HL Deb 11 October 1939 vol 114 cc1335-43

3.6 p.m.

LORD STRABOLGI rose to ask His Majesty's Government what restrictions there are on the entry of foreign newspapers into this country and particularly of American newspapers; and to move for Papers. The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Government the Question which I have on the Order Paper. I had expected the Minister of Information to deal with this matter, but perhaps it is as well for him to have a rest from criticism at the present time, and now, through the usual channels, I hear that the noble Viscount, Lord Cobham, is going to make his maiden speech in your Lordships' House in answering on behalf of the War Office. We all saw his appointment with pleasure, especially those who knew the excellent work, if he will allow me to say so, that he did as Chairman of the County Territorial Associations; and, though I congratulate the Government on acquiring his services, I give him my personal commiseration and look forward to his reply to this Question with great interest. It is significant, however, that it is a matter for the War Office what newspapers shall be allowed to come into and go out of this country, and I understand that that is because of censorship.

What has prompted this inquiry of the Government is an extraordinary state of affairs, of which your Lordships are probably aware. Apparently respectable citizens are not allowed in certain cases to take British newspapers abroad. I drew the Government's attention to some letters which appeared in The Times newspaper. I need not read them all to your Lordships, but I refer particularly to those which appeared under the date of October 5. The first was from a Major Robertson—he must be a respectable citizen or his letter would not be published in The Times; they even publish my letters sometimes. He explains how, on his outward journey to France, The Times and other London newspapers and magazines, which he had brought from Victoria on his journey, were confiscated before he was allowed to embark, and twenty paces further on, at the other end of the gangway, the same newspapers were being sold on board the ship. He describes how, on his return, he threw overboard before he disembarked all his French, Dutch and Belgian newspapers and then, "shining with conscious virtue," submitted himself to the Customs examination, only to find that "criminal tendencies are not easily suppresed even by the will to repentance"—I quote from the letter; I am not capable of such flowers of speech. The Customs authorities took from him a novel which he had not taken out of his suitcase. This was apparently by a writer called P. G. Wodehouse, who, I understand, specialises in his novels in the doings of the less serious members of your Lordships' House, and is, I believe, a well-known humorist. This was apparently a suspicious book and had to go up to Liverpool to be censored there. The writer of the letter also explains that he had with him a brief case with eight or nine pounds weight of typewritten documents, but these were not examined.

In the same issue it is described how Spanish newspapers coming to this country have been stopped, how immense numbers of American publications are being held up in this country, apparently by the Ministry of Information at Southampton, not the War Office. Usually the Minister of Information says that everything that goes wrong is the fault of the War Office, and so perhaps in this case the noble Viscount will put the blame on the Ministry of Information. At all events, a great many newspapers from America are being held up at Southampton. And so it goes on. Among other cases a well-known Belgian journalist who works in London, returning from his own country, had all his Belgian and French newspapers taken from him. I understand the official explanation is that newspapers might be a means of conveying secret messages between spies and agents of the enemy. I understand that that is the theory. If it is really a case of preventing illicit communications from going to the enemies of this country, then we have nothing to say, but we want to be quite sure that the War Office are not setting themselves up as judges of what is healthy and wholesome for the British people to read. There can be no question of news in American newspapers being dangerous or conveying information to the enemy because they can obviously get them direct, and anything appearing in the American newspapers is equally available to the German Secret Service as it is to our own.

There may be the physical difficulty, I agree, of examining each package of newspapers to see that letters, for example, are not hidden between the pages in order to escape censorship, but we want to be certain that there is no attempt to prevent outside information and opinions from foreign countries reaching the British public. I hope the noble Viscount and the Government appreciate this point, on which my Party feel very strongly. We are prepared to collaborate in preventing any information reaching the enemy, but we refuse to be hoodwinked ourselves and denied information as to the opinion of neutrals and even of our Allies. That is the point really that worries us.

We have some reason for anxiety in a statement which appeared in the News Chronicle yesterday. It referred to the piles of American magazines seized under the Imports Restrictions Regulations, and then went on to refer to the American magazine Time which has been held up, and the fact that the publishers are making arrangements for individual copies to subscribers in England to be posted in Chicago to obviate delay. I do not know how that is possible, but I dare say arrangements can be made to have all these magazines sent here, provided there is no ulterior object in stopping them. The next paragraph is curious, if I may read it to your Lordships: The News Chronicle was informed yesterday that the Board of Trade has asked four of the leading firms importing American magazines and newspapers to submit a short list of periodicals which accurately reflect American public opinion, with a view to granting licences for their import in bulk. With great respect I am not content to allow the Board of Trade to judge what newspapers accurately represent American public opinion, nor am I content to let the War Office judge what is good for me and my colleagues to read in the American newspapers. We want to know what people are thinking about, and what does appear in the American newspapers, and in the newspapers of other countries. There is, also, a great deal of disturbance to trade because traders cannot send their catalogues or even their Christmas cards abroad to our own Dominions without a great deal of delay.

I dare say at the beginning of a war there is bound to be some confusion, even under such a marvellous Government as this. There is bound to be here and there a gap in the arrangements. That we can understand and excuse, and we do not want to make too much of it. But on the main suspicion, if I may so describe it, that there is an attempt to prevent the British public from having access to the foreign Press, we beg leave to ask for an assurance from the Government. It is with that object that I have put down this Question, and I now beg to move for Papers.

3.15 p.m.

THE UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (VISCOUNT COBHAM)

My Lords, may I first of all thank the noble Lord opposite for the very kindly welcome he has given to me in my new post? The matter he has brought before the attention of your Lordships' House is of such universal public interest that I am sure he will forgive me if I deal with it in some detail, as also with the other matters to which he has referred. The noble Lord began by inquiring why the War Office should make this reply to his Motion. These restrictions, for censorship purposes, were first set up under a statutory order under the Emergency Powers (Defence) Act, and the actual order that sets up this control was dated September 6. That order follows the line that was adopted in the last war, only of course it has been far more stringently drawn that any order made during the last war. Censorship powers are exercised under this order, and the order itself is made over the signature of the Secretary of State for War.

The order forbids the sending or conveyance into or out of the United Kingdom without a permit of any newspaper, book, map, photograph, or other similar article, except through the post, and forbids the sending of such articles by post without a permit to certain specified countries. The list does not include France, the United States, the Dominions, the Colonies, or India. As has been explained by the Financial Secretary, in answer to a question in another place, it has been decided that the best way of exercising the necessary censorship control in regard to newspapers is to confine their import and export to firms whose bona fides has been verified, and who are being given permits. Owing to the very large number of applications for permits, there has naturally been some initial delay in their issue, and in the meantime the newspapers are being allowed to enter the United Kingdom without censorship check, whether imported in bulk or by post.

The import of newspapers is also governed by the import licensing arrangements, regarding which the following note dealing with newspapers from other countries than Germany has been supplied by the Import Licensing Department of the Board of Trade: Newspapers fall within the import licensing arrangements under the item books, printed matter, etc. The prohibition does not apply to newspapers imported in single copies through the post. An open general licence has now been issued in respect of both newspapers and press photographs so that no question of licences arises with such printed matter. Licences, however, are required for books, periodicals and other printed matter. The general lines on which the Import Licensing Department is issuing licences is as follows:

  1. (1) To license all periodicals in foreign languages. Consideration is being given to the restriction of the lighter kinds of literature.
  2. (2) To license all scientific and trade periodicals and journals.
  3. (3) In general refuse licences for other periodicals. Consideration is, however, being given in consultation with the trade and with the Ministries of Economic Warfare and Information to the question of the extent to which this rule might properly be relaxed.
As regards books and other printed matter accompanying a traveller, these are regarded by H.M. Customs as personal effects and do not require a licence. Newspapers, like other goods, from Germany can only be imported in exceptional circumstances under licence granted by the Trading with the Enemy Branch.

In reply to a question in another place on the 9th October the Postmaster-General stated that newspapers from the United States and foreign countries generally are being delivered without delay on arrival in this country; that there is at present no censorship of United States newspapers; and that there was a gap recently of twelve days in which no letters or newspapers came to this country from the United States owing, it was understood, to the shipping strike in New York. The noble Lord further referred to a letter over the signature of a Major Robertson in The Times. Has not he given his own answer, and a perfectly right answer to that letter? The point is, of course, that any particular newspaper or book might be doctored. To allow articles of this kind to be taken out of this country by hand would be to allow an evasion of the censorship. The method of disguising illicit letters under the printed words, whether those words are printed in a newspaper or in a book, is very well understood, and has been practised for a great number of years. Even the well known Mr. Sherlock Holmes dealt with a cipher that was concealed within the blameless pages of Whitaker's Almanack, and surely the answer, when Major Robertson in his letter casts ridicule on the type of censorship that was being exercised, is that an ill-disposed person wishing to convey illicit information into or out of this country, not necessarily by the hand that is carrying it, would normally do so by disguising it under such form as a book by Mr. P. G. Wodehouse, and the more blameless looking the book, the more it requires to be censored.

I am not sure that I am fully qualified to give a complete answer to the noble Lord's question, but I am informed there is no question so far as the War Office is concerned of keeping out newspapers for the information that they convey on the face of them. The whole of the censorship that is set up under this order is merely to prevent the conveyance of illegal information. As I stated at the beginning of my reply, this order has been very stringently drawn, far more tightly than any order in the last war, and in certain directions it is not operating satisfactorily, so the War Office are now employed in drawing up a new order, which will, it is to be hoped, remove some of the more stringent disabilities in the original order of September 6.

3.25 p.m.

VISCOUNT CECIL OF CHELWOOD

My Lords, I am very much obliged to my noble friend for the very full answer he has given on this question, and if I venture to ask him one or two questions on it, I hope he will not think that that is an ungracious proceeding, in view of what he has said. I am a little puzzled. I think he said in his earlier statement that books were not excluded, yet he justified the exclusion of this important work by Mr. Wodehouse on the ground that it might contain a secret cipher conveying important information. Evidently that could be equally true whether it came by post or in any other way. The truth is that you cannot exclude that kind of thing by that kind of measure. I do not know anything about Major Robertson, but supposing he was making himself the vehicle of a secret cipher, based on Mr. Wodehouse's works, to somebody in this country, why should he go through all that trouble? Why should he not go and tell the man, or when he got here write him a line, or anything of that kind? It does not appear to me to have any common sense as explained by my noble friend. I dare say it is owing to my stupidity and my not having followed what the noble Viscount said.

I only venture to add this. I do hope the Government will be a little careful about these orders and regulations that are coming thick and fast from Govern- ment offices. They do not do any good unless they really are necessary, and they certainly do harm by causing irritation, not in this case, which is a trifling case in itself, but in other cases, and by causing discouragement to the people of this country. It is very important that we should not, in our anxiety to avoid some hidden and very unlikely danger from abroad, cause a great deal of inconvenience to a number of people at home. I am sure that is a sound principle, and I beg the Government carefully to consider the matter, or otherwise we might perhaps have to create a new Ministry, the function of which would be to keep the other Ministries in order.

3.27 p.m.

VISCOUNT COBHAM

My Lords, I do not think I have anything much to add to what I have already said. The original order of September 6 does exclude practically everything that is printed. It would even exclude Christmas cards, and for that reason it has been re-drafted so as to remove some of the most stringent regulations which have been drawn up.

3.28 p.m.

LORD STRABOLGI

My Lords, I wish to thank the noble Viscount for his reply and for what he said about there being no desire to prevent news coming into this country for the information of the public. That is very satisfactory, and it is what we wanted. We are also glad to learn that the matter of restrictions and delay is being reconsidered. It seems to me that if you want to prevent an evilly disposed person from conveying information, you should prevent him from travelling at all, and, if I may be allowed to say this, if you want to stop him taking out messages while not wishing actually to prevent him travelling, you have to strip him entirely and examine him in ways I need not specify. May I tell the noble Viscount, if the House will permit me, of an episode that was related to me last Monday which is rather illustrative of this point, and which bears upon what the noble Viscount, Lord Cecil said, as to how you can overdo a thing of this kind and really defeat your own ends? An English lady in Berlin at the time of the Jewish pogroms last November, took pity on some Jewish people who wished to leave Germany later on and she, perhaps rashly, undertook to smuggle out a dozen valuable rings. She put these twelve beautiful rings on her fingers and proceeded to go out of Germany. At the frontier station of Aachen, the Gestapo had her stripped and searched, and the women searchers did not discover the rings. They searched all her effects and her person, but they did not tell her to take off her gloves, so she came through with the rings on her fingers. Well, we have a little Prussianism in this country also, and I am glad the noble Viscount is looking into this matter. Perhaps as he brings a fresh mind to these problems, he will see to it that we do not impose any unnecessary inconvenience on perfectly responsible people. I beg leave to withdraw the Motion.

Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.