HC Deb 07 February 1940 vol 357 cc294-308

Motion made, and Question proposed,

"That a Supplementary sum, not exceeding £127,500, be granted to His Majesty, to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1940, for the expenses in connection with His Majesty's Embassies, Missions and Consular Establishments Abroad, and other expenditure chargeable to the Consular Vote; certain special grants and payments, including grants in aid; and sundry services arising out of the war."

6.31 p.m.

Mr. Silverman

This Supplementary Estimate, I understand, is arrived at in this way. There is, first, a number of items of extra expenditure, but as against that there is a number of savings. The extra amount required is £298,500, the particulars of which are set out on page 8 of the White Paper, and as against that there is a sum of £171,000 saved, so that the net amount which the Government now require is £127,500. I want to refer to one of the two items on page 9, setting out the amounts saved.

The Deputy-Chairman

The savings cannot be discussed under this Vote. We can discuss only the amounts asked for.

Mr. Silverman

I merely wanted to ask how the original sum was expended so as to show a saving so very large in respect of the amount for which the Government originally asked. I submit that that would not, in the practice of this House, be deemed to be out of order. It seems to me that the Government ought to explain how, in view of the known facts, they were able to save, under sub-head QQ, the sum of £7,500 out of their agreed contribution to the expenses in connection with the withdrawal of volunteers in Spain. It seems to me that that saving arises only because of the maladministration of the sum which was granted.

The Deputy-Chairman

The hon. Member is again discussing savings. I told him that he could not discuss savings.

Mr. Silverman

It is not so much a question of discussing savings, but surely we are entitled to know how the saving was arrived at when we are invited to vote an extra sum which is calculated with express reference to that saving. I should have thought, subject to your Ruling, that that was an unexceptionable proposition. There is, on the other side, under: Expenses incurred in connection with the repatriation of British volunteers from Spain, the sum of £500. I want to draw attention to the fact that the Government's work cannot properly be done either by saving £171,000 on the original Estimate, or by saving £500 now. There was in the International Brigade in Spain a large number of people who, in the opinion of many Members of this House, in the opinion of more Members now than once held that view, were doing in advance and by themselves what the rest of us have been, by the dire logic of events, compelled to do at a later stage.

It seems to me that the Government, in limiting their expenditure in this way, are neglecting the responsibility of this country to those men, who, in many cases, left their domiciles in this country in order to go to Spain and fight in support of the Spanish Government while that was still possible, and then, when the Spanish Government's heroic resistance finally collapsed, came over the French border, where they are now a very serious charge on the funds of our Ally, the French Government. Our Government are not doing their duty, either towards those men or in relieving the French Government of what ought to be a joint and not a several responsibility. I want to refer to two specific cases. One is the case of Dr. Friedrich Wolff. That sounds an unfamiliar name, but if I refer to him as the author of a play the film version of which—

The Deputy-Chairman

That is quite out of Order. Mr. Speaker, as the hon. Member will be aware, ruled this matter out of Order before. Also, this Vote applies only to British subjects repatriated from Spain, and therefore the hon. Member cannot raise the question of a non-British subject. Further, I think the hon. Member is making a complaint with regard to the treatment of an individual by the Government of another country.

Mr. Silverman

With great respect to you, Sir, I have not said a single word of complaint with regard to the Government of any other country; and I do not propose to do so. I think the time of this Committee will be adequately occupied if it devotes itself to complaining of the many acts of omission and commission of our own Government, without seeking to refer to other Governments, over which we have no control. I have no intention of making any such reference. But, if I understood the Speaker aright, he ruled the other night that what I then proposed to do—which was not what I now propose to do—would have been out of Order, not on this occasion, but on that occasion, on the Adjournment. I think there is a great difference between discussing a thing on the Adjournment and discussing on such an occasion as this whether the Government are right in what they have done. I think it is the duty of the Committee, when we are asked to provide funds, to inquire how those funds are spent, why they are required, and to go into any other matters in relation to that.

All I am proposing to do is to take two individual instances, not on their own merits, not in order to criticise other people, but merely in order to make the point which I would like to make, if it is in order, that our own Government have not expended the money which they asked the House to provide, and which the House did provide for the purpose for which the Government asked. I am giving these instances as reasons why the money now asked for should not be granted. I repeat that the man whose name I gave will be better known to Members of the Committee as the author of a now very well known film play, which is one of the most powerful of all vehicles of literary or dramatic propaganda in support of the Allied cause. I want to read his own letter to his own friends, because I think that letter speaks for itself.

The Deputy-Chairman

I must ask the hon. Member whether this is a British subject.

Mr. Silverman

I have no idea whether he is a British subject now or not.

The Deputy-Chairman

Then it is quite out of Order.

Mr. Silverman

I will, of course, submit to your guidance on the matter; but I see nothing on either of the items to which I drew your attention to indicate that the persons affected must all be British subjects.

The Deputy-Chairman

Perhaps the hon. Member will read the heading of "YY": Expenses incurred in connection with the repatriation of British volunteers from Spain.

Mr. Silverman

I read that before I ventured to address the Committee. I do not think that "British volunteers"need necessarily mean anything more than volunteers from Britain.

The Deputy-Chairman

I rule that it does mean British subjects.

Mr. Silverman

With regard to the other item, on page 9, there is absolutely nothing to support the suggestion that only Britishers are concerned. May I suggest that, in fact, certainly not all the money that the Government spent was spent on British subjects? The money was not voted to be spent exclusively on British subjects, and was not, in fact, spent exclusively on British subjects.

Mr. A. Bevan

May I submit that some of these men who were sent from Spain went to camps in France in which was a number of people belonging to other nationalities? At the time when they were repatriated, the British Government, of course, spent money in the same camps which included nationals of other countries. To the extent that the British Government economised in that expenditure, that economy would necessarily have to be made up by the other Governments responsible for those camps. Would it not be in order to suggest that the economy was unnecessarily made, and was a consequence of the Government not discharging their own duty, therefore throwing an unnecessary burden on their partners?

The Deputy-Chairman

That involves a far larger question, which could not be raised on this Vote.

Mr. Bevan

But if the Government have taken money from the House in order to do a job, and then save money by not doing the job, is it not appropriate to call attention to their dereliction of duty?

The Deputy-Chairman

Unfortunately, savings cannot be discussed.

Mr. Bevan

I know that there are always difficulties on these occasions, but if the Government have been given money in order to save a man's life, and then they say, "We did not spend the money because we allowed the man to die," are we not allowed to discuss that? It seems to me an extraordinary position that the Government are given the power to spend money, and do not spend it on the job for which it was voted, and by not spending it throw an expenditure upon another country which is an Ally. The hon. Member is attempting to point out that the Government have cheated the House by not spending the money.

The Deputy-Chairman

That would be an appropriate matter for discussion on some other occasion, but not on a Supplementary Estimate.

Mr. Silverman

I am afraid that at the moment I cannot grasp the full import of the Ruling which has been given. Surely the Government set out in this Paper the sum which they require, and they explain why that sum is required. It must have some relation to the moneys which have so far been spent upon cognate purposes. The Government themselves come forward and say, "We have had so much money to spend on a particular Vote, and we have not spent it."They call it a saving. I do not call it a saving, and it may be a matter of debate whether it be a saving or not. All money that is not spent is not necessarily money saved. You may waste money by not spending it. It may well be that the objects which this House had in mind when it voted the original grant were objects the House would rather have than see the money in the coffers of the Treasury. Therefore, when the Government say, if they are saying here, "We did not spend the money that was necessary," are they entitled to call that saving, and is not the House entitled to inquire, when the Government claim credit for that in arriving at the present figure, how they explain the failure to carry out the objects for which the original money was voted? If they are able to explain that all the objects for which the money was originally granted have been served, and that this money is mere surplus age, I agree that that surplus age cannot be debated. I am arguing that this is not surplus age, but money which remains in the hands of the Government to carry out a purpose which the House authorised them to carry out, and which they have not carried out. If this is not the occasion upon which this dereliction of public duty is to be debated, then I can think of no other occasion.

The Deputy-Chairman

I am afraid that this is not the occasion upon which this matter can be debated. On this Supplementary Estimate, one cannot discuss page 9 of the Estimate. If the hon. Member persists, I shall have to ask him to resume his seat.

Mr. Silverman

I am not going to put myself in the position of placing you in any difficulty, but it is a matter of some importance. I am not raising it idly or without a full sense of responsibility, and I say to you, Colonel Clifton Brown, with all the sincerity that I can, that this is a matter upon which not only I myself, but a great many other people, feel the greatest possible anxiety, and we have sought, with what little skill and knowledge we have, for the appropriate occasion upon which the matter might be raised. We found this one. The Government have set out these particulars here, and have invited the House to vote a sum of money in respect of this item. This seemed to be, in our innocence, the appropriate occasion, but if it be not, what possible occasion can there be when this matter can be raised? Once this item is disposed of, the saving is sanctioned by the Committee and can never again arise. I submit with all respect that this is not an occasion when the narrowest possible interpretation of the Rule is the wiser method to adopt.

The Deputy-Chairman

It is my duty to see that the Rules of the House are enforced, and I have no option but to rule the discussion entirely out of Order. As to the appropriate occasion upon which the hon. Member can raise it, I think he will probably be able to find out for himself, and I cannot advise him.

6.49 p.m.

Colonel Wedgwood

I propose to deal with W.W.r.—Relief of Distress among Polish Refugees in Neutral Countries (including Rumania and Hungary) £100,000. I think that £100,000 is quite inadequate. We follow that up with £133,000, relief of distress caused by the earthquake in Turkey, to which the House agreed as being quite reasonable. But we were not in any sense responsible for the terrible destruction and loss of life in Turkey, whereas, whatever view we take of the late Polish Government, we were in a sense, to some degree, responsible for the awful fate of the inhabitants of Poland. It was, therefore, very incumbent upon us to do the utmost that was within our power to assist the fleeing population from Poland. We did far more in the case of Czecho-Slovakia, and the disaster was infinitely greater in Poland than it was in Czecho-Slovakia. People do not realise what the horrors of modern warfare as carried out by the German Government really are. It is impossible for a great many people to live any longer in their own country. Those who have stopped behind have been mercilessly and barbarously executed, murdered, or starved to death. Those who were lucky enough have fled with no possessions except what they stood up in, and if it had not been that we in this country have become hardened to the horrors, I am certain that we should have made a larger provision than we have done for the refugees from Poland. I should like to ask the Under-Secretary, in connection with the administration of this fund, Who is handling it, for what purpose is it being used, for whom is it being used, how much of it in Rumania and how much in Hungary? Those countries are the principal receptacles of the refugees.

The Committee ought to realise that at least three-quarters of these refugees, though all Poles, are Polish Jews who, unfortunately, for the last eight years, have fled from Poland and from Germany particularly to Hungary and Rumania. The idea spreads that the Jews are not quite human beings, that they are not to be treated on all fours with full citizens, and that their being refugees is not as serious a matter as a full-blooded Czech or Pole being a refugee. We have, unfortunately, all over the world, been infected more or less by this doctrine of the non-humanity of the Jews. Therefore, it is very important that we should know here, in this Committee which makes no distinction whatever between one refugee and another, that these funds are being administered according to needs and not according to the particular creed or race. If the Under-Secretary can give us any information on these points, it will be extremely welcome. I would remind the Committee that German propaganda, penetration and influence in all the countries bordering upon Germany, and particularly now in Hungary and Rumania, is stimulating the persecution of the Jews. These border countries living under the fear of Germany, anxious to please the Germans and to do anything to avoid invasion, are deliberately carrying out an anti-Semitic policy which shall be agreeable to the Nazis.

The Jewish population is very large in Rumania and is becoming very large in Hungary. The Jews in Hungary to-day are automatically excluded from the ordinary occupations of the Hungarian citizens, and from most in Rumania. I do not want it to be thought that our administration of relief makes any distinction, and I hope that we are not using, in this relief, the machinery of the Governments of Rumania or of Hungary, because that machinery would be used not as the House intended or as it intends the money to be used. Recently Hungary has annexed a very large Jewish population in what used to be called Carpathian Russia, which is at the tail end of Czecho-Slovakia towards the East. That was all Hungarian before and it has become Hungarian again, and I am told that the Hungarians are doing everything possible to acquire the affection and respect of the Ruthenian population of that district. Starvation is rampant, the conditions are terrible, and they are giving to the Ruthenian peasant children free rations of milk. The Jews who are starving among the Ruthenians, and who are very nearly equal in numbers to the Ruthenians, are given nothing at all. Many of these are Jews who have lived there through the centuries, and others are refugees who came from Poland. The condition of these people is far worse than anything that is going on anywhere else in the world, except in the Lublin Enclave, where the Jews are being deliberately starved to death. Obviously we ought to be very careful that, where the distress is greatest, there should be the principal expenditure of money. I am confident that the distress among the Jewish emigrants from Poland—and that is three-quarters of the whole—is far greater in Carpathian Russia, and in the rest of Hungary among the refugees there, than it is even in Rumania, because in Rumania there is a far larger and richer Jewish population resident and long-established.

When we are considering what we can do for these refugees we must remember that we are even more directly responsible for some of these refugees. Frozen in the Danube to-day are several boats loaded up with Jewish refugees who have escaped, some from Czecho-Slovakia, and some from Poland, obviously trying to get to some country where they will be allowed to live. They have applied for permission to enter Rumania by these steamers. They cannot yet because the rivers are frozen up, and they cannot ever get into Rumania as long as the Under-Secretary and the Foreign Office in Great Britain refuse to allow them to get visas to permit them to go into Rumania. They are afraid that if they get into Rumania, they will go to Palestine, and because of that they are not allowed into Rumania, and therefore 4,000 refugees are being starved from hunger and cold in the Danube to-day without any chance of getting food from the people in the country in which they are.

Sir Patrick Hannon

How can the Foreign Office intervene in this particular case?

Colonel Wedgwood

Our Foreign Office are responsible in this way, that they have induced the Rumanian Government to refuse to allow the Jews to go into Rumania because from Rumania they can get a ship to Palestine, and Jewish migration into Palestine is illegal. So that we are responsible really for the destruction of these 4,000 refugees. Any of the assistance that we give in this Vote to refugees in Hungary and in Rumania ought to go equally to the refugees who are stranded. For these reasons I think we ought to be careful, before we vote this money, to know who is administering it, how it is to be administered, and whether it is going fairly to all classes of refugees. I view with great suspicion now any money being distributed for refugees through the administration of our own Foreign Office officials in those countries. It is inevitable, if one lives in those countries for a long time, that one takes from the people among whom one lives the attitude of their country towards Jews, and the questions which are agitating that country.

It is so easy to lose the English attitude, and I am afraid that in many of our Embassies, and some of our Consulates, you have, towards the persecution of the Jews, an attitude which would not have been thought of 10 years ago. It has slowly grown up, and I think it does need the Foreign Office and the voice of this House to tell our men and women abroad that they are disloyal to this country if they adopt towards Jews or democracy only an attitude which makes them agreeable to the people among whom they live. Such an attitude is diametrically opposite to the wishes of the people, and the traditions of this country, and I hope we shall have, not only full information from the right hon. Gentleman, but also a careful distribution of this money and a better attitude towards these problems. We are righting a great war for decent humane rules of God and humanity, and we will not be either directly or indirectly partners in the vices of humanity by which the German Government measure out their hatred to the Jewish people.

7.5 p.m.

Mr. Dalton

The right hon. and gallant Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Colonel Wedgwood) asked a number of important questions which, I am sure, the Under-Secretary will think it his duty to answer in a moment. The point that I want to press upon the Under-Secretary is this: I think that this is a miserably inadequate contribution to a great cause which has a claim to our moral and material aid. These people are our Allies in this war. The Polish army took the first blow which otherwise would have been struck at France and ourselves, and they are suffering from causes which are not attributable to anything for which these unhappy refugees may be responsible. I would like to think that we value their services to humanity, and to us, at a higher figure than £100,000 and my principal purpose in rising is to urge the Under-Secretary to go back to the Foreign Office and take early steps to get an increased contribution for these people. That is nothing in conflict with what my right hon. and gallant Friend has said about the need for avoiding any discrimination in distribution. I will not say anything on that subject, but in so far as the total is concerned, I feel that it does not do justice to the debt of honour we owe to our momentarily defeated Polish allies.

7.7 p.m.

Mr. Edmund Harvey

I did not intend to intervene in this Debate, but one or two things which my right hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Colonel Wedgwood) said made me feel that I should like to say, from personal knowledge of some of the workers of the Friends Service Council who are now working with the Polish Relief Committee in Rumania and Hungary, that the utmost effort is being made to see that there should be no discrimination about the relief that is given. They have paid a high tribute to the work that is being done by the Hungarian and Rumanian authorities for the refugees under their care, which involves a very heavy burden on those two countries. I believe that the help given by the British Government is being administered through the Polish Relief Committee and has been of immense value in supplementing the arrangements which have been made at short notice. The problem has been an extraordinarily difficult one to deal with and not quite of the character my right hon. and gallant Friend has pictured. A great number of the refugees are soldiers who fled over the frontier, and, of the civilians, a large number are minor Government officials, such as postmen and policemen, whose lives would have been endangered if they had remained in occupied Poland. There is no doubt that a certain number of Jews, but not a great number, have come out with this wave of refugees.

Colonel Wedgwood

Is the hon. Member saying that the organisation through which he works is helping more Poles than Jews?

Mr. Harvey

The workers I have already alluded to make no difference as to race or nationality, and that, I am sure, is the object of the British Government. Funds that are being voted now will be spent in that way, and I hope that this £100,000 is not going to be the final Vote that our Government will give. No doubt at a later date, if the need continues, this Committee will be asked for a further sum of money. I feel it is due to the Foreign Office to give this explanation of what I believe to be the valuable service they are rendering to people who have suffered so cruelly and unjustly, and for whom Members on all sides have the utmost sympathy in their hour of need. I am extremely glad that this contribution is being made and am also glad that we are giving valuable help to the sufferers in Turkey. I do not know whether the Under-Secretary will tell us that the sum given for Turkish relief will be given exclusively through the Anglo-Turkish Relief Committee or whether it will be given in part by a direct grant to the Turkish Government.

7.10 p.m.

Mr. Butler

There is no question of measuring the help which we desire to give to the Poles who have suffered from the terrible tragedies of the last few months by reference to this sum of £100,000. The whole of the resources of the British Empire are involved in this war to redress some of the wrongs that have been committed and to vindicate the cause for which we are fighting together with our Polish Allies. This sum of £100,000 was provided for a specific purpose—to meet the cost of urgently-needed clothing and medical supplies. It was provided with the shortest possible delay in order to help Polish refugees who were in an extremely serious condition in Hungary and Rumania, and to a certain extent in Lithuania. I am able to say now that, thanks to what I think we can safely say has been efficient administrations, these requirements have been, in the initial stages at any rate, substantially satisfied. Considering the urgency of the need and the fact that this winter the temperature has been very low in those regions, the position is comparatively satisfactory to the extent that the first urgent need is being met.

The right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Colonel Wedgwood) asked who is handling this fund. The sum of £5,000 was paid in money as a grant-in-aid, and the remainder of the fund is being, or has been, transferred to the districts and to the needy in the form of goods which have been provided by the Polish Relief Fund. The President of the Polish Relief Fund is His Excellency the Polish Ambassador, whose fortitude and courage we have all come to admire during recent months, and the fund is being administered by Lord Moyne, who has shown his usual drive and efficiency in this matter. I should like also to thank Sir Francis Humphrys for the work he has done and which I described to the House in answer to the hon. Member for Derby (Mr. Noel-Baker) on 17th October last. The Polish Relief Fund is administering this sum of money in conjunction with the Friends Service Council and the Society of Friends. As for the reception of the goods, in Budapest and Bucharest there are representatives of the Polish Relief Fund, and we are working in collaboration with the Hungarian and Rumanian Red Cross.

Colonel Wedgwood

Am I to understand that this is for the Poles only, and not for the Jewish refugees, and are Jews not represented on the Polish Refugees Committee?

Mr. Butler

Perhaps the right hon. and gallant Gentleman did not hear me when I said it is being used for the needy. Need is the criterion, not creed.

Colonel Wedgwood

Are needy Jews included?

Mr. Butler

Certainly, needy Jews are benefiting from the fund.

Mr. Silverman

May I ask whether in the definition of Pole any regard whatever is paid to race or creed? Is not every Polish subject included in that?

Mr. Butler

The hon. Member may rest assured that, in view of the urgency of some of these cases, the representatives who are handling the money do not stop to inquire of needy human beings their particular point of view. The Hungarian and Rumanian Red Cross are assisting in the administration of the fund and very considerable grants, particularly in the form of commodities, clothing and medicaments, are being made by the American Red Cross, the Young Men's Christian Association, and the Norwegian Red Cross. As for the efforts of the Polish Relief Fund in this country, remarkable success has been achieved in obtaining almost immediately, over the last few winter months, good warm clothes, particularly overcoats, tunics and trousers. In this connection I should like to thank the Office of Works and the Glasgow Transport Board, who produced at exceedingly short notice, some very valuable warm clothes which they happened to have available. Those clothes were urgently necessary because the condition of those who crossed the frontier was deplorable in the extreme.

Besides the provision of ready-made clothes, many of them second-hand clothes purchased at low prices, the Central Hospital Services Committee of the War Organisation of the British Red Cross and St. John of Jerusalem have been organising the help of voluntary workers all over the country. The task of making shirts, socks, and so forth, to send immediately to Hungary and Rumania in particular has been performed voluntarily, and I am glad to say that the manner in which the administration has been carried out has enabled these supplies to be sent immediately and to arrive with great expedition at the scene of difficulties. Perhaps the Committee would be interested to hear some details. Already, 45,566 yards of shirting material have gone to Rumania and about 33,000 yards to Hungary; 20,232 pullovers have gone to Hungary, all of them having been produced with the shortest delay by the Polish Relief Fund; boots, sleeping bags, boot-leather, tunics, waistcoats, overcoats, and so forth, have been sent as quickly as possible. Within the limits of the sum of money which we have been able to place at the disposal of those in need, the need has been met, and I can assure the Committee that the Government will continue to exercise a full sense of responsibility in aiding the victims of these terrible disasters.

The hon. Member for the English Universities (Mr. Harvey) asked a question about the sum of £133,000 which is being put at the disposal of the Turkish authorities. We offered, in the first place, to send a hospital ship to help the Turks, but they preferred to have an immediate grant in cash and in the form of supplies. This offer was greatly appreciated by the Turkish Government, who received from us, therefore, a preliminary sum in cash and also a sum from the French Government. Since then the Admiralty and the War Office have sent supplies which were immediately available to the extent of £21,000 from the Admiralty and £87,000 from the War Office. These supplies were immediately delivered, and a consignment of medical stores and blankets reached Turkey through the instrumentality of the Royal Navy within little more than a fortnight after Turkey had accepted. In this second instance oftragedy—this time a national calamity—we have shown a wish to give aid with as much speed as possible in order to show how much we sympathise with our Turkish friends in their sufferings from this severe earthquake. I would mention that Sir Wyndham Deedes and Professor Garstang are in Turkey in order to collaborate with the Turkish authorities, while the drive and energy of Lord Lloyd have been used in this country in order further to help the Turks in their grave difficulties.

Colonel Wedgwood

I should be glad if the right hon. Gentleman would make one point clear before he concludes. The Committee is voting this money for all Polish subjects, whether they be Jews or Christians. The money is being distributed through a purely Polish organisation. Do the people who are receiving this money and who are spending it realise that the wish of the British people in voting it is that it should go impartially to any Polish citizens, and not be confined to Christians in any sense or way?

Mr. Butler

Yes, Sir. I gave a definite answer—which I have pleasure in repeating—to the effect that this money is given for suffering humanity regardless of creed. The right hon. and gallant Gentleman may be satisfied that need is the criterion.

Question put, and agreed to.

Resolved,

"That a Supplementary sum, not exceeding £127,500, be granted to His Majesty, to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1940, for the expenses in connection with His Majesty's Embassies, Missions and Consular Establishments Abroad, and other expenditure chargeable to the Consular Vote; certain special grants and payments, including grants in aid; and sundry services arising out of the war."

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