§ LORD RAGLAN rose to ask His Majesty's Government—
- 1. How many officials were employed in this country in connection with the passport system on 1st January, 1922 and 1923.
- 2. How many aliens were deported in 1922, and of these, how many had entered this country by means of passports.
- 3. Why passports are not available beyond two years from the date of issue.
§ The noble Lord said: My Lords, I ventured during last Session to ask a Question and to make some observations on the subject of passports. The noble Marquess the Lord President of the Council, in a very courteous answer, said that the matter did not lie altogether at the discretion of His Majesty's Government. That is, of course, true, but it is difficult to believe that if His Majesty's Government really desired the suppression of these gangs of licensed highwaymen—for they are really no better—they could not bring pressure to bear, either through the diplomatic representatives abroad or through the League of Nations, upon the Governments of those small countries which are, we are told, the principal offenders.
§ My noble friend Lord Sydenham expressed the hope that nothing would be done which might facilitate the entry of 99 undesirable aliens. We have, however, no evidence that the present system does prevent the entry of such persons, or, indeed, that it has been definitely laid down what qualities constitute undesirability in an alien. We are told that many persons have been prevented from landing in this country, but for all we know they may have been harmless aliens whose passports were not in order, or undesirable aliens who have subsequently landed elsewhere. In any case, the question of alien immigration is too large and too complicated, in my opinion, to be left to the discretion of vice-consuls and passport clerks.
§ With reference to my third Question, I read on my passport that passports are not available beyond two years from the date of issue, but they may be renewed, either at one of His Majesty's Consulates or at the Foreign Office, London, for a further period on payment of a fee of 2s. It is very difficult to see who can benefit from this system except the official who receives the 2s. One has only to glance at the columns of the Press in order to see that there is a good deal of feeling on this subject, but the British public would, I have no doubt, cheerfully submit to all these regulations and restrictions if they were convinced, which at present they are not, that there is more behind them than mere bureaucracy and red tape.
THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY OF THE MINISTRY OF HEALTH (THE EARL OF ONSLOW)My Lords, the total number of persons of all grades employed by the Passport Offices in London and Liverpool on January 1, 1922, was 224, and on January 1, this year, 197. As regards the noble Lord's second Question, I think from what he says that this requires a little explanation from me because the noble Lord seems to be under the impression that passports enable aliens to land in this country. That is not by any means the case. The requirements that have to be fulfilled before an alien can land in this country are governed by Part 1, Section 1, of the Aliens Order. I will not read it at length because it is set forth in the Paper I hold in my hand, and if the noble Lord cares to have -a copy of it I shall be very glad to give it to him. The gist of the Order is that an alien who wishes to land in this country must obtain leave from 100 the immigration officer at the port at which he desires to enter this country. This permission is only granted after the immigration officer is satisfied that all the conditions which are laid down in the Order are fulfilled, and after personal examination of the alien.
But in order to enable the immigration officer to perform his duties a passport is necessary, or, at least, is generally necessary, for a passport or some other document establishing the alien's nationality is required as a proof of nationality and identity. That is the object of the passport, which serves as a ready and, on the whole, reliable means of ascertaining the nationality and identity of individuals and of recording conditions or decisions in regard to an alien. There is also another thing that it does. Perhaps noble Lords have noticed on entering this country that the passport offers a very simple means of distinguishing between British subjects and aliens—between those who ark: not troubled in any way by having to pass the immigration officer and aliens who have to satisfy him that the conditions under the Order have been complied with. The system enables the work to be carried out at the ports in the quickest possible time and with the minimum of inconvenience to travellers.
The noble Lord referred to consular visas, and I think he said that those consular visas were scarcely a protection against the introduction of undesirable aliens. I ought again to point out that the noble Lord is under a misapprehension. Nationals of all countries, excepting France, Belgium, Luxemburg, Spain, and Holland, require a British consular visa before starting on their journey to England, but this visa does not entitle them to land, any more than the passport does; but the fact that they have to get a visa enables a preliminary sifting to be gone through, and prevents an alien who would otherwise be stopped at the port from starting on his journey and having a journey for nothing. I ought to add that, apart from any passport or any document establishing identity, an alien who wishes to be employed in this country must be provided with a written permit, which is issued by the Minister of Labour to the respective employer, and he must show that to the immigration officer.
101 The noble Lord asks how many aliens have been deported in 1922 who entered this country by means of passports. I think it will be seen that, as the possession of a passport does not entitle an alien to land in this country, statistics showing how many were deported in 1922 who had passports are really not of any great significance. In 1922 380 aliens were deported. Of these, 46 had obtained leave to land in the regular manner since the outbreak of war. They were therefore in possession of documents of nationality and identity, and probably all of them had passports in the regular manner to prove their identity. Sixty-six had been resident in the country since before the war, and no passports were, required. Some 280 of these people had landed illegally, as stowaways, or they were persons who were being deported from the Dominions, and were passing through this country en route, or else they were smugglers. They may or may not have had passports, at any rate they did not have passports in the regular manner.
I turn to the noble Lord's third Question about the renewal of passports. The noble Lord said he could not see why it was necessary for passports to be renewed at a fee of 2s. every two years. If you are going to have passports at all they must be of value as documents of identity, and you must keep a close scrutiny on them. I remember the case of an undesirable person at St. Petersburg who obtained a British passport and afterwards blew himself up. As he had come to Russia with a British passport it caused us a very considerable amount of -trouble because he ought not to have had it, and I think the Treasury had a good deal of difficulty in prosecuting the people who had transferred that passport. Therefore, I think that the rigidity with which passports are scrutinised is of considerable advantage if they are to be of any value or use at all.
A passport is issued for ten years. For the first two years it does not require to be endorsed. Then it has to be endorsed every two years. That, of course, prevents fraudulent transfers, and, probably, by the time the ten years have expired all the available space on the passport is written across or counter-stamped, and so forth, so that it is very difficult for the immigration officer to read what is on it. I see that the noble Lord has a passport 102 in his hand on which there is plenty of space left. Then there are points connected with the changes in the conditions of travel abroad, the change of nationality on the part of women marrying, and of other persons who have been naturalised, and so forth. It is necessary to inspect the passport to see that it has been issued in a proper manner. Those are the various points the noble Lord has raised, and I trust that I have sufficiently covered them.
LORD RAGLANI should like to ask the noble Earl whether he does or does not consider that the fact stated in his answer to my second Question shows that the passport is no safeguard against the entry of undesirable aliens.
THE EARL OF ONSLOWI am afraid the noble Lord misunderstood me. I did not say that a passport is a safeguard. I said that it is proof of a person's identity. It very often happens that a steamer comes across from the Continent with a good many aliens on board. I understand that in the old days when you arrived from Flushing, let us say, you were asked whether you were a British subject. If you said "Yes," you passed on. At the present time, if a person has a passport proving that he is a British subject he passes on also without any trouble; but if he happens to be an alien he goes before the aliens officer, he is inspected and any necessary action taken; that is the point.
§ LORD FARRERMy Lords, I imagine that everybody must feel obliged to the noble Lord who has brought this matter forward. There is nothing that creates more undesirable annoyance than this restriction upon freedom of travel, which I look upon as one of the great freedoms of the world. The freedom of an individual to move from country to country is surely quite as great a thing as the freedom to move goods, from the lack of which we are suffering at the present moment. The noble Earl who answered the Question has rather forgotten, I think, that prior to the war there was the most complete freedom of movement in all directions.
LORD FARBERI am coming to that, if the noble Earl will permit me to do 103 so. Thirty years ago I had a great deal to do with the movement of cross-channel traffic, especially at the ports of Dover and Folkestone. In those days there were actually four more services, a very much cheaper fare and an immensely greater traffic in proportion, than we have to-day. Either that state of things is desirable or it is not. Can anything more absurd be imagined than the present system? If you are an ordinary traveller you must have an elaborate passport. I do not say whose fault it is, but if you are an excursionist you need not have a passport. Anybody who wants to get across to France would take a day excursion ticket. It is difficult, therefore, under any system of inspection by detectives of any sort, when so many thousands cross the Channel, to say who is and who is not a desirable person.
I think these things very much want altering. I have been looking recently at the rules, and I find that one of them says that if a person comes from Southern Ireland he has to obtain the permission of the Petty Sessional Clerk of the district. I am told by a noble Lord who is not in the House this afternoon, Lord Monteagle, that there is no such person as the Petty Sessional Clerk. If you want to come here from. Northern Ireland I believe that permission has to be got from the Home Secretary. Are we to accept a system under which we are to have passports to go between England and Ireland? If so, I think it is a very serious thing indeed.
Almost everybody knows that it was a terrible thing to move about at all during the war. The Governments of the day seemed to think it desirable to restrict movement. That may have been the case. On one occasion when I was crossing the channel on business the noble Lord who leads the Opposition in this House was going over to attend a very important Conference at Paris. He was arrested immediately on landing and had to be taken out of the hands of the police and go without his luncheon. I only mention that to show that even great people suffer occasionally. In those days, of course, noble Lords who sat on the front bench ordered an aeroplane or even a special train. I beg to remind the noble Earl that the late Mr. Gladstone always paid his own first class fare, but there was 104 nobody who did more, in my opinion, towards sweeping away unnecessary restrictions on travel. I ask for no more to be done in regard to the passport system of the present day. I should like to ask the noble Viscount on the Woolsack whether Magna Charta can still be pleaded, because there is a section in Magna Charta which allows perfect freedom of passage except in time of war.
LORD BELHAVEN AND STENTONMy Lords, I can bear out to some extent what was said by the noble Lord who has just spoken in reference to crossing the Channel. A fortnight ago I had occasion to go to France on a matter of very urgent importance. I found that my passport had expired three months previously. But I had to use it as I was coming up from Scotland and there was no chance of getting it renewed or altered. When I got to Victoria I was stopped at the barrier of the boat train platform and asked to show my passport. The defect was noticed, but the ticket collector suggested that I should get a week-end ticket. There was just time for me to run to the ticket office and change ray ticket for a weekend ticket. I got over to France, with that week-end ticket and filled in the form of passport contained upon it as Mr. Robert Belhaven, which was good enough for them. When I was in India I had a good deal to do with making out. passports. I have made out a great many, and I remember the procedure. It took a very long time to fill up the application form and not everybody was sufficiently conversant with official procedure to know how to do it. Applicants, generally had to obtain official assistance.
I was not in this country a great deal before the war, but. I have heard it stated here to-night that before the war there was perfect freedom of travel on the Continent. I do not know whether there are any reasons, as the result of the war, why there should not be the same freedom of travel now. I regard the present passport system as another legacy of D.O.R.A. It has been urged that it costs only 2s. That is a very small sum, but it is a straw on the load which the camel has to carry—the load which is labelled Bureaucracy," and which he is screaming to be rid of at the present time. I should like to hear, and I think the people 105 of this country would like to hear, much better reasons advanced for keeping this system of passports in existence than we have heard to-night.
§ VISCOUNT LONG OF WEAXALLMy Lords, before this debate comes to an end, I should like to say a word on the general question. The noble Earl who replied on behalf of the Government gave us a very clear and careful defence of the passport system and the aliens prohibition system as it exists at present. I do not speak, as the noble Lord usually does, from personal experience of crossing the Channel. I am thankful to say that I seldom have occasion to cross. I prefer England. But many of those who do cross the Channel tell me what a nuisance arises from the present system of passports, which, they say, is intolerable. It seems to me that either the passport system, plus the alien prohibition measures, tends materially to decrease crime in this country by preventing the invasion of these shores by- criminals or would-be criminals of other lands, or it does not. The noble Earl, in his description of what happens, did not tell us whether, in the eyes of those who are responsible for the maintenance of the law—the police authorities and others—this system is really advantageous to them or not.
It my information is correct—I do not guarantee it, as I have not had an opportunity of testing it myself—the present system has no effect whatever upon the arrival here of aliens of the class we do not want, who come either to prey upon us when we have large numbers of unemployed of our own, or with the deliberate intention of committing crime. I am assured that the present system does not interfere with their arrival in the smallest degree. What then does it do? It imposes a most laborious and troublesome arrangement upon those who wish to pass between our country and the continent. If that is the only result, then submit that it is not a system which ought to be maintained. I do not for a moment suggest that the Government, to-day, should undertake to abolish the passport system, but I do say that the question deserves rather more consideration than it has received at the hands of the Government. Those who regard the present system as a very great nuisance 106 are entitled to ask the Government to look into the matter, and I do not urge more than that.
The Government should see whether it really is desirable in these days of peace to continue this restriction upon individual liberty, and whether the question of the invasion of these shores by undesirable aliens does not require much closer attention and stricter measures than any which have been imposed up to the present. If my information in this respect is correct—I do not say that it is—there are a great many more people coming into this country whom we do not want than ought to be allowed to conic here; and if that be true the existing system is not sufficient. Although it may be defended for reasons other than those which have been given to us to-day, and although it may be desirable to maintain the passport system—I do not believe that ii is—if it is true that it does not restrict. the coming into this country of undesirable people, then I say it is the duty of the Government to look carefully into it and see if they can find a remedy for the defects of the existing system.
§ VISCOUNT ULLSWATERMy Lords, the debate to-day would seem to lead persons to imagine that the passport system was a creation under D.O.R.A., and was a closely related to the war. As a matter of fact it is no such thing. The passport system has been in existence for very many years, and has been found to be a very convenient system. I think that in the debate which has taken place two things have been mixed up—(1), the inconvenience of having to have a passport and travelling about with a passport; and, (2), the admission of undesirable aliens into this country. Those two things are entirely separate and distinct, and have no relation one to the other.
The passport system has been in vogue for years throughout Europe. I remember very well a story which was told of the late Lord Lyons, and I do not hesitate to relate it, notwithstanding the fact that the biographer of Lord Lyons is present, and possibly may correct me as he does everybody else. This is the story. Lord Lyons was dining at his own table in his own house in Paris one Sunday evening with a few secretaries, and was talking about the passport 107 system. He said that every British subject who travelled abroad should take his passport with him in his pocket, and always have it as a means of identification. One of his junior secretaries, thinking to score off his chief, said to him: "And may I ask your Excellency whether your Excellency's passport is now in your Excellency's pocket?" Lord Lyons, at this Sunday evening dinner in his own house with his own secretaries around him, put his hand into his pocket and produced his passport. That is an example. Abroad the passport is of immense utility. First of all, it, is a pièce d' identification which is generally required if, for example, you go to a poste restante to require the delivery of your letters. You cannot get them unless you prove your identity, and the only means of proving your identity is by. producing your passport.
§ VISCOUNT ULLSWATERA visiting card is easily exchanged, and is really no proof whatever. It only shows that you have in your pocket a visiting card which may or may not be your own. Again, if you get into trouble with the police abroad—not that I suppose that would ever happen to any of your Lordships, but it does happen sometimes to less distinguished individuals—the passport will at all events show who you are and will enable you to obtain access to your nearest diplomatic representative. I therefore think that before we attempt to abolish the passport system the matter will require a great deal further consideration than it has yet received at your Lordships' hands.
§ LORD LAMINGTONMy Lords, I wonder if the authorities who are in charge of the passport system ever realise the great inconvenience that it entails. Is it not the fact that those who frame these regulations have themselves the amplest facilities for travelling about? If that be so then they are not. familiar with the real grievances that are felt by people like myself who have to go through all the worry of obtaining a passport, who have to take their place in a long queue, and wait perhaps two or three hours. The other day, at a frontier abroad, I was detained for three-quarters 108 of an hour. There was a crowd of men, women and babies, and how long they had been there before I arrived I do not know, but probably more than an hour, and most of them missed their train. People responsible for the administration of the passport system cannot realise, unless they themselves go through the process, what an intolerable annoyance it is to people to be subjected to this system. I heard of someone who recently was subjected to considerable inconvenience owing to the fact that be, had not a passport with him. I hope that people who have had similar experiences of the system will urge that it should be relaxed. In regard to what the noble Viscount, Lord Long, said, it is not the case that undesirable aliens had free access to this country before the passport system, as it now exists, was instituted. Before 1914, I think, there were powers. whereby undesirable foreigners could be denied access to this country. If that was the case then, and if the powers were satisfactorily administered, is there any reason why it should now be necessary to have this passport system? I think that is a point which requires to be cleared up.
§ LORD NEWTONMy Lords, as the noble Viscount below me has made an appeal to me I am pleased to be able to give him a certificate of accuracy. His anecdote with reference to Lord Lyons, so far as I am aware, is correct, although I am not the individual to whom he referred. But the fact that Lord Lyons habitually carried his passport in his pocket is no proof that it is a necessary or a useful safeguard. I was not in the House when the noble Lord asked his Question, but I was absolutely unconvinced by the reply given by my noble friend, more especially with regard to the statement that a passport is a safeguard. A passport may be a safeguard to certain people, but it is evidently no safeguard so far as British subjects are concerned. It will be within the recollection of your Lordships that Mr. Bevan had no difficulty in getting abroad under a false name, and the late Viscount Northcliffe boasted and bragged that he was travelling under a false passport. Instances of that kind can be recapitulated to any extent.
With regard to travellers across the Channel let me reassure the noble Viscount, Lord Long of Wraxall, who 109 evidently has a distaste for travelling. I crossed the Channel yesterday and experienced no difficulty whatsoever. There is no particular grievance with regard to travelling to France, or returning to this country. If you want to see the real working of the passport system you should go to Central Europe. There it will take you months and the expenditure of an enormous sum of money to obtain a passport at all. Further, there is great difficulty in leaving the country after you have obtained the passport, and when you cross the frontier you are delayed for a considerable time. After you have crossed the neutral zone and arrived at the next country you are again detained for an indefinite period; and altogether everything that can possibly be done is done in order to dissuade people from travelling.
We in this country are singularly lucky in this respect. At the same time I am convinced that a passport is no protection and that much time and money are wasted over our system. Unfortunately, it is impossible at the moment to abolish the passport system throughout Europe. Owing to the operation of the Versailles Treaty most Governments of Europe, all Governments in fact, are in such an impecunious position that they rely largely on the passport system to finance their Missions abroad, and I do not see the remotest possibility of it coming to an end. I know of one Legation in London, I will not mention the name, which was only able to pay its expenses because of the very large sums it received from British subjects for visas. One of the minor penalties of the Versailles Treaty is that there is such a want of money that sources of revenue of this kind cannot be neglected, and I am afraid every one of your Lordships, with the exception perhaps of the youngest members, is likely to see this hateful passport system in existence for a long time to come.
§ EARL BEAUCHAMPMy Lords, the debate this afternoon illustrates the great advantages which exist in your Lordships' House for the discussion of grievances, and if we compare the rules of discussion in this House with the rules of discussion in another place, I think we may say that the advantages are entirely in favour of your Lord- 110 ships' House. We all agree with the noble Viscount, Lord Ullswater, that the passport system is no new one, but it will be within the experience of many of your Lordships that it was an exceedingly rare thing to be asked for a passport when you went abroad before the war. We all wish to return to those happier days. My real purpose in rising, however, is to point out to my noble friend Lord Raglan that evidently there is a great deal of support for him in this House, and to suggest to him that perhaps on a later occasion ho will move a Motion embodying the proposals he has made this afternoon in order that there may be a full discussion. If he will give a little longer notice, no doubt he will get more support on that occasion than ho has this afternoon.