this House, I hope that no action will be taken by the Home Office in respect of this Member of Parliament, or any other Member of Parliament, which is calculated to bring the administration of justice into disrespect and I hope to hear from my right hon. Friend either that the report is inaccurate or that there is in the possession of his Office information of a serious character which warrants this astonishing proceeding.

Dr. O'DONOVAN

I think that something should be said from the level of a back bencher in defence of our police. They are men like unto ourselves, as respectable as ourselves, and it would be simply shocking if the newspapers tomorrow printed an attack upon the police, wholesale and savage, and no back bencher had said one word in their defence.

Mr. LANSBURY

Who made the attack?

Dr. O'DONOVAN

The attack upon the police is gross and, to me, offensive. We are told that it is their policy to club, arrest and baton. It should be said by those who have working class and poor constituents, and who meet the police daily, that those attacks find no echo in the heart of this House. When the Easter holiday is approaching there is no better season to appeal for clemency for those in prison. The lot of prisoners appeals to every human heart, but if one is to appeal to those who have the great responsibility of government, that appeal should not be embroidered in brimstone or written in words of sour disdain. It does not help the cause of clemency if we are told that the murderer is just as other men. It does not help the cause of clemency to be told of the anguishing need of those upon whom the country we hope has passed just judgment. An appeal for clemency can properly be made, but there must be no assumption that those who have been justly judged are perpetually dealt with afterwards, unjustly.

I think the country has been shocked, not so much by the public proceedings that have followed the incidents at Dartmoor, but by the mental torture to which public servants have since been subjected at the public inquiry. Simple men who occupy the position of prison warders are not trained to stand with case and comfort suggestions that their impulses are bloody and that their actions are on the level of beasts. Although those of us who are trained to be cross-examined know that questions put are pure advocacy, we must recognise that for the working class to be cross-examined in that way is a serious mental torture. Our hearts should not bleed with pity only for convicts, but for those who make it their life's work and duty to look after their care and maintenance, as well as their imprisonment.

We cannot advance the cause of the poor or the oppressed by the grossest of hypocrisy. When adjectives like "filth" are used and applied to one section of the community, common honesty makes us say that owing to the filthiness that is prevalent in humanity we have to spend thousands of pounds to keep going in England venereal centres which are not attended by the class that has been so unworthily attacked to-night: The colonel's lady, and Judy O'Grady, Are sisters under their skins. but to suggest that the colonel's lady wears always scarlet stockings and that Judy O'Grady is always virtue, and virtue only, is to mislead the poor, who always need help and honest advice.

I have been distressed to-night to hear such bad philosophy as to suggest that in England freedom of opinion should always be encouraged. That is a gross cruelty to those who follow out in action that line of thought. Expression of opinion is vanity and foolery if that expression of opinion when it has been translated into action is punished with imprisonment. To imprison and punish in that way is fool's philosophy. Opinion that is dangerous, opinion that is wrong, should, if government has any principles behind it, be first warned and then suppressed, and I was encouraged and refreshed to hear that the Home Secretary has issued orders to prevent the entry into England of opinion which if put into action must lead to deplorable scenes of public disorder. Let us be simple. Anyone can hold the opinion that bigamy is delightful, but if we put that opinion into practice His Majesty's judges take cognisance that we have put that opinion into practice. It is far better to warn our children that bigamy is not tolerated and to prevent its advocacy rather than that they should put that opinion into practice and that we should punish the poor bigamists afterwards. I agree that we cannot be logical. Perhaps the most disorderly gentleman in English history was Oliver Cromwell, and his statue is outside this House and not within it.

The Leader of His Majesty's Opposition in this House has put it to us, quite seriously, that gentlemen should be let into England because they are his friends. I have "friends" in Claybury Asylum, but they are kept incarcerated. I have friends whom I love, but as to their faults I should be horrified if the world knew them. Friendship overleaps the bounds of harsh judgment, or judgment of any kind, but it is very terrible to me that from the Front Opposition Bench the Government should be appealed to to allow into this country friends of the right hon. Gentleman, as if friendship were the only passport to England's shores.

Then it is suggested that a gentleman should be allowed to come into this country because of his literary distinction. Goodness! What awful stuff has been printed and what minds have been ruined by gentlemen of literary distinction. One of the most famous of murderers, Charles Peace, was a musician of distinction. He found his way to the gallows in spite of his artistic tendencies. Surely there are better claims for entering peaceful England than literary distinction, however eminent. I believe that those who reach a position in Government in England are neither trivial in their decisions nor irresponsible in what they do. Although I would add my voice in an appeal for clemency I would not attach to that appeal for clemency a sour and harsh denunciation of those who very humbly carry out the powers which Parliament puts into their hands.

The SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Sir Herbert Samuel)

The hon. Member for Gorbals (Mr. Buchanan) who initiated this discussion has spoken with his customary sincerity and power of appeal, although his speech seemed to me to be marred here and there by exaggeration, to which the hon. Member for Mile End (Dr. O'Donovan) has vigorously and forcibly drawn attention. His first and chief request was that certain offenders should be treated in prison as political offenders. I agree that the offences committed by them are not what might be called offences of degradation. They are not offences such as robbery or fraud, or wanton assault, but were committed in pursuance of what they conceived to be some public cause which demanded self sacrifice in one form or another. But the Prison Acts which I have to administer and outside of which I cannot go make it quite clear what classes of offences are to be regarded as political offences. The prisoners who have committed them may be confined in what is called the first division. They are offences of sedition or seditious libel. Those are the offences which come within the category ordinarily understood as political offences. The right hon. Member for Poplar (Mr. Lansbury) was one who 11 years ago was the guest of my predecessor of that day. He and his colleagues were sentenced technically for contempt of court and came under what are known as the debtor rules. They were of the highest grade of respectability among prisoners, and under those rules it was within the discretion of the Home Secretary of that time to give them certain privileges. There were special circumstances also with regard to some, but by no means all, of those who committed offences during the suffragette agitation.

But these other offences of disorder in the street or tumultous assembly, and still less offences such as those of inciting to mutiny, have never been regarded as political offences, and if I were once to single out prisoners who had been so convicted I should be setting a precedent which would be found in the future to be injurious to the public interest. When the hon. Member for Gorbals says that these people were suffering from a bitter sense of the injustice of their lot and were goaded into crime because they were not allowed to demonstrate the feelings they held, there I think he is in error, for no one is prosecuted or convicted in this country merely because he desires to exercise the rights of free speech or to express his grievances against the state of society or against his own particular misfortunes, provided that he does it in an orderly fashion and in places that do not involve obstruction or produce disorder.

The hon. Member mentioned that a rule was made by the Commissioner of Police that such meetings were not to be held in the neighbourhood of the Employment Exchanges, and the right hon. Gentleman opposite supported that complaint. But it was found in practice that when, outside Employment Exchanges in some thoroughfare, persons came and held political meetings and delivered orations from some suitable eminence to the crowds there collected, it did give rise to obstruction and disorder and hampered the business of the Exchanges. Therefore, the Commissioner of Police, without any prompting from me but on his own initiative and in accordance with his duty to maintain order in the public thoroughfares, gave instructions that the police were not to permit meetings at these spots. But at the same time I announced publicly in the House that if applications were made to the police authorities for alternative sites at no great distance from those places, where meetings could be held without inconvenience, certainly the police would give every facility for gatherings of that character. My hon. Friend the Member for Gorbals did an injustice to the police in certain language that he used, and when he thinks it over in a calm hour possibly he may regret having said that the police never thought how they could facilitate an expression of the people's dissatisfaction, but thought only how they could stop demonstrations, how they could arrest and how they could club the people.

Mr. BUCHANAN

I am not denying what I said, but what I meant was that the police were acting under the instructions of the authorities. I did not place the responsibility on the individual police, but said that the authorities were the instructing body.

Sir H. SAMUEL

The hon. Member has not correctly stated the facts, for if we consider what has been happening during this last most difficult winter, and the vast number of unemployment demonstrations that have been held in various parts of the country and in the Metropolis, if we consider how many of them have passed off quite peacefully, in how very few cases there have been conflicts between the police and the demonstrators, and how in each case it was because the demonstrators refused to conform to police instructions as to the route of procession, or attempted, contrary to the Standing Orders of this House, to penetrate in large bodies into Westminster Square or Palace Yard—if all that is taken into account the general feeling will be that the police throughout the country have acted with the greatest forbearance and tolerance, and have done their utmost to give full scope for the expression of public opinion and social views, while at the same time performing their primary duty of maintaining public order.

Where action has had to be taken it has been where people have made trouble. Where people deliberately make trouble they must expect to get into it, and if the Home Secretary were to intervene and release the offenders, the effect of that would be—known as the action would be instantly throughout the country—to encourage large numbers of similar cases elsewhere. Instead of the demonstrators taking pains to conform to police instructions that they should carry on demonstrations in an orderly fashion, the number of conflicts with the police would probably be multiplied, if people thought that they would be immune from penalties. To condone one occasion of violence would be really to invite others. That would be no advantage to the State. As to the cases in Mardy in South Wales which the hon. Gentleman mentioned but did not dwell upon, I shall follow his example by not referring to them further. I only mention them in' order to demur to the word "negotiations" which he used. I have received representations from some hon. Members representing South Wales and I am advised that, in the first instance at all events, the right course would be to make an appeal to the Court of Criminal Appeal. That is the method provided by Parliament for securing reconsideration of sentences in the first instance. But while undertaking to give attention to these representations, it would be improper for me or any Home Secretary, as I am sure every hon. Member will agree, to enter into anything that could be called negotiations regarding the exercise of the Royal Prerogative.

I come to the other cases mentioned by the hon. Member some of which were also referred to by my right hon. Friend the Member for Bow and Bromley. They were cases which have arisen out of the Communist agitation. It is perfectly legitimate for those who hold Communist views to endeavour to persuade their fellow-countrymen to adopt that policy. They have a right to express their opinions, to publish their newspapers and leaflets, to stand for Parliament and to advocate their policy by such means as are generally open, in this land of free speech, to all citizens, provided that they do not advocate or assist in carrying out measures of disorder and tumult or any other definite offence against the law. That rule has been freely followed. Many of them have, as we know endeavoured to carry through their policy by standing for Parliament and advocating it at the polls. There were at the last Election, 26 Communist candidates and the opinion of the nation was shown by the fact that 21 of these lost their deposits, that none of them was elected, and that in an electorate of 30,000,000 voters they only obtained some 75,000 votes.

Mr. BUCHANAN

May I submit that the right hon. Gentleman is about the last person who should make that remark because it is only a year or two since the Liberals in this House were not much more in numbers and—I say it quite seriously—were sneered at in the most offensive fashion. May I say, further, in regard to the great Labour party, that it is not so many years ago since Keir Hardie was a lonesome figure here. That is no argument.

Sir H. SAMUEL

I am not sneering. I am only pointing out the fact that people hero have an opportunity to propound particular creeds, no matter how extreme they may be and it is left to the judgment of the electorate to decide what their fate shall be. Some of us may have suffered from those judgments when they have been adverse; perhaps the hon. Member and his friends on some occasions may have in the past endured, and, presumably, in the future may endure, the same fate.

Mr. BUCHANAN

We are enduring it now.

10.30 p.m.

Sir H. SAMUEL

But I should be very sorry that it should be imagined that I sneered at or derided anyone. Since the War, with regard to the Communist movement there is a new situation. There is, as all the world knows, a definite political force at work in very many countries, organised and subsidised from a centre. Its ultimate motive may possibly be to improve the lot of the poorest classes throughout the world, but it seeks that end, if that be its end, by promoting immediate troubles, by methods of strife and by endeavouring to bring about a cataclysm. Against that, the nations must protect themselves, for this movement is not native and spontaneous in each country but is promoted from elsewhere and, as all the world knows, is maintained by subsidies. The hon. Member for Gorbals mentioned that in his view certain parties in Germany were also advocating a form of revolution. If that were the case and they extended their activities over the international scale and sent emissaries here and there to foment revolutions, then those emissaries would have to be treated in exactly the same way as those who are stopped from entering this country for similar reasons.

As to the two gentlemen who were to have spoken at a meeting here this evening, and who have been prevented from entering this country, both of them are connected with these international propagandist organisations. Herr Munzenberg is the leading spirit of an organisation called the Workers' International Relief Organisation, which, although it has an apparently innocuous name, is one of that great network of international Communist organisations of which the world is well aware. He has been already expelled on account of these activities from Sweden, Switzerland, and Austria. He is also an active member of another league, which is of so extreme a character that my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgeton (Mr. Maxton) was expelled from it. As long ago as 1922 he was on the list of persons who were for those reasons prohibited from entering this country. I did not place him on that list; he was there, and indeed my predecessor refused to remove him from it, and the question that I had to answer was whether I should remove that ban in order to enable him to come to England, in order ostensibly to address a meeting in favour of international peace, with the strange slogan on its handbills of "Hands off China!" with the possibility, indeed the probability, that while here he would engage in very many other activities.

The other gentleman is Monsieur Barbusse, who, undoubtedly, is a person of great literary distinction, but who is also connected with this form of propaganda. He was coming to England, not as a writer, in which capacity he would have been very welcome, but as a propagandist. He has been also on the list of persons to be excluded since December, 1924, and again in this case it seems that there was no reason for lifting this ban. If this international movement did not exist, if this dangerous propaganda had stopped, if conditions had become normal, then indeed such bans as these might be lifted, but that time, I fear, is not yet.

The members of these organisations, having failed by political means in this country to secure the support of the electorate, having failed also to secure their ends by fomenting industrial disturbances, as they have endeavoured to do from time to time, have now avowedly—there is no secret about it—endeavoured to seduce from their allegiance, if they could manage to do so, the armed Forces of the Crown. That is deeply resented throughout those Forces, but none the less the State has to take proper action to prevent the Army, the Navy and the Air Force being subjected to these subversive influences; and on various occasions persons have been detected, have been fairly tried, have been clearly convicted of carrying on measures of that kind, of endeavouring to seduce individual soldiers or sailors and to make them into similar propagandists among the rank and file of the Army and naval ratings, and have been sentenced to imprisonment. That is not a legitimate form of political propaganda. They cannot be treated in any sense as political offenders. So grave is that offence that Parliament has enacted that the maximum penalty for it is penal servitude for life. Such sentences, of course, have not been imposed. Sentences have been far more moderate than that, but the State must make it perfectly clear that activities of that kind cannot in any circumstances be tolerated and will be sternly repressed. So I must frankly tell the House that I cannot consider for a moment any measures of leniency for those who engage in that particular form of activity.

Lastly, the hon. Member for Gorbals referred to the occurrences at Dartmoor. He complained that the inquiry that was held by Mr. du Parcq, now Mr. Justice du Parcq, was held in private, and suggested that it should have been in public with legal assistance for those who were in prison at Dartmoor. That inquiry, however, was in no sense a trial of anyone, and my hon. Friend from the beginning has misunderstood its purpose. That, inquiry was administrative; it was ordered by myself as responsible for the administration of prisons in order that I should be informed and, through publication, that the whole country should be informed what were the actual facts of those lamentable occurrences that took place ire January. No one was charged through that inquiry; it was in no sense a trial of any individual. Subsequently, it was necessary, of course, to take action and to penalise those who had taken part in those grave disturbances. Therefore, I took the very action which the hon. Member desired, so that what was done should be done with full publicity, and that the prisoners impugned and charged with serious offences and liable to serious penalties, should have legal defence available for them. But the hon. Member says that it would have been far better if they had not had any trial at all. So I am wrong in all ways. If an administrative inquiry is held in the prison, that is wrong; and if there is a public trial before a judge and jury, as there will be, with counsel allotted to the prisoners at public expense if necessary, in order that their case may be fully presented and fairly heard, my hon. Friend condemns that policy also.

I feel sure that the course taken is the right one; that the light of publicity should be thrown on these events; that the prisoners should have the opportunity of defending themselves before their fellow citizens; and that any penalty of a serious character which is imposed should be imposed by a judge after the verdict of a jury and after a full trial, rather than that ordinary disciplinary methods should be taken behind closed doors by the prison authorities. The hon. Member complains of methods that have been adopted in the prison at Dartmoor—I think he said to-day—owing to occurrences that took place on Sunday. That occurrence was not of a very serious character. A small group of the men refused at one time to return to their cells, and the governor had to be sent for. He ordered them to go back to their cells, which they did without any disturbance. There was no violence of any sort. At first they resisted orders, but afterwards obeyed them. But an occurrence of that kind could not be passed over, and consequently the governor, within the very moderate limits which are allowed by the prison rules, had to take disciplinary action. The hon. Member objects to the fact that this disciplinary action took the form of confinement with low diet, bread and water. That penalty is permitted by the prison rules, but only for a period not longer than three days.

If some penalty has to be imposed, of what kind should it be 7 In the old days all those men would have been flogged, which action would be permitted if the Board of Prison Visitors ordered it, but now such a penalty would not be enforced for an offence of that character. This ordinary, mild, dietary punishment for a short period of three days is the one provided by the prison rules, and it is very difficult to find any alter-native, which is not brutal or inhumane, which would mark the fact that a prisoner has committed an offence against discipline. I am sure the House will realise that when there are 400 men, some of them convicted of crimes of violence, almost all of them recidivists who have been in prison more than once, and all sentenced to fairly long terms of imprisonment—at least three years' penal servitude—it is no easy matter to maintain proper discipline, particularly when public opinion will not allow any of the severe punishments which used to be in vogue in earlier times. We must protect the governors and the warders of our prisons in the administration of the very difficult task that devolves upon them.

As to the matters which are now sub judice, of course no one in this House can speak. The trial will take place and those matters will be further investigated. As for the maintenance of discipline in the prison meanwhile, the accounts of disturbances which have been printed in the Press have been most grossly exaggerated. The prison has been quiet now for a long time past, and offences such as that which took place on Sunday have been practically non-existent since the serious outbreak of 24th January, but in the maintenance of discipline, as I say, authority must be supported. The Home Secretary of the day, whoever he may be, has more disagreeable duties to perform than, I think, any other member of the Government—many duties unpleasant, many stern, sometimes even grim, but someone has to perform them in the national interest; but whoever the Home Secretary of the day may be, I feel sure that if those duties are performed conscientiously, but with fairness, coupled with restraint, and, where possible, with sympathy, he will always have the support of the House of Commons.

Mr. MAXTON

It is an extraordinary paradox of British political life that Liberal Home Secretaries always seem to be the Home Secretaries who insist on carrying out to the last letter of their official duty the imposition of restrictions on liberty. The right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition referred to instances of modification of prison treatment made by Conservative Home Secretaries. My hon. Friend the Member for Gorbals (Mr. Buchanan) referred to concessions in the way of kindlier treatment made by Lord Brentford when Home Secretary. To-night we have got from a Liberal Home Secretary a complete non possumus on everyone of the three points brought forward by the hon. Member for Gorbals. He stands on the strict letter of his duty, and in the doing of it he makes the assertion, presumably of Liberal thought, that political offenders in this country are to be treated precisely after the manner of the foulest criminal who happens to come within his grip.

That is his proposition. He will not case that discipline by one jot or tittle. It is interesting to know, in view of democracy, that no one will be permitted to come into this country from foreign lands who may conceivably speak of our free democracy, of our methods of governmental and political action other than those to which we are accustomed, and which produced only 75,000 votes at the General Election. The people are supposed to be so feeble-minded, so easily influenced, so easily swayed, that if two distinguished foreigners come here and talk about Communist theories, of which we have heard before, they will be contaminated. Herr Munzenberg, the German delegate, cannot speak a word of English and M. Barbusse has about as much English at his command as the Leader of the Opposition has command of French.

It is assumed that these two men can upset the whole balance of our body politic. That may be good Home Secretaryship, but it is not good Liberalism, and it is far from being good democracy. It is not right, it is not a fair game, as the hon. Member for Gorbals has pointed out, that wealthy people can pour into this country from any corner of the globe and propound any political or social doctrine they please without interference. In the case of the Fascist organisation, no steps have been taken by this or any other Home Secretary to prevent their meetings taking place. Here is something which appeared in last night's paper which raises a question of taste as well as decency. It reads: The latest exploit of the Free Trade Liberal Ministers is causing fresh comment at Westminster. They are parties to an invitation which is bringing to London the representatives of 12 nations to hold a Free Trade demonstration a fortnight before the Budget. The date of the Conference is 1st April, but Sir Herbert Samuel, Sir Donald Maclean, and Sir Archibald Sinclair will not be there. Lord Snowden, who is also on the invitation committee will attend. Mr. Lloyd George is not on the invitation committee, nor has he been invited to be present at the Conference. There was no intention to attack the Government. On the contrary several Ministers including Sir Herbert Samuel, Sir Donald Maclean, Sir Archibald Sinclair and Lord Snowden are on the invitation committee … There is to be a dinner on 31st March, tickets, 10s. 6d."— I do not know whether the Home Secretary is to be present— On 1st April, there will be a conference lasting all day. There will be delegates from Germany, France, Norway, Sweden, Holland, Denmark, the United States, Argentina, Belgium and Austria, etc. No definite resolutions are to be moved … The foreigners, however, will be able to see at least a junior Liberal Minister. Mr. Harcourt Johnstone, one of the Samuel Whips is going. The hon. Member for Mile End (Dr. O'Donovan) criticised the Leader of the Opposition on the ground that we must not allow personal friendships to decide political questions. I want to say the same thing to the Home Secretary. These distinguished delegates who are coming from Germany, France, Norway and Sweden, his personal friends presumably, are coming to attend this Liberal Free Trade demonstration which I am sure must be very obnoxious to the Government of the day and of an international nature. Is there going to be any difficulty about the passports of his guests? Conservatives of the extreme order may have their Hitlerite friends over here and Fascist friends from Italy and the Royalist counter-revolutionaries from Spain and Portugal, but if they are working people who wish to discuss their political problems with men from other countries of a similar tendency, then the Home Secretary says, "No, it is too dangerous." That is not fair play. It is not democracy, and it is not decent or gentlemanly. I think a Free Trade demonstration within the next few weeks, and particularly just before the introduction of the first Budget of a Protectionist nation, is entirely out of place. It is bringing foreign nations in to interfere with the internal policy of this country. The Home Secretary may say, "Ah, but they are not going to advocate revolution." He does not know. Most of the dastardly things done in the political life of Europe, including the late War, have been done by Liberal statesmen with all the highest moral reasons for doing them, and always protesting that never, never under any pretext would they resort to the use of violence. Then they go to war, and there is violence all over the place.

I do not know what may be the result of the coming together of all sorts of freak politicians from the various European countries, but I am prepared to allow them to come together and talk, because I believe in freedom of thought, because I believe in freedom of speech, because I believe that, if people are given an opportunity for the free exchange of free opinions, they will, in the main, come to intelligent and reasonable decisions. I am asking the Home Secretary to apply that principle even to people whose political views are obnoxious to himself, as he seems to apply it to his own personal political friends.

Certain strictures were passed upon my hon. Friend the Member for Gorbals over the Dartmoor matter, but my hon. Friend did not raise the question of the trial, or make any comment upon the work of the warders, except to say in passing that it was out of order to discuss in this House a matter which was presently sub judice. That was all the reference that he made to it; so that the criticisms of the hon. Member for Mile End were beside the point. My hon. Friend made the point that only in Dartmoor has there been trouble. Even supposing that the echoes of Dartmoor must have got into every other prison in Britain, there has been no disturbance in any of these. I do not believe that the trouble in Dartmoor arises because the prisoners in Dartmoor are worse than those in any other prison in Great Britain. They are exactly the same types as are in Peterhead. You have to find the cause of that trouble, not in the characters of individual prisoners, but in something about the administration of that prison at the beginning.

My hon. Friend did not ask impossible things of the Home Secretary. He asked that, instead of having two inquiries—a private inquiry at which there was no possibility of the prisoners' case being put, and then a public trial of a selection of prisoners, selected by whom we do not know—he asked that, instead of that, there should be one public inquiry that would have been aimed, not at getting victims, for the Home Secretary used an argument which seemed to indicate that probably what he wanted were examples, but a public inquiry that would probe to the causes of the trouble; that we should not look for victims at all, but, having found the causes, should provide the appropriate remedy.

11.0 p.m.

As regards the question of reduction of sentences, it is all very well to say kind words about the police. The Home Sec- retary pays tribute to the police because in only one or two parts of the country have clashes arisen between the police and the unemployed. But are we not just as much entitled to place the credit of that to the unemployed as to the police? I know that in the Glasgow trouble—for which, of course, the right hon. Gentleman has no responsibility—in the one case of which we know intimately, and where I sat in court and listened to the trial, it was only after three or four great peaceful demonstrations had taken place, and after the police had adopted a truculent and bullying attitude towards the crowd, that a disturbance took place, and it was only then that people were brought into court. Then we have the case cited by my hon. Friend the Member for Gorbals, of a young person in Battersea who, resisting arrest, made a bit of a struggle with the police, as 99 out of 100 of us would do. The first thing any citizen, however law abiding, would do when a policeman put his arm upon him, would be to shake him off. I do not care who he is. This man resisted arrest and he is sentenced to 12 months' imprisonment. The Home Secretary says that this is the ordinary procedure of the law and that it is right. The man can have neither reduction of sentence nor decent treatment in gaol. I hope that the Home Secretary will take note of the representations that have been made here publicly and also those made to him privately to reconsider the three issues which we put before him with a view to bringing something like leniency and decency into these operations, particularly with regard to the more extreme political offenders.

Mr. DAVID GRENFELL

As one who joined in the representations to the Home Secretary, I rise simply to confirm the statement made by him regarding the Mardy case. My colleagues from South Wales who are not present would wish me to say that we did not regard our conversations with the Home Secretary as negotiations on the matter submitted to him.

I would like to say one or two things about other matters and would like the Home Secretary to be very careful in regard to representations made from his own side. The hon. Member for Mile End (Dr. O'Donovan) who appears to have been so unfortunate in his friends, so displeased with his literary indulgences, and so disappointed with philosophy, appears to have a grudge against the whole world. We sympathise with him but we hope the Home Secretary will not be unduly influenced by speeches of that kind made by his own supporters. The hon. Member is a Celt, like myself. Let us hope that in the days immediately ahead of us a great deal of toleration will be given to that nation and individuals of that nation.

Dr. O'DONOVAN

I should like to express my complete disavowal of any connection between the struggle of Ireland for freedom and the Communist movement.

Mr. GRENFELL

The hon. Member has a grudge against Communism, as a good many people had against the Fenian movement. I believe there is a political disease in Europe arising partly out of an economic disease which is expressing itself in every European country. Never before has Europe been so torn with political difficulties as at present. Henri Barbusse is a great champion of liberty and, whether he is connected directly with the Communist movement or not, he is known as a member of the League of the Rights of Humanity, which is supposed to be connected with the Communist movement. Nobody denies that the League has done very useful work. I have read his exposure of the conditions in certain European States where no Britisher could stand by unsympathetically and witness the hardships imposed upon people of the very highest character.

If they are guilty of any crime at all, they are guilty of political crime in the highest sense of the word. I hope that we shall not make a mistake in excluding these men. There is another highly distinguished German—Einstein. He is perhaps the most brilliant man of this generation in the world. Einstein has been connected with the same league, and he is doing exactly the same kind of work as Henri Barbusse is doing on the occasions when he goes away from his country. I believe that the Home Secretary is Liberal enough, and will remain Liberal enough, to have regard to the very serious difficulties and complexities of European politics at the present time and that he will in this country provide asylum for men who may require asylum. I hope that Henri Barbusse will find his way into this country, and that the ban placed upon him in December, 1924, by a Tory Home Secretary will once more be raised. He is doing good work, good humanitarian work, and it will redound to the credit of this country if he is allowed to enter.

Question, "That the Bill be now read the Third time," put, and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read the Third time, and passed.