HL Deb 29 June 1916 vol 22 cc480-92

LORD PARMOOR rose to call attention to the administration of the Army Order of May 25, and to ask whether its provisions have been applied in all cases.

The noble and learned Lord said: My Lords, I put down the Question which stands in my name for last Tuesday, but at the request of Lord Sandhurst, who is going to reply, I postponed it until to-day. However in the other House the Prime Minister has this afternoon made a statement which very largely affects the matters in reference to which I was going to ask for inquiry. As I have had the advantage of seeing that statement, I propose to say a few words upon it. This Question does not raise any matter of policy, because the matter of policy is settled in the Military Service Acts. It raises entirely a matter of administration, in reference to which the late Secretary of State for War made in this House a declaration which, if it were followed and truly adhered to, would in my opinion be a solution of what in itself is a very difficult question.

We all want to separate what is called the shirker and hypocrite from the genuine conscientious objector. No punishment, I agree, is too severe for the shirker and hypocrite. On the other hand, the policy of the Act is that if a man is a genuine conscientious objector, if his innate sense of right and wrong prevents him from undertaking any military service, he is to have due consideration; although according to my view of the Act that does not mean that he is to escape national service, but that he must do national service—as I believe he is willing to do—but not service of a military character. What the late Secretary of State for War said, speaking on the Committee stage of the Military Service Bill on May 22 last, was this—and I quote it because if the principle in those words is followed I think a complete solution might be found— The genuine conscientious objectors will find themselves under the civil power. Those words are absolutely just and right. The offence of a conscientious objector is not really an offence against the Army, although technically it may come within the Army procedure owing to the form in which the Military Service Act was drawn. It really is in substance and truth an offence against the State; and he ought to be willing, as I think he would be, to bear whatever punishment the State thinks right, after proper civil trial, to impose upon him in a civil prison. In order to carry out the statement made by the late Secretary of State for War, Army Order X, to which my Question calls attention, was framed, and if truly carried out it would go a long way towards removing any sense of injustice or want of due appreciation as regards this particular class.

The first part of this Order refers to paragraph 583 (xi) of the King's Regulations. Paragraph 583 of the King's Regulations gives instructions to Courts-Martial as to cases in which they should give detention as a punishment and as to cases in which they should give imprisonment as a punishment. The Army Order says that if it is a case of a conscientious objection the punishment is to be imprisonment and not detention. These are the exact words— Where an offence against discipline has been committed and the accused soldier represents that the offence was the result of conscientious objection to military service, imprisonment and not detention should be awarded. The first question I want to ask the noble Lord is this. Has imprisonment been awarded in all cases in the place of detention since this Army Order was issued? I ask this question for this reason. If the information which has been before me is accurate, that part of the Order has not been truly and substantially followed in all cases. Owing to the policy of secrecy—about which I do not want to say anything at the present moment— true information upon these points is exceedingly difficult to obtain. I do not know whether your Lordships noticed that in the other House it was contended by certain Members that secrecy on questions of this kind as regards administration was inconsistent with the position of Members of Parliament, who in reference to matters of this sort were in a certain sense trustees with regard to the persons they represent. That is quite true. The guarantee of freedom is that the public should know whether what the Legislature has laid down as the law is in fact and in truth being carried out by the executive authorities. It is a point on which freedom in the true sense really turns, because immediately you have secrecy in a matter of this kind nobody knows whether the commands of the Legislature are followed or not by the executive bodies.

The Order continues—and your Lordships will here see the importance of the portion of the Order which I have already read— A soldier who is sentenced to imprisonment— not to detention— for an offence against discipline, which was represented by the soldier at his trial to have been the result of a conscientious objection to military service, will be committed to the nearest public civil prison— There you have a recognition of the fact that the offence is an offence against the State and not against the Army, and that the person should be in the first instance ordered for imprisonment, and when ordered for imprisonment should be transferred to a civil prison. And the Order goes on to say— as if his offence was included in paragraph 607 (i) of the King's Regulations. That paragraph provides that where a military prisoner is transferred to a civil prison, he shall be transferred to the nearest available prison where there is room at the time. I want to ask the noble Lord whether the Order has been carried out in both respects—namely, first of all as to imprisonment, because persons detained do not come within it; and, secondly, that after imprisonment there has been a proper transfer to a civil prison.

The importance of this, to my mind, lies in the fact that a matter of this sort ought to be settled, particularly in times of this kind, in the way in which it is likely to do least injury to the public service and in the way in which it is likely to do most justice to the parties immediately concerned. I am quite satisfied that you can get that double result only in two ways. First of all, as regards the Tribunal and as regards punishment, you must recognise that the offence of a conscientious objector is a civil offence against the State, and treat him accordingly. That is justice to the conscientious objector. On the other hand, as regards the Army, having allowed the principle of conscientious objection, you ought not to throw the extreme difficulty of dealing with this class of case upon the Army. They have sufficient duties in other directions at the present moment. And if the State says that this is a matter of civil procedure, they ought to deal with it so that the Army may be saved from a task in itself extremely ungracious and one which ought not to have been imposed upon them under existing conditions. As I said at the outset, if these instructions were really followed, and if in addition there was provision to have a satisfactory inquiry before the civil tribunal, although it is impossible in a difficult matter of this kind to satisfy everybody, you would have a guarantee for just and fair treatment which ought, in my opinion, to meet every legitimate cause of complaint.

Now upon this point I want to ask the noble Lord's attention to one or two matters which were stated by the Prime Minister to-day. I have been supplied with a copy of what he actually stated. The statement begins with these words— The procedure to be adopted by the War Office in the cases of soldiers, under Army Order X, of May 25th, 1916, sentenced to imprisonment for refusing to obey orders, is as follows. I have read this document and find it extremely difficult to follow in many respects; but it is important to know whether it is intended to refer to all conscientious objectors or only to those who have been sentenced to imprisonment under this Army Order X. If it is intended to refer only to persons imprisoned under the Army Order, it appears to me that the effect of what has been said by the Prime Minister will be in substance to put those men in a worse position than they are in at the present time. If, on the other hand, it refers to all conscientious objectors, although it might put that particular class of conscientious objector in a worse position than he is in at the present time, yet in its general effect I think it would be beneficial, and at any rate an advance on the conditions as they exist at the present time. Let me refer to two or three of the chief provisions in the Prime Minister's statement in order that the noble Lord may know what the criticism is. In the first of them it is stated— …all Court-Martial proceedings on conscientious objectors will be referred for scrutiny to the War Office. I want to know, are not all Court-Martial proceedings referred for revision and consideration to the properly appointed officer? That is the right principle. When you talk about transferring them to the War Office you mean transferring them to a body which is at the present time so overburdened with work that you are not in the least likely to have any consideration for the particular case at all. Then as to the second provision— With regard to those who have never been before a Tribunal the first step will be to require them to answer the categorical questions which the Tribunal might have put. Does that apply to persons who have been detained as well as to persons who have been in prison? That would be a valuable source of protection. But if, on the other hand, it is applicable only to those who have been in prison, so far from being an advantage, it will be re-transferring them from the civil prison to the military authority.

The Prime Minister went on to say, as regards the information supplied— The Army Council will depend on the advice of the Central Appeal Tribunal. If the Central Appeal Tribunal is to be the deciding tribunal, as far as I am concerned nothing could be better. You want the best civil tribunal you can get in order to deal with matters of this kind. But what does "will depend on the advice of"mean? Some time ago I interrogated the noble Marquess as regards the advisory committees which were then presided over by a learned Judge. I was told that the advisory committees might give advice; that the War Office and the Admiralty might depend on that advice in a certain sense, but considered themselves at perfect liberty to disregard it and to take their own course. That is the essence of officialism as against a just system. Therefore perhaps the noble Lord will tell me whether this clause means merely that advice will be given which may or may not be followed, or whether it means that the investigation is to be made by the Central Appeal Tribunal and that their decision will be followed. Noble Lords will see the distinction between those two cases. Then the procedure continues— If the information is refused, and in all oases where the plea is not sustained, the prisoner will remain under military control. But, as I have pointed out, he is not under military control at all. Therefore I ask the noble Lord to say how he reconciles that with the present position—how a man who is not now under military control can "remain under military control."

I admit that I am thoroughly in favour of the two last clauses in the Prime Minister's statement. They say that if the Appeal Committee find that a man is a genuine conscientious objector he shall be transferred to a Committee consisting of Mr. W. Brace, Sir Thomas Elliott and Sir Matthew Nathan, in order to see that he does national work which it is necessary and desirable should be done at the present time; and I do not believe that conscientious objectors will find any fault with that. It is not that they do not desire to take their part in national service, but they feel an innate sense of wrong in being compelled to take part in a particular character of national service. I should like to illustrate that by what is called non-combatant service. You could hardly insult anybody more than by saying that his objection is not to the Military Service Act but to taking a dangerous position as a combatant under the Act. That is not the point of view of the true conscientious objector. It is really an insult to any citizen to put his objection on a footing of that kind.

I want to say this in conclusion. My desire is to find a fair solution of what is really a difficult problem. It is never more difficult to ensure justice and fair treatment than in the case of an unpopular minority, and everybody knows that conscientious objectors stand in the position of an unpopular minority at the present time. It must be so. One cannot avoid that. It is exactly what has happened to some of the bravest of the brave in the course of history; they have had to suffer because, however brave they are, their views have not been in accord with the powers that be for the time being. One of the greatest examples of what I say was that of Sir Thomas More. He said he was willing to take office, but that he would put his duty to God first, and when his duty to God came first he gave up his life under conditions of which we all know. I am sure nobody in this House wants either persecution or inquisition. I therefore hope that on the lines of civil decision and civil punishment as against military decision and military punishment fair satisfaction can be given with regard to a difficult problem, and that we may relieve the Army of a matter which ought not to be imposed upon it at the present time.

LORD SANDHURST

My Lords, I must first express my thanks to the noble and learned Lord for having at my suggestion postponed his Question until to-day. The noble and learned Lord has placed a specific Question on the Paper, and I think I had better first reply to that. He asks whether the provisions of Army Order X of May 25 last have been applied in all cases. I understand that in no case since the Army Order was published and reached the units concerned has an award of detention been passed by Court-Martial—that is to say, in every case the Order has been followed.

I hope that the statement which the Prime Minister made in the House of Commons an hour or two since will go a long way to meet the various comments and objections which have been made by my noble and learned friend. Perhaps the best plan would be for me to read the Prime Minister's statement. It was as follows—

The procedure to be adopted by the War Office in the cases of soldiers, under Army Order X, of 25th May, 1916, sentenced to imprisonment for refusing to obey orders is as follows:

The first step is to sift out the cases where there is prima facie evidence to show that the offence was the result of conscientious objection to military service. For this purpose all Court-Martial proceedings on conscientious objectors will be referred for scrutiny to the War Office.

With regard to the cases of those who have been before a Tribunal, the records will be consulted. If the data therein are not sufficient, further investigation will be made; answers to categorical questions will be required, and those who have knowledge of the man's antecedents, such as ministers of religion, may be consulted.

With regard to those who have never been before a Tribunal, the first step will be to require them to answer the categorical questions which the Tribunal might have put. If the information is supplied investigation will be made into those answers, and for the purpose of such investigation, and in all cases where a prima facie case is established, the Army Council will depend on the advice of the Central Appeal Tribunal, or a committee of that Tribunal who have consented to lend their assistance for this purpose—they are a purely civil body, and we are grateful for their consent to add this to their duties. If the information is refused, and in all cases where the plea is not sustained, the prisoner will remain under military control, his sentence will at once be commuted to detention, and he will be sent to a detention barrack to undergo his sentence.

The men who are held to be genuine conscientious objectors will be released from the civil prison on their undertaking to perform work of national importance under civil control. They will be transferred pro forma to Section W of the Army Reserve, and they will cease to be subject to military discipline or the Army Act so long as they continue to carry out satisfactorily the duties imposed upon them. The Home Secretary has appointed a Committee, consisting of Mr. W. Brace, M.P., Sir Thomas Elliott, K.C.B., and Sir Matthew Nathan, G.C.M.G., who are now engaged on the work of determining to what kind of work these men should be set and under what conditions, and to take the executive action which is necessary.

I think your Lordships will agree that it is an advantage to have the services placed at our disposal for this purpose of the members of the Central Appeal Tribunal. The work which they have done has gained for them the greatest credit, and I believe we are indebted to the good offices of the noble Marquess opposite, Lord Salisbury, for their readiness to assist. I certainly hope that the statement I have read may have met in great measure the points raised by the noble and learned Lord. I understood him to inquire whether the statements in the document I have read apply only to this Army Order X.

LORD PARMOOR

Yes.

LORD SANDHURST

I understand that this refers to conscientious objectors as a whole. That is my impression. I hope the House will see that an effort has been made to cope with this difficult question; and certainly, speaking for myself, I anticipate great advantage from the assistance which will be received from the Central Appeal Tribunal.

THE LORD ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY

My Lords, the very wide interest that is taken in this question by some of those who are in constant communication with myself, and with no doubt many of your Lordships, seems to make it desirable that I should say a few words upon this matter. Like the rest of your Lordships, I have tried to understand the intricacies of what is undoubtedly a very difficult question, and to form a judgment for myself as to what ought on general principles to be done. I am afraid that some members of His Majesty's Government know only too well from the trouble I have occasioned them the amount of attention I have been trying to give to this matter. Any member of your Lordships' House must have an acuter brain than mine if he is able, from the statement which has just been read, to deduce with certainty what will be the practical working of the scheme set forth in the several paragraphs. As far as I am able to follow them, it seems to me that the lines indicated by the Prime Minister's statement are the lines which we should desire to see followed. It sounds to me a reasonable line of action, and that which for some time some of us have been trying to advocate, but I speak with reserve until one can read the document in detail and weigh the practical working of its various parts. Everybody recognises the extraordinary difficulty of knowing how to deal with a problem which, from the necessity of the case, is a new question. We are dealing with a question which is necessarily new, because the conditions which surround it are new, and everybody is prepared, I am certain, to make allowances for the difficulties that necessarily arise in the carrying out of what is a very delicate task.

The noble and learned Lord who introduced the subject distinguished, as we all do, between those who are hypocrites and shirkers and the genuine conscientious objectors. But I think we must go further than that. There are two distinct divisions to be borne in mind with regard to the conscientious objectors themselves. There are those who are in the strict sense of the word conscientious objectors on religions or semi-religions grounds. Those men I imagine it is the wish of all of us should be treated with respect, even if we regard their opinions as absolutely indefensible, and I do regard them as absolutely indefensible. I do not think they can be sustained logically by any people who are taking advantage of the rules of a civilised community, rules which must in the last resort find their backing in force. I do not think it is possible to escape from that conclusion. Therefore when I say that they are to be treated with respect I do not mean that I entertain any lurking sympathy with the opinions to which they give expression. But we are not governed chiefly by logic in matters of this kind, and there is a good deal more that has to be considered when we are dealing with them. I believe myself that most of those who belong to that class of objector are perfectly honest. I know I shall carry all your Lordships with me when I say that they are not shirkers and not cowards, but are honest in their objections on religious or semi-religious lines, and that they do partly for that reason require in a special sense considerate treatment in the way we handle them, however much we differ from them. Parliament has endeavoured, by the Acts on the Statute Book and by the rules which have followed from those Acts, to meet their difficulties, and it has been the endeavour of all the authorities, I imagine, to be fair to them. I suppose it is by common experience exceedingly hard to be absolutely sure that we are fair to those with whom we profoundly differ, but, difficult or not, it is what we have to try to do, and I believe Parliament has tried to do it in this particular case.

The other set of objectors are those whose objection does not rest primarily on religious or semi-religious grounds, but who object on quasi-political grounds to conscription and are taking this mode to show their objection to conscription. That seems to me to be an objection which belongs to a different category. These people find themselves in a tiny minority in what is almost a unanimous country, and they adopt a mischievous mode of supporting a political opinion by an attempt to paralyse the Executive. That is not a new policy. It has been acted upon in other fields than this, and it has not always been without defenders even within the limits of Parliament, but to my mind it has seemed absolutely indefensible. These men, too, like all citizens, ought to receive fair treatment and to be safeguarded against cruel or arbitrary punishment. That they have received harsh and cruel punishment in the last few months has been adequately substantiated. Men in both the classes to which I have referred seem to me to have been subjected to treatment which I can only think would be deplored by most of your Lordships, who would feel—if they were satisfied, as I am, as to the truth of the facts—that those who brought about that form of treatment had not been acting in the way that men ought in a civilised country. I think it is absolutely right that such objectors should be subjected to the sternest imposition of labour of even the most strict kind, but I confess that such an argument as found utterance in this House some time ago—that once the Tribunal had rejected the man's appeal as a conscientious objector he became from that moment ipso facto a soldier and ought to be subjected to military laws and military ways of treatment—such an argument seemed to be not only a mistake in policy but something like a false interpretation of our fundamental principles in this matter. Cases of that kind have arisen, and the document which we have just heard read will, I hope, go far to render the repetition of that impossible. I cannot help hoping that what we shall find to be its outcome is this, that we are going to apply large principles of reason and common sense to a difficulty which will never be settled by the mere application of technical rules.

We have to realise that a large number of the men in both classes of conscientious objector to which I have alluded have been placed for treatment forthwith, or almost forthwith, under the control of the military authorities as soldiers. There is nothing more natural than that the officers under whom they are placed should treat them according to military laws and experiences which lave been theirs, but I do think we are justified in saying that military officers are not from their training, which has not always had the result of forming a judicial habit of mind, best qualified to judge about conscientious objections and the way in which the men who entertain those objections ought to be treated. Therefore I, for one, rejoice to learn—as I think we did learn from the document which the noble Lord read to us—that such objectors will be transferred to the civil authority, and that this is to be retrospective in its effect in dealing with the men of to-day as well as the men of the future. I wait, however, to see the document to know whether that is so, but it sounded so as the words were read to us just now.

We are all grateful to the men who throughout the country have been sitting on these Tribunals, the Local Tribunals and the Appeal Tribunals, at great sacrifice of time; but I suppose it is, from the nature of the case, impossible that we should find the several thousands of men who constitute these Tribunals all men of the highest judicial qualifications, able to deal with considerateness and wisdom with such difficult cases as these. However, some sort of revision seems to me to have been necessary, and the fact that this revision will now be possible to a larger extent than formerly will be likely to lead to the result we all desire. It is because of this that I welcome the statement that has been made, and I believe we may by this means get rid of an anxious and difficult problem which has taxed the ingenuity of some of the best brains in this country.

EARL RUSSELL

My Lords, with so much of what the most reverend Primate has said do I find myself in accord, that I need not detain you for more than a moment. I should, however, like to enter a caveat against the suggestion which he made that it is only the religious who possess a conscience. There is such a thing as a social conscience. I listened as carefully as I could to the very complex statement made by the Prime Minister in another place, which was read to us by the noble Lord, and I hope it may be the case that it carries out what we all desire, though I am not sure that I entirely share the optimism of the most reverend Primate. It is necessary to look very carefully at documents which emanate from the War Office before you can accept them at their face value. Your Lordships will recollect that the noble and learned Lord who raised the question referred to the statement made in this House by the late Secretary of State for War. I think at that time all your Lordships—certainly all the public—understood that that statement meant that people in this unfortunate category would be transferred to civil prisons. When, after some days, it appeared that this was not the case, a long explanatory statement was issued by the authorities in which people learned for the first time that detention was a different thing from imprisonment, and that a person who had been sentenced to two years' detention would remain in barracks instead of being sent to a civil prison. I say without hesitation that this was really a trick upon the public, a rather discreditable trick, and one to which I am sure the late Secretary of State for War would have been the last man to be a party. The public did not understand that this was the intention of the statement, and we shall have to look carefully at this Order and see what it really means. However, as I propose to refer to the subject next Tuesday I will not trouble your Lordships further now.

LORD PARMOOR

My Lords, perhaps I might, in reply, thank Lord Sandhurst for the answer he gave. It is extremely satisfactory to hear that in all cases the Army Order has been obeyed. In reference to what is meant by the statement of the Prime Minister, I confess that at the moment I can give no opinion. It seems to me at present much too difficult and complex, but I hope it will carry out the suggestions which the noble Lord thinks are to be found in it.