§ 21. Mr. Austinasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he is now prepared to disclose to the House the identity of members of Captain Ramsay's "Right Club."
§ Mr. AustinIs my right hon. Friend aware that that is not the answer which hon. Members on this side would expect from a Socialist Home Secretary, and may 559 I ask whether my right hon. Friend is aware that these members of the "Right Club" were avowed enemies of democracy before the war, that some were incarcerated for their activities, and that, even today, they may be plotting against democracy? Will something be done about it?
§ Mr. EdeI should have thought it the duty of a Socialist Home Secretary to see that there was fair play. The fact that a man's name was in a book which, I understand, was found when Captain Ramsay's premises were searched, is no proof that the man was, in fact, a member of any organisation at all. It would be very wrong indeed to publish a privately compiled list, and to place a stigma upon people whose names appear in that list, when neither I, nor as far as I know, anyone else can have any positive proof that such persons ought to have that stigma placed upon them.