GREECE (SITUATION) (Hansard, 29 October 1946)

§ Mr. Dodds (Dartford)
At long last I have got the opportunity of speaking on the subject of Greece, but, unfortunately I have already lost 12 minutes of the time allocated to me. When I visited Greece some months ago, a Right Wing Government had recently taken over command with disastrous results for those who had supported the brave struggle of the Resistance Forces against the Germans and Italians. In the June Debate on foreign affairs I endeavoured to catch your eye, Mr. Speaker, but was unsuccessful. For a purge had taken place in the Greek Church, Army, Civil Service, gendarmerie and armed police.
Since my visit to Greece, conditions have rapidly got worse, and I would like to quote to this House a report of a representative of the Executive Committee of the World Federation of Trade Unions, who reported in Montreal at the I.L.O. Conference following his visit to Athens. This is an extract from his Report: The situation is, therefore, as follows. The General Confederation of Labour is dissolved, our comrades have been arrested; there is terrorism, through the destruction of trade union buildings, terrorism through assassination, terrorism through mass imprisonment and terrorism through deportation to the islands. I must add that, according to information coming from persons who are reliable and beyond any suspicion, this situation was created in connection with the plebiscite, which related, not to the type of Government to be established, but solely to the return of the King. All the royalists and all the fascists of Greece wanted the return of the King and for this reason they wanted to suppress all those who might oppose his return by enlightening Greek public opinion. A few days ago, I met one of the representatives who had been serving with the British Economic Mission. He was in this country for a few days and told me that efforts for the reconstruction of Greece were being completely nullified by the brutality of the gendarmerie, the armed police, and the Monarchists, against the Left Wing elements in Greece.
I should like to have dealt at greater length with the various aspects in Greece, but I will just touch on something which I shall not easily forget. It was in the Hadjicosta Prison in Athens, where there were over 500 Left Wing prisoners. The 578 majority of them had been in prison for 17 months without trial. They had been imprisoned for offences against the Germans and the Italians. Many months after the liberation of Greece they were still prisoners whilst the prison commandant and many of the warders were the same people who had been in the pay and the uniform of the security battalions under the Germans and the Italians. In a women's prison in Salonika, despite the fact that we have a British police mission in Greece, I found diabolical conditions. There were women there with evidence on their bodies of recent and old brutalities. I shall never forget one woman holding a tiny baby. She had commenced labour pains within a few hours of the brutal treatment, and the baby was born long before its time. There was another woman in the courtyard who had been arrested for being in possession of arms. She was in the last stages of tuberculosis, and for three days and nights nad lain out in the open
In the limited time at my disposal I feel that I should concentrate on my own treatment in respect to the Foreign Office of this country In this House, in June, I endeavoured to catch your eye, Mr. Speaker, but was unsuccessful At the end of the second day, when the winding up had commenced from the Opposition, I decided that it was time to look at my correspondence in the Library. As I left this Chamber I spoke to the Minister of State, who was then the Under-Secretary of State, who knew that I had left the Chamber. To my surprise it was brought to my attention the following day that in three columns of the OFFICIAL REPORT there was an account of a personal attack which had been made upon me. I had not spoken in the Debate and had not been informed that my name was going to be introduced as, otherwise, I should have been present. It is the common courtesy of this House to inform an hon. Member in such circumstances. In those three columns of the OFFICIAL REPORT, with which I should like to have dealt more fully, there is sufficient evidence to indicate to me, coupled with my experience in Salonika, that the Foreign Office in this country is being misinformed about the true conditions in Greece
The Minister of State began by referring to a letter which I had caused to be published in a Greek newspaper He said that it was published on 5th May, which 579 was a Sunday. To begin with, that was incorrect. He quoted part of the letter, but he left out the most important part. What he did not state was that a report had appeared in a Monarchist newspaper to the effect that, following upon my visit to the Macedonian villages, I had said that these charges of brutality were just the imagination of the Communists. As a result of that misstatement I found it necessary to have it reported in the Press that I had not given that opinion and that, on the contrary, I had seen something to which I referred to as the "law of the jungle." Not being content with that, he goes on to say—and some of the words he used are remarkable: However, the hon. Gentleman on his return to Athens made protestations about the subsequent intimidation of some of his girl supporters who had presented him with a nosegay or bouquet on his arrival in Sokhos. The truth is that no flowers were given to me but a bouquet was given to the secretary of the League for Democracy in Greece, a female by the name of Miss Diana Pym. Later there appear these words: The village council from which be came wrote to all the local Press, complaining that the deputation had not met the village authorities, and had refused to meet a deputation of widows of E.L.A.S. victims."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 5th June, 1946; Vol. 423 C. 2122-2123.] Six days previously the hon. Member for Faversham (Mr. P. Wells) had asked me for a copy of our report so that it could be shown to the then Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. In that report we gave at length a statement of the discussions and interviews that we had had with those people whom the present Minister of State said we had not seen at all. He preferred to take the report of this newspaper in preference to one of his own colleagues in the Labour Party.
As the time is going on, I would like to read out the following words of the present Minister of State: … if I am asked whether it is the Cooperative Member of Dartford or the two Members of the Cooperative who laboured without pay in Greece … I am on the side of the boys without glamour."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 5th lune, 1946; Vol. 423, c. 2125.] Knowing that many of these things were completely untrue, I endeavoured to get the Minister of State to look into some of these matters because I had evidence 580 that what he had said was a misrepresentation of the truth, but his reply was that he preferred his sources of information to mine. I might mention here that I am a Member of Parliament and what is said against me in this House can have an effect on the constituents who have sent me here. I think with the few minutes left at his disposal the Minister of State should say, in connection with these two Cooperatives who laboured without pay, that he was misinformed in this as he has been misinformed in other matters. I am convinced horn what I have seen in Greece that there is being created in Greece a neo-Fascist State. I am convinced that unless there is a change of policy, we cannot point our fingers at other countries or States and say that they are doing wrong. I believe that in Greece we are "ganging up" with all those elements who are opposed to the democracy in which we believe. We are "ganging up" with those people who have unsavoury records, who had collaborated with the Germans and the Italians, and that those who fought that gallant fight—the resistance fighters—are being persecuted in a country for which they fought so valiantly.

§ Mr. Beverley Baxter (Wood Green)
Does the hon. Member include our very brave Ally, King George of Greece?

§ Mr. Speaker
The hon. Member should not mention the name of the Monarchy of another country.

§ Mr. Dodds
I close with these words—

Mr. McKie (Galloway)
On a point of Order. I think the hon. Gentleman the Member for Dartford (Mr. Dodds) had already referred to the King of Greece.

Hon. Members
No, he did not.

§ Mr. Speaker
I only heard the word "Monarchy." I did not hear the words "King George" mentioned. Perhaps I was deaf; I do not know.

§ Mr. Dodds
It is news to me that 1 mentioned him. However, in case this should get us involved in an argument, I will leave the matter. I was sent to this House to see that Socialism is applied both at home and abroad. I am convinced that in respect to Greece I can, with every degree of confidence, protest at the policy being followed. I believe that if there 581 was a withdrawal of the British Forces there would be a change in Greece, which would not show itself by British Forces staying in Greece if the present policy is being pursued. L beg the Minister, when he replies, to tell the House that he was misinformed on certain information in connection with that attack, and also to confirm that he did not extend to me those courtesies which every hon. Member expects in this House.

The Minister of State (Mr. Hector McNeil)
In so far as I have been discourteous I am most sorry. It is an old story, and I do not disbelieve the hon. Gentleman at all. I am sure he was right. However, if I was coming into this House to sum up in a Debate, in my normal nervous condition, I might be excused for not having noticed the hon. Member leaving. However, I wish to make it very plain that in this one instance to which my hon. Friend has referred I was misinformed. I think it might also be said that as quickly as I knew! had been wrongly informed I did, in a postscript in an official letter on another point, apologise to the hon. Gentleman; and subsequently I wrote a rather full letter explaining that I had been misled, and that I was sorry for any inconvenience I had caused my hon. Friend. I repeat my sorrow upon that point. It is true I had been told, and I assumed, that these two members of the Mission, like most other members of our Mission, were not being paid by this Government. I do not mean in any way to suggest that they had not a perfect right to be paid, nor for a second that they did not do an excellent job. I was wrong in that one allusion which I made. For the rest that I had to say on policy at that time I still have not a word to retract. I hope I did make it plain that I was wrong in suggesting these men were unpaid That I misrepresented my hon. Friend upon that one issue I am most sorry, and I apologise, not only to him but to the rest of the House, for misleading them on that point.
I have not any time to develop my argument, but I do ask the House once 582 more not to confuse slogans and assertions for thinking and for evidence. My hon. Friend quoted the W.F.T.U. representative from Montreal from the I.L.O. Conference. He might also have said—and I did not want to bring this up—that that conference in Montreal endorsed the credentials of the Greek trade unionists who were sent there; I think rather unwisely—but I must not criticise—because I do not think it was a representative Greek delegation. I hope we may repair it and make it more representative, and ensure a normal and reasonable development. However, if an hon. Member comes to this House and quotes from an organisation, and quotes from this conclusion of the conference, I expect him to tell the House what else the conference said upon the same subject. If we are to deal with the trade unions in Greece perhaps I could refer to the report endorsed at Brighton by the T.U.C. of this country, which said: The General Council have satisfied themselves that the influence of the British Government is being used in the right way at the present juncture. I have repeatedly made it quite plain in the House that there is no one-sidedness to this issue; that there is no certainty of being right; that it is an involved, complex and highly poisoned problem, and that all this Government attempts to do is to steer the way with the maximum of justice. Certainly, to suggest for a minute that we are ganging up with any undesirable element will not bear the slightest scrutiny, and the hon. Member offered no evidence on that point, and he should not have made that charge in this House. The Parliamentary delegation that came back gave judgment on the plebiscite, and did not suggest that there was undue partiality. We shall continue mainly to concern ourselves with the proper and extensive interests of the bulk of the Greek population, and we shall not depart from that criterion.