§ VISCOUNT TEMPLETOWN rose to move to resolve—"That in the opinion of this House London should be at once declared 'Prohibited Area.'"
§ The noble Viscount said: My Lords, before venturing to place before your Lordships a few of the reasons for moving the Resolution that stands in my name, I would like briefly to draw your attention to the objects of the Aliens Restriction Act. In the first place I had better at once mention that certain portions of London have been declared prohibited areas—namely, the St. Katherine's, London, Surrey Commercial, West India, Millwall, and the East India Docks. The Restriction Act gave power to His Majesty, in the event of imminent national danger or great emergency, to 581 impose by Order in Council restrictions upon aliens and to make such provisions as might be necessary or expedient for carrying such restrictions into effect. The Aliens Restriction Consolidation Act includes in it all the various Acts and some seven or eight Orders in Council that have been passed since 1914, and it is a notable point in these Orders that they apply as much to allies or neutrals as to alien enemies.
§ The dock area to which I have referred has been very properly made a prohibited area, but I should like His Majesty's Government to be good enough to inform the House what steps have been taken since the promulgation of the Order to give effect to its provisions. Have all alien enemies in this area been removed? If not, how many are still left there and why are they allowed to remain? Sir John Simon is reported to have admitted in another place in June, 1915, that several hundred alien enemies of all ages and both sexes had been exempted from the restriction. He did not, so far as I know, state why such should be the case. At the time of his speech Sir John Simon said that in round figures the alien enemies of military age in the metropolitan area were: Germans 9,000; Austro-Hungarians, 4,000; and that: the exemptions in the area referred to ansounted to 592 men and 2,134 women.
§ I think your Lordships will agree that my motion is very understandable. If we take Eastbourne as an example of a prohibited area, we find that there is a group of influential alien enemies still residing there in comfort and affluence. Why is this? And how is it that the whole of London has not been declared a prohibited area? Surely if Eastbourne and towns on the East Coast and many seaside resorts on the South-east Coast have been declared prohibited areas, why should not the whole of London? London is the centre of the nerve and brain of the Empire, the centre of wireless communication throughout the world, the headquarters of all the Government Departments having in hand the conduct of the war, and yet it is left absolutely unprotected. In this very vital area, allowing for figures which may have transpired since Sir John Simon spoke, there must be between 8,000 and 9,000 alien enemies loose, and I know that they are allowed to go on with their commerce and their trade with very delicate restric- 582 tions. I ask any member of your Lordships' House whether alien enemies would be allowed such licence in any other country in the world.
§ Another point. If these thousands of alien enemies are properly under Police supervision, I wonder how many Police officers are thereby absent from the other duties which they ought to perform. If the whole of the metropolis were proclaimed a prohibited area these dangerous cliques would be broken up automatically and scattered all over the country in detached groups who would not have the same facilities for consulting together, which would greatly tend to reduce their power for evil. Next month and the following month will be quite a nice time for Zeppelin raids. Ought these alien enemies to remain? They are worse when the Zeppelins arrive. These Germans meet night after night in this country, and it is well known to the proper authorities where they meet. They discuss their policy during the war and what it will be after the war, and I have no doubt whatever that their views are such as do not entitle them to live at large here.
§ There is one other remark I should like to make. If I rightly understood Lord Newton, he said in a recent debate that the Government were releasing as many of the poor interned aliens as they possibly could because then the Germans might perhaps release some of the British interned prisoners in Germany. Such a method seems to me to be futile. I suggest that the German prisoners in this country should be given the same poor fare that British prisoners receive in Germany. I understand that such a course has been followed in France with good effect. I beg to move.
§ Moved to resolve, That in the opinion of this House London should be at once declared a "prohibited area."—(Viscount Templetown.)
§ LORD BERESFORDMy Lords, I should like to support the noble Viscount in his effort to get London declared a prohibited area. I cannot understand the sympathy in this country for alien enemies, snore particularly with regard to the Germans. Once a German always a German, whether you naturalise him or not. It is only three years ago that. some of the 583 most distinguished Germans in this country who were in the habit of going into our society and meeting all our people sent over a message of love and reverence for the Kaiser and their country. The real fact is that these people are either traitors to their own country or traitors to this, and we have no room for traitors of any sort in this country, more particularly during a war.
I would like to ask the representative of the Government who is going to reply to the noble Viscount whether he can tell us anything about the German Athenaeum Club, which was taken over by certain officers in the Service. I would remind the Government that though the Board of Trade were told continually who belonged to this club—mostly Germans—they took no action whatever to support the officers who took the club over from the Germans until those officers took the law into their own hands. I think it is a fatal thing in this country if once people take the law into their own hands. It has happened before with regard to the German aliens. The Board of Trade know perfectly well who paid off the mortgage for £15,000 when the German Athanamm people tried to get the club back from the officers at present there. I would also like to know as the Board of Trade has ordered that this club should be wound up, whether it is to be a voluntary or a compulsory winding-up. If it is to be a compulsory winding-up, we shall know all about the club; but if it is to be a voluntary winding-up, we shall not. Most of the Germans over here appear to be able to go on with their businesses. In the Dominions they cannot do so. They have been got rid of. What can be done in the Dominions we can do here, and I think we should.
§ THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNEMy Lords, my noble friend Lord Templetown gave the House a very clear sketch of the objects with which the Aliens Restriction Order was framed. Its general object was, as my noble friend is aware, to place restrictions on the liberties and movements of all aliens wherever resident, while further restrictions were placed upon alien enemies resident in certain areas which were specified as "prohibited areas." In these prohibited areas all aliens are obliged to register with the Police, and alien enemies are not allowed to reside within them with 584 out special Police permission. The question of deciding what areas should be prohibited was very carefully considered by all the authorities—Naval and Military, the Home Office, and the Police. In the first place they were confined mainly to those parts of the East Coast in respect of which it was thought necessary to take special precautions, but the extent of these areas was kept constantly under consideration and from time to time additions were made to them, and at the present moment they constitute what is virtually a ring round the circumference of the coast line of Great Britain.
My noble friend asks why London has not been included in the prohibited areas, and no doubt my noble friend meant by London the Metropolitan Police area, which covers an extent of, I think, 700 square miles and has a population of 7,500,000 people. This matter was very carefully considered. It was decided in the first instance not to include London among the prohibited areas, and from time to time the question of including it has come up for consideration, but the decision has always been adverse to the proposal, for reasons which I will give to my noble friend. It was felt in the first place that to bring London within the prohibited areas would impose upon the Police, who are very much depleted in number and overburdened with work, an amount of clerical labour which would have been out of all proportion to the gain obtained in public safety. I mean by that that the Police would have been obliged to include and bring in under their surveillance a very large number of aliens, who, far from being enemy aliens, were friendly aliens. It was also thought that the effect of such a measure might be to drive away from London numbers of alien enemies, a great many of them women, into areas less efficiently police than London is, and from the point of view of the Police authorities that was considered to be distinctly an undesirable result. I am able to tell my noble friend that the Commissioner of Police has had this matter under his constant attention, and that he maintains to-day the opinion that to make London a prohibited area would add nothing to the public security.
It is pointed out to me that the conception of prohibited areas has lost a good deal 585 of its importance since the policy, announced by the Government in May last, of the internment of aliens and their repatriation has been vigorously and exhaustively carried out. Only those alien enemies who, having passed under the review of the Advisory Committees, have been exempted from internment or repatriation, are now at liberty in any part of the country; and the Police supervision exercised over them, whether in prohibited areas or otherwise, affords, it is believed, adequate safequards against their constituting any danger to the country.
My noble friend gave some figures as to the number of alien enemies in London. I am not quite sure whether his figures agree with those with which I have been supplied. The number was, of course, very large indeed at the beginning of the war, but it has been greatly reduced by internments, deportations, and repatriations, I am told that at the present moment there are about 9,000 males and 7,500 females at large, but this total includes not only Germans, Austrians, Hungarians, Turks, and Bulgarians, but a large number of persons belonging to friendly races, such as Alsatians and Poles. All these persons are constantly passing under review, and can be interned or deported at any moment if occasion should arise.
To sum up the information which has been supplied to me, I would say that it is the considered and clear opinion of the responsible authorities that no advantage to administration or the public safety would be obtained by introducing into the system of control exercised in the Metropolitan Police District the complications involved in declaring that district a prohibited area under the Aliens Restriction Order, and that it would withdraw a number of Police officers for a considerable time, some of them permanently, from other and more important duties. That is the deliberate judgment of the responsible authorities, and we do not question its correctness.
My noble and gallant friend on the Back Bench opposite (Lord Beresford) asked me for information with regard to the German Athenæum Club. I confess my ignorance. I was not even aware of the existence of that institution, and I am afraid I am quite unable to give my noble friend any infor- 586 mation as to the circumstances under which it was wound up. But if he will allow me I shall be pleased to make inquiries and inform him of the result.
§ LORD BERESFORDThank you.
§ Motion (by leave) withdrawn.