AIR-RAID PRECAUTIONS. (Hansard, 14 April 1938)

§ Major Rayner
I am told that the authorities are rather worried about the slowness of the recruitment for air-raid precautions and are considering offering further inducements to the public. I suggest that the only inducement necessary is that the public should be told the whole truth. I would suggest that our Ministers, particularly the Minister of Defence, might do rather more in that connection. The public should be told that in face of armed and aggressive nations our national effort is hopelessly 1403 inadequate. We in Great Britain have two main objectives—to keep the peace of Europe and to rebuild the League of Nations. Unless our people are willing to do something more than just put their hands in their pockets I feel that we shall not obtain either of those objects. The dictator States know that we are rich and that we can spend untold gold on armaments, but they know that they have a long start of us and that for the moment they can arm much faster than we can. They also realise that in these days of air fleets and air warfare armament is as much a matter of morale as of equipment, and they rather wonder whether we will submit to sacrifice and discipline sufficiently to make our armaments really effective.
I do not think that that is to be wondered at because they are very proud of their own efforts. The young German is on his toes, fit and eager and willing to follow the Feuhrer wherever he leads; the young Italian is sure that Italy has become once again a nation of soldiers and is able to restore the past glories of the Roman Empire; and the young Jap is taught that his country has a divine mission, and he is so ashamed if he fails in one of his examinations, military or otherwise, that he probably commits suicide. Then they turn and look at us. They understand to some extent our national sentiments and our peculiar ability to meet a grave crisis when it arises, but, superficially, what do they see? They see our small Army two-thirds of the strength it was in 1914, and yet to-day not up to strength. They see the Territorial Army, even in these days, still well below establishment, and the grotesque county quotas of our national defence. They see our educational system the most expensive and extensive in the world and they observe that we do nothing in return for the benefits we receive to see that our young men and women are brought up with any sense of duty to the State. They look at our physical training campaign, a campaign which, up to date, is not a success. In spite of the splendid societies which co-operate in it, in spite of the enthusiastic efforts of the Minister of Health, it touches barely a fringe of our population, and fails hopelessly to bring in just those difficult cases which most urgently require its services. They 1404 note that subsidised idleness is the best we can do for the greater part of our unemployed, and that our wonderful labour training camps, which we established at great cost, are seldom, if ever, filled.
Finally, they observe our new Air-Raid Precautions Campaign, which is meant to cover the greatest and most vulnerable target in the world, and which asks merely for some million of volunteers, as against the 12,000,000 who are already trained in Germany. As a back-bencher I do not know, of course, how far that organisation has really gone. It has probably gone a good deal further than it seems to have gone, but the foreigner will see it through the same sort of eyes as a back-bencher, knowing nothing of the inside of the campaign. He would have expected to see a response to the appeal for volunteers rather like the response to a popular issue of stock in the city, which is over-subscribed in two or three days, instead of a trickle of volunteers. He will also have observed that while this country was putting the final polish on large stocks of bombs we haggled for a couple of years on who should pay for air-raid precautions, and he will think with me, although I am perhaps quite wrong, that the average Londoner has to-day, after several crises which might have meant war, no idea of where he can get his gas mask and no idea of how to put it on if he gets it.
Our neighbours, therefore, are bound to underrate us as we are at present. History has told them that more nations are undone by riches than by poverty, and they feel that we have become slack and sloppy, and that our people will not face personal sacrifice. They admit, remembering 1914, that if we were attacked we should jump to it in no half-hearted fashion, but they consider under the present conditions of warfare that they would probably be able to give us a knock-out blow. The dictators have not been reticent as regards their opinions on the value of a knock-out blow. Herr Hitler said not very long ago: If I should ever want to attack an enemy I should not negotiate and make preparations for months. As I have always done, I should fall upon my enemy suddenly, like lightning striking out of the night. He gives us a fair warning. What are we going to do about it? I think in the first place that we ought to be rather 1405 ashamed of our national effort in the last two or three years, because it has not been worthy of this country, or of our ideals. I should like the country to be so wide awake to realities that they demanded some system of citizen organisation which meant the brotherly co-operation of high and low, rich and poor, employer and employé, but I fear that is a distant hope, and in the meantime all we can do is to get behind the Minister and do the best we can to make air-raid precautions a really good show.
In that connection I would like to make three suggestions. My first is that we should have far more gas meetings, because they do more than most other things to bring home to the civilian population the urgency of Air-Raid Precautions. The citizen has to understand that in the next war any town may become a strategic objective, which is a polite way of saying that pillage by fire and bomb may be carried to any part of the country. More than ever before, the ordinary man and woman in their home town will become the backbone of the country because they will be in the front line, so to speak, and any panic or disorganisation will be fatal. I am sure that hon. Members on both sides of the House will help the Minister in those meetings if asked to do so. I suggest, in the second place, that there is a certain amount of slowness in recruiting, owing to the fact that a lot of men of military age feel that they may do their training and then be called up when war breaks out. Although the Minister has this matter in hand, I feel that more precise instructions might be issued and might be broadcast through the Press. Local authorities are inclined to sit on instructions of that kind for an undue length of time. Thirdly, black-out practice might become more universal, because it brings before the man in the street the urgency of air-raid protection. Finally, I do not think that was is inevitable. Britain, and perhaps only Britain, can save the world from war if she is prepared to make the necessary national effort. Let us make that effort, and convince the world of our undoubted virility, without having to win another war in order to do so.

§ The Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Geoffrey Lloyd)
The three hon. Members who have ad- 1406 dressed the House have ranged rather widely over considerable areas. They have all touched upon certain aspects of Home Office administration, and it might be convenient if I replied to certain of their points at this stage—although I am not in a position to deal with the general arguments which they have advanced. Perhaps it might be true to say that the hon. Gentlemen have been more anxious to place their points of view before the House than to have a detailed reply upon what they have said. I ought to deal first of all with the points relating to aliens administration, as raised by the hon. Member for East Wolverhampton (Mr. Mander). I am glad to hear from him that there is one action of the Home Office of which ht approves. I think it is true that the House and the country approve of the attitude of my right hon. Friend on refugees from Austria. Although it is not quite strictly within my sphere of competence, I should like to make one remark about holidays in Germany. We ought to approach a question of that kind with a certain caution, because the provision of cheap holidays is a feature of tourist work in many countries, and in some it is placed upon an official basis. We must not lose sight of the fact that it may well be to the advantage of both countries to encourage it.
Then the hon. Gentleman turned to the question of domestic servants, and asked whether the Home Office were alive to the problems which he mentioned in that connection. I can assure him at once that one of the dangers he has in mind, namely, that German women might come into this country and then take up domestic service, is amply covered by the regulations, under which that is not allowed without special permission. With regard to the other aspects of the question of German servants in this country, the hon. Gentleman is, of course, aware that he provided my right hon. Friend with some information. All I can say is that we are examining that information. We should be very grateful if he could let us have any more, and particularly if it can be as precise as possible, because the question of discretion, which he mentioned, naturally applies in the case of the Home Office.
With regard to the more serious question of Gestapo agents in this country, the hon. Gentleman was particularly anxious lest such agents might get into this 1407 country by being mistaken for or disguised as refugees, and he wondered whether the Home Office would feel able to deal with a situation of that kind. I think it will afford him some satisfaction if I tell him that every alien applying for leave to land is carefully examined at the port of arrival, and this applies, of course, to refugees. The fact that they are refugees, and our policy with regard to refugees, do not involve any relaxation of the existing precautions against aliens who are personally undesirable. I can go further and say that, if an alien were found to be engaged in activities which were inconsistent with the purpose for which he was admitted, steps would if necessary be taken to get' rid of him or to exclude him when he next wished to pay a visit to this country. On the general question of whether there is any surveillance of Germans in this country by foreign agents, I can only repeat the assurance which my right hon. Friend gave to the House that the position is being very closely watched, and, if there is any evidence that unlawful acts are being committed, action will certainly he taken.
I will conclude this part of the subject by replying specifically to the question which the hon. Gentleman asked me about the position of Austrians as we see it. As the House is aware, these questions of nationality are very complicated, and my reply, therefore, must be in a certain sense guarded, but it is a matter of German law whether Austrians are now regarded as Germans. If, for example, they persistently refuse to register with the German Consulate, there is power to deprive them of German nationality.

§ Mr. Mander
Is that power in us?

§ Mr. Lloyd
I am dealing with the German nationality law. The implication of this would appear to be that Austrians are regarded as Germans, and if deprived of German nationality they become, of course, Stateless. If a person—an Austrian, for example—has been admitted to this country for a temporary purpose and refuses to register with a foreign Consulate, and wishes to stay here, his case, I can assure the hon. Gentleman, would be considered on its merits, and the fact that he had not registered would not be a ground in itself for refusing his application to stay.

§ Mr. Wedgwood Benn
What is to become of his old Austrian nationality if he refuses to renounce it?

§ Mr. Lloyd
I am not prepared to add to what I have said. Nationality law is a very complicated question, because it really depends on two States' national laws, and the interaction of the two is very difficult to explain precisely, especially if one is not a lawyer, as I am not.
I will turn to the matter raised by the hon. and gallant Member for Totnes (Major Rayner). I entirely appreciate his purpose, which is to stimulate the country to a proper sense of its duty, and to stimulate the Government to a proper sense of its obligations. But I think he is inclined to overpaint the picture—for example, when he compared the figure of 1,000,000 volunteers which my right hon. Friend asked for recently with a figure of 12,000,000 in Germany. Those figures are not comparable. The 1,000,000 in England are actual volunteers, air-raid wardens or auxiliary firemen, or the like, but the figure in Germany includes not only those but members of the general public who have been trained in a knowledge of air-raid precautions for their own protection. The Act laid on the local authorities the duty of not only raising a force of volunteers, but also of giving instruction and advice to the general public. They are now beginning to get on with that work, and the hon. and gallant Gentleman will see that he has not to add many millions to the figure of 1,000,000 volunteers in order to reach comparison with the German figures. I certainly would not despair—indeed, I would anticipate in the future, when the local authorities get into their stride in this matter, that literally millions of people in this country will have received the same instructions as those 12,000,000.
With regard to gas masks, the hon. and gallant Gentleman said that nobody in London, for example, knew what a gas mask was, or how to put it on. It has been announced again and again that we have gas masks in London at the present time for the whole of London's population. If there is an emergency, the gas masks are here. It may be true that at present not everybody knows how to put them an, and it is important to put them on. In the Act, of course, it is the duty of the local authority to construct storage 1409 accommodation and instruct the population in how to put the gas masks on. My right hon. Friend has issued a circular, and local authorities are getting on with that good work. Even the countries which the hon. and gallant Gentleman has very much in mind have not got gas masks for the population of their capital cities on the site as we have. Therefore, he is not quite correct in saying that we are so much behind those countries.
On the other hand, I think the hon. Member's suggestions were good ones. We are having public meetings, and a very considerable number of them. It is true that not every public meeting is a vast advertised meeting in the Albert Hall with all the resources of national publicity, but, nevertheless, there are going on in the small towns and villages less advertised, but equally useful, meetings. These meetings are achieving very successful results. With regard to blackouts, I agree with the hon. Gentleman that they are a very valuable form of exercise. They not only exercise the air-raid precautions organisation but also bring home to the people the whole question of air-raid precautions for the population. We, at the Home Office intend to have more black-outs, and we expect that the air-raid exercises of the black-out will become familiar all over the country in the near future.