HL Deb 18 March 1943 vol 126 cc755-71

LORD PORTSEA had the following Notice on the Paper: To ask His Majesty's Government, whether any progress has been made in the supply of food for children in Jersey and Guernsey, and whether any information has been received as to the position as regards food at present available for these children; whether His Majesty's Government accept the principle that kinship should entitle these children to preferential treatment and whether His Majesty's Government will again consider the offer made to take a ship and food to the islands and will take steps for negotiations to be opened with the German Government accordingly; and to move for Papers.

The noble Lord said: My Lords, thanks to the Red Cross I have received a reply to a message which I sent last summer to Jersey. Fully to understand these Red Cross messages, it must be remembered that there is a twenty-five-word maximum and it is necessary to know something about the mode of thought of the sender and also of the person who replies. This reply comes from my nearest relative, a lady of nearly my own age, and it tells its own story. The story is: "Planting in the garden for food." That means that she is forced to dig and to plant in order to get food to remain alive. She is doing that at the age of about eighty. I hope your Lordships will understand what must be the comforts of living in that country at this moment! I have also read a Red Cross summary written by prisoners of war in Stalag XVII, and it says this: We are dining at eight. Bacon and beans, meat rolls, vegetables, tinned pears, custard, tea, coffee, Ovaltine, biscuits and cheese and cigarettes. We are always eating heartily. Parcels of food arrive safely. They are not eaten by the Germans, and cigarettes are not stolen. Your Lordships may remember that the Government have said in this House that food could not be sent to occupied territory such as the Channel Islands because the Germans would steal it.

Speaking in the House of Commons the other day, Mr. Foot said that his latest information was that relief foodstuffs imported into Greece through the blockade had been distributed without interference by the Germans. If this is the case, where does the Government's information come from, and, without wishing to be rude, I should like to ask what it is worth. We cannot send food to the islands which are occupied territory because, we are told, the Germans would steal it, and here we have a Government official telling us that "everything arrived safely and is distributed equally." The daily papers tell us that the Germans shoot food stealers. We might learn a lesson from them; some of the stories of criminal cases that we read in the papers are very distressing. There was a very informing letter in a newspaper quite recently from a noble Lord, and there were several from Dr. Gilbert Murray and Mr. Wickham Steed. These are persons of distinction, and they call in The Times for aid for Greece—occupied territory—and say there is no suggestion that supplies so sent would be seized by the enemy. It appears that it is much better from the material point of view, healthier also, to be a prisoner of war in Germany than to be a people left in their own land under the enemy's heel, left as helots by the grace of the Government.

These letters, none of them more than six weeks old, synchronized with letters from the Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster, whose loss we deplore, and from the Archbishop of Canterbury, and with a powerful appeal by the Archbishop of York in the Church of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields on behalf of the Norman Islanders. It was given to a closely packed and appreciative audience. I shall not read these letters, but I may quote a sentence: Starvation is more widespread and even more terrible than has been stated. In no country under enemy occupation is food sufficient to maintain health. In many it is insufficient to keep the people alive. How many island children can live from among those who do escape disease and death, and worse? What kind of a generation can grow up to build the new world for which we are now fighting, a new heaven and a new earth and—do not forget it—a new hell, a hell of our own fashioning, of our own contriving? I met the other day a very interesting and capable man, Mr. Kerschner, the Director of the American Friends' Service. He writes: The German has never taken any of our foods. Neither has the fact that we brought all the food into France enabled him to take away the equivalent of French food. Where is the Government's case? All this is surely evidence. Will it be accepted by the Rip van Winkles of the Government?

Your Lordships will recollect that I had the sad duty of giving most of these facts to your Lordships last year. Our Government have relaxed the blockade—that apparently is their cornerstone—and hence the principle of the blockade. Food is sent to Greece and to Belgium—occupied countries—to aliens and to foreigners, to all except our own people. Why not to our own people? Mr. Foot tells us in another place that the Government are sending a hundred tons of dried milk each month to Greece. Last week's paper told us that four Swedish vessels had arrived at the Piraeus with a cargo of 20,000 tons of grain, vegetables and medical supplies, and Tuesday's paper told us that small bags of coffee from the Belgian Congo have been dropped by the R.A.F. on the villages in occupied Belgium. Each bag bears a label with the inscription in French and in Flemish: The Belgian Congo does not forget you. This is distributed by your friends of the R.A.F. Long live Belgium! The Belgian Congo remembers: we do not—only the R.A.F.

We heard in this House on February 25 last that the Government do not like to be outdone in generosity—generosity to foreigners, to Greeks and to Belgians; and they are Shylocks to our own. Perhaps the Government argue that His Majesty's subjects must be lumped together, or indeed put after foreigners and aliens; no preferential treatment for own own. But do we not owe them more? We deserted them, including a number of young officers and men who, having fought at Dunkirk, were given Service leave to Jersey and Guernsey, and were forgotten in those islands and are now in Greek internment and concentration camps. Do we not owe more to those of our own blood who fought for us, and are fighting for us, who are part of us, who speak and who pray in the same language and use the same form of worship, than to aliens? The men of our own race are placed after and below foreigners. Have our kindred any rights or claims to preferential treatment? They have the right, thank God! to fight alongside our men, gloriously shoulder to shoulder for England, as our young men are doing and our old men would if they could, and have always done. There are some who love England and her honour yet. I do.

I am told that the Government are acting on a principle, the bedrock principle of blockade, and so refuse to modify the rules for our own. Yet we are sending to Greece and to Belgium food which ought to be sent to our islands. Mr. Foot said the other clay in another place: Except for the special exceptions made in the case of Greece, our blockade policy remains as stated by my right honourable friend the Prime Minister in August, 1940. That is to say, quite clearly, the Government break the blockade for foreigners and aliens, and refuse to do it for those people who are their own kin, their own blood, people of their own race whom they have—shall we say abandoned? It is not an English principle to leave our own in the lurch, to do nothing for them while we do the very best for aliens. It is not holding to our traditions, to our birthright and to our principles to do these things; and those principles have made our country respected, loved, feared, and great.

If the great Dominions had indulged in the same caution and casuistry, where should we be? They would be helping, I suppose, the Axis. Had the Norman islanders so acted—and they had royal sanction for not serving outside their own islands—we should be without many brave fighting men. We should not have read the wonderful story of that very gallant Guernsey man earning the Victoria Cross the other week in Libya. To prove that the Norman islanders are not backward in their service of His Majesty, there are two recipients of the Victoria Cross in this war alone. The Government say that the islands are of no strategic value or importance. If they repeat that statement to-day, and add what the poor deluded men in the islands believe in—loyalty, faith, honour, and all these words, but words only, vain phrases made to betray simple and honest men—what then? Then I trust that your Lordships will take a hand and induce the Government, in their own words, to "think again."

The Government, your Lordships are aware, have no constitutional right—of course they have the right of might—to give up the islands. The islands belong, in the fullest sense of the word, to the Crown. There was even a moment—it is now centuries ago—when our Crown was thought to be bargaining with the Crown of France for the sale of the islands. The French knew their value. But now our islands, which command the Channel, are lost. Oh, my Lords, I am treading a stony path, and I should faint by the way if I had not some of your Lordships' sympathy in the face of Government indecision, apathy, caution, and worse. "The path of caution," said the great Elchi, whom only people of my age, perhaps, remember at all, "leads but to disgrace." I cannot be silent. I seem to hear the cries of these little starving children, and I know they are starving. I seem to feel their hands touching mine. My Lords, you are powerful, you are doing your chosen and arduous work. You truly represent the people of this country. You are doing your work without fear and without pay—that cursed political payment which is, to my mind, politically degrading. You can think for the country, you can fight for the country, you can act for the Empire. I appeal to you in the name of innocence—innocence suffering untold misery. Let it be before it is too late for the children.

There is talk—perhaps more than talk—of bringing the most murderous of our enemies to justice. The atrocities of the Axis people are terrible, but the Axis destroys only the bodies of its enemies—thousands, may be even millions. In my view our Government are destroying not only the bodies but the spirit, the faith, the very soul of our own people. They are creating a precedent and a reproach, if not an ignominy, which will attach to us as long as our history lasts. I do not think the Government recognize or realize, or perhaps do not trouble about, the far-reaching effect and repercussions of this act of desertion, this act of surrender, of giving up part of the possessions of the Crown—and that in panic—and remaining (that is the worst part) unrepentant. We can sneer at Pétain. A few days ago a Minister of the Crown stated in another place, "If the House of Commons thinks otherwise, then the Government must think again." Those words made my heart beat with joy, for I grasped they were extracted by fear, political fear, fear of Parliament and of the people. You, my Lords, can induce the Government to think again and to redeem the honour of this country and of her Parliament. Some love England and her honour yet. We do, all of us here.

The noble Lord, Lord Snell—I will guarantee he is not influenced by fear; I trust him, I wish to call him friend—said last week, as to accepting a percentage of a particular Report and making definite findings and immediate promises thereon, on behalf of the Government: The decisions arrived at are not final. Parliament can at any time it pleases call upon the Government to report progress in the carrying out of the Report. That was a question of panem et circenses, not a question of honour, the nation's honour. Is it possible that any Govern- merit can be prepared to yield to the voice of its noisier followers in a matter of immediate promise of social reform with money which is not yet their own, and stand up and refuse, time after time, to listen to the claims, the right of the people of any part of His Majesty's Dominions to insist an fair treatment, if it be only to save them from starvation, even at the cost of what they call in the East the Government's "face"? The Government, of course, act collectively, a private Member acts individually. "What scoundrels we should be," said Cavour, "if we did, in our own individual capacity, that which we are prepared to do as a Government." He was not an Englishman. Your Lordships can induce the Government to think again and to redeem our honour, conveyed to them collectively and individually by the people who elect them and who pay them. You can insist that the Government's first mistaken decisions shall not be final.

The people of the Norman Islands, as your Lordships are aware, are the subjects of an ancient monarchy and of a still more ancient dukedom, and this is of very great importance from their point of view. There was a Royal Proclamation bidding them remain in their own islands. They trusted, they doubted not at all, they obeyed the message sent them, and they are in hell. They are slaves for the first time in our history by the deliberate act of the Government of a free people. Who did this thing? Who betrayed the islands? I know who did not, who could not have done so; that is the man who said we entered into this war only for honour and to do our duty and to defend the right, and that we mean to hold our own. We prepared to conquer or to perish. We were united in that solemn majestic hour; we were all equally resolved at least to go down fighting. We cast calculation to the wind. No wavering voice was heard. We faced our duty, and by the mercy of God we were prepared to die. This man did not sell us or his own honour. I do not know the name of the "thing" who tied sell us, and, indeed, I am glad not to. From my point of view, it would have been a good thing had he not been born. He is to me indescribable save in the savage terms that George Washington applied to the colleague who betrayed him, which are, of course, known to your Lordships.

But let it be betrayal, desertion, panic abandonment—no blacker page ever fouled the history of any British Government. No, not even the record of the 40,000 Loyalists who supported us, fought for us, and were cast out of the Thirteen Colonies and left to perish. It is true that in those days we had France, Spain and Holland on our backs, but even that was no excuse for such an act of perfidy. There can be no excuse, and yet the descendants of those 40,000 remained loyal and are loyal to this day. We could not sell them twice because they were too far away and too powerful. Their descendants are fighting for us now. Have the Government, I wonder, considered the future position, the status and the liberties of the Norman Islands at the end of this war? More war is certain. Let no man delude himself that we are in for an everlasting peace. Go back to Isaiah 2,000 years, to find out when you turn your swords into ploughshares, when nation shall not act against nation, and there shall be no more war. Are the Government determined to sell us, to cast away the most loyal of the loyal, and close the Channel against themselves—the Channel where once every foreign ship dipped its ensign?

Many reasons have been given to justify the Government's later policy. Leaflets, the Government said, could not be dropped lest anyone found in possession of a leaflet should be shot. The islands might suffer if anything so "spectacular"—that was the word—were done. Indeed, the islanders might be deprived of the radio. The radio has gone. We feared the spectacular and for this reason we landed on the small island of Sark. We captured a few prisoners, we bound their hands and we tried to slip them past a German post in silence. The prisoners, though they were bound, bolted, and to avoid alarming the German post we shot the prisoners as they escaped. It does not do to laugh; it is a hard laugh. Hypocrisy is the only evil which walks invisible except to God. Now our own proud people are starving and sweating blood, and a Government can be found unwilling to make any effort. Not so much as a word of encouragement or hope or help is sent to them. Yet the Government send greetings, praise, comforts, food to every alien country and to every foreigner.

Bear with me, my Lords, I am giving my heart's blood drop by drop, as I know your Lordships would do were you in my place. I am so conscious of the inadequacy of my advocacy, so crushingly conscious of it, and I am a new member, but, as was said nearly 40o years ago, my "armour is my honest thought and simple truth my utmost skill." I have asked repeatedly in this House, and privately, for some word of encouragement to be sent to my country, even to the sending of leaflets, as I have just stated. Not a sound. There is a grand New Zealand division which has received the country's and the Government's thanks, and most deservedly so. "On behalf of the Government and the people of the Homeland," said the Prime Minister, "I give you their exceptionally warm-hearted thanks and wish you Godspeed." Not a sound, not a whisper, has reached the islands' division, more numerous if more scattered, no less brave and efficient than the New Zealanders. Not a whisper has reached them or their parents, wives or children. And they are serving and offering all that they have and all that they are.

A further point and the last. This is as to the ship to carry food to the islands. It would have to be Jersey because Guernsey is so fortified and has such a tremendous strength of German troops in it that it would be difficult to ask the Germans to allow us to go to Guernsey direct, but they would allow us to go from Jersey to Guernsey which, comparatively, is no distance. As to a ship to carry food to the Norman Islands, since making this suggestion to the Government I have had several ships offered me, and very crowded crews, including women who are as brave as their menfolk. The ship would have to be manned by two or three Germans, and they would have to be Germans who are invalid prisoners of war—I have mentioned that before—now interned in this country. That ship is ready, and so am I. I have heard nothing whatever from the Government since making that suggestion to them except "The Germans would shoot you." I will take that risk gladly. I have shown that the German does not steal our parcels—not even our tobacco. You cannot read the daily papers without seeing innumerable cases of cigarettes and tobacco meant for the troops being stolen in this country. The German would not steal them because he knows if he did there would be no more sent. As I have said before, he is no fool.

The German Government would have to be consulted, but are we too proud to right a wrong? The German has shown himself in the islands to be very well disciplined, decent in behaviour and to have many soldierly virtues—in the islands. Will the Government not try to arrange matters with the German authorities? Will they not allow individual help or will they continue down the path leading to everlasting dishonour, the path which I heard Sir Edward Grey say led to death, destruction and damnation? When the war is over, when the war is won, have the Government, I ask, any plan for the future of the islands and for the feeding of these people. President Roosevelt said within the last weeks: We cannot escape history; no personal significance or insignificance can spare any one of us. The fierce treatment through which we pass will light in honour or dishonour to the latest generation. Some love England—we all do, I hope—and it is because of that pride of England that I as an Englishman call upon the Government to be worthy of the Empire and to be worthy of the country. I ask the Government to be true to themselves and to do their manifest duty.

THE MINISTER OF ECONOMIC WARFARE (THE EARL OF SELBORNE)

My Lords, we all have such a deep regard for the noble Lord who has just spoken and we all have such a great admiration for the heroism of the people of the Channel Islands and sympathy for them in the very distressing conditions in which they are at the present moment, that I can assure the noble Lord it is no pleasant task that falls to me to deny him or them that which we should like to give if it were within our power. I can assure my noble friend, if he will allow me so to call him—we were colleagues in another place for many years—that he is labouring in this matter under some very severe misapprehensions which I will endeavour to remove in the short time that your Lordships can spare me, and that he is not helping our fellow subjects in the Norman Islands by hysterical misstatements in your Lordships' House. I regret to have to say so, but there is no other correct description of parts of my noble friend's speech.

My noble friend asked for a word of encouragement. He asked what were the plans for the future. I can assure him that the moment it is militarily possible we shall reoccupy the islands, and the moment we have reoccupied them we shall feed them and bring to them all the services that the people of the British Isles at present enjoy. Preparations to that end are of course being made in common with the other preparations we are making in regard to the problem of feeding reconquered Europe. What I regret so much about my noble friend's speech is the hysterical manner in which he talks about the "betrayal" of the Channel Islands. He knows perfectly well we were driver out of that part of our country by superior forces on the Continent.

LORD PORTSEA

My noble friend mows that we left the islands before the Germans arrived.

THE EARL OF SELBORNE

That does not alter the truth of what I have said. Anybody can tell with the history of Crete front of us that in face of a local Air Force superiority such as the Germans had in 1940 in that part of France, it was physically impossible to hold the Channel Islands. H we had remained there the sole result would have been the slaughter of a great many of the Channel Islanders. By that evacuation we saved them a great deal of misery. It was impossible for us to hold those islands as long as German Air Force superiority in France was what it was in 1940.

LORD STRABOLGI

Will the noble Earl allow me to interpose a moment? I am sure he does not want that to go on record. Is he aware that that argument would have justified the evacuation of Kent, which was nearer to a superior o German Air Force than the Channel Islands?

THE EARL OF SELBORNE

The Channel Islands are islands and every support to them must be sent by sea in ships subject to air attack from the enemy, whereas Kent could be reinforced from the land. Therefore the two positions are not at all analogous. The nearest analogy which this war affords is the case of Crete. It all happened nearly three years ago, but I do regret that my noble friend should speak about "be trayal." It was no more a betrayal than any other of the many defeats which this country suffered at that time by reason of entering into a European war with inadequate preparations.

I am however concerned, principally, with his charge against His Majesty's Government of treating—I think that I am not misrepresenting him when I say this—of treating the Channel Islanders worse than we treat some of our Allies. He laid great stress on the fact that prisoners of war in prison camps in Germany were getting their food parcels without interference from the Germans, and he asked why the same thing should not apply in the case of the Channel Islanders. Let me make the position clear. There is undoubtedly a great shortage of food in the Channel Islands, there is very considerable distress and discomfort, but there is no famine or anything that could in the least be accurately described as famine. My noble friend is quite mistaken in thinking that people are dying as a result of lack of food or that their health is being impaired.

LORD PORTSEA

Would the noble Earl give his justification for that statement so far as it relates to children?

THE EARL OF SELBORNE

I can assure my noble friend that I have very accurate information on these matters.

LORD PORTSEA

So have I.

THE EARL OF SELBORNE

I cannot give publicly the source of my information, I can only tell the noble Lord that when I went to the Ministry of Economic Warfare a year ago I was very much surprised at the amount of information I found there in regard to all the countries of Europe. That information comes constantly before me, and I am satisfied that the state of affairs in the Channel Islands is as I have described. The food situation is undoubtedly far worse in Poland and in Occupied Russia than it is in Western Europe.

LORD PORTSEA

What have we to do with Poland?

THE EARL OF SELBORNE

My noble friend asks, what have we to do with Poland? In the first place the people of Poland are our very gallant Allies, and we are in this war with them until the end. In the second place, I think it is important to realize that the food short- age, and the food situation generally, is much more serious in some parts of Europe than in others. The noble Lord has slid that the Royal Air Force dropped some coffee in Belgium, and he has asked why cannot we do the same thing for the Channel Islands. My Lords, there has been no appreciable quantity of food delivered to Belgium in that way. My noble friend is under a complete misapprehension if he thinks that we are feeding Belgium, and not feeding the Channel Islands. The dropping of the few bags of coffee which have been dropped in Belgium is in the nature of propaganda. It is like the dropping of leaflets, and it is not intended to be a serious contribution towards solving the food problem in Belgium. It is meant simply to give encouragement. If my noble friend thinks that a gesture of that sort would have important results if it were made in the Channel Islands, I will see that his suggestion is considered in the proper quarters.

With regard to Greece, as your Lordships know, the case is quite different. A year ago, before I had anything to do with economic warfare, a position of acute famine was reached in Greece, and it is the terrible fact that many thousands of people died there as a result. It was in order to alleviate that situation that His Majesty's Government consented to allow the blockade to be broken, and a system of food relief has been set up in Greece under the charge of the Red Cross and a neutral Swedish Commission which has made all the difference between life and death to the people of Greece. Even now, with all that relief going into the country, I do not think that it would be fair to say that the people of Greece are as well fed, at this moment, as are the people of the Channel Islands.

The noble Lord spoke about parcels reaching prisoners of war in prison camps. Of course there is no analogy there at all. These parcels are sent under an International Convention, the Geneva Convention, which provides most elaborate machinery under which the Red Cross International Organization handles parcels, sees that they get to the prisoners, has the right of inspecting the prison camps, and ensures that the transaction is checked at every stage. Through this medium English people are allowed to send parcels to their relatives who are prisoners in Germany, and German people are allowed to send parcels to their relatives who are prisoners in Great Britain. That is a very old organization. The Germans, it is true to say, so far as I know, have respected that part of the Convention, and food can be sent in that way to prisoners of war who are Channel Islanders as well as to others who are subjects of His Majesty without any fear of the Germans interrupting the supply.

The noble Lord cited the case of Dr. Kerschner and what he had done in the matter of sending food into France. I do not know if my noble friend is aware of it, but when Dr. Kerschner played an important part in sending food to France it was to Unoccupied France that the food was sent, and it was sent there at a time when America was a neutral country, so the situation was entirely different from that which obtains on the Continent to-day. Even so I very much doubt if it can truthfully be said that that food all reached the people of France. What I mean is not that the actual food was intercepted, but that its being sent there did make it easier for the Germans to extract food from Occupied France. That is the real problem, and it is a problem to which my noble friend did not address himself. If you allow a hundred tons of food to go to the Channel Islands, or to any of the other occupied territories, the people for whom that food is intended may very well receive it, but the Germans are able to take an equivalent amount of food out of the country.

That is what happened in Belgium in the last war. During the last war, there was an elaborate organization, sponsored by Mr. Hoover, which brought a great deal of food from America to Belgium. The Belgians got the food which Mr. Hoover brought, but Ludendorff, in the book which he wrote after the war was over, boasted that the Germans had taken very good care to take out the equivalent amount of food from Belgium. They took out the exact equivalent of what the Americans brought in, so that the unfortunate Belgians were not benefited by this philanthropic endeavour at all. The only country which was benefited was Germany. That is the root trouble with all these blockade problems. It is impossible for us to give this help to our fellow-countrymen and to our Allies who are under the German heel without benefiting the enemy. The noble Lord may ask why it was possible in Greece but not elsewhere. The answer is that affairs had reached in Greece a state for which there has been no parallel in any other part of Europe, and the Germans were willing to enter into undertakings and guarantees, including permitting the scheme to be administered by a neutral country, which have enabled food to be sent to Greece under safeguards which do not exist elsewhere. Even then, I do not think that it can be said that this effort has not been of some indirect assistance to the enemy. The alternative, however, was the most appalling starvation of thousands of our allies in Greece.

That is all that I can say about the matter. Until the Channel Islands are reconquered, it is impossible to send food there without the Germans either seizing it or seizing an equivalent quantity of food produced on the islands. I am sure that the Channel Islanders themselves would be the last people to demand that they should have preferential treatment over our Allies in this matter, any more than the people of London demanded that they should not be bombed as the people of Rotterdam had been. The suffering that all the occupied territories endure causes the greatest heartburning to all your Lordships, and to every member of the Government. Everything that we can do to alleviate their suffering without helping the enemy, we shall do; but, if the result of our efforts would be merely to increase the food supplies available to the Germans, we should in fact be prolonging the war and therefore injuring the very people whom we want to help.

LORD PORTSEA

My Lords, I must thank the noble Earl, who was kind enough to remind me that we are old friends, for a great deal of what he has said. It gives me confidence that my authorities and my remarks themselves are much stronger than even I had hoped, for, past master as he is in the art of replying to a debate, I cannot say that he has made out a case which in any way convinces me, or even persuades me. He spoke of the bombing of jersey and the bombing of Crete, but he spoke of them in the reverse order. Guernsey is thirty miles from the coast of Normandy; Dover is twenty miles from the coast of France. We hold Dover, we are told, because it is not an island. My geography must be wrong, because I have always understood that we are an island, and a very small island at that. If it was possible to hold Dover, which is a very important military station, it should have been possible to save Guernsey, which was further from the French coast and had no value at the time as a military station. Jersey would not have been worth the bombs which the enemy might have scattered over it. There is only one small town, and, if it had to be rebuilt later, it would be a very good thing indeed both for the town and for the island. That blood would have been shed there is no doubt, but I have always understood that that is the object of war. When in my young days I used to do battle with a friend, I was perfectly satisfied if I made his nose bleed; that was my object in fighting. I did not go in for battle to wash my hands in rose water.

My noble friend objects to the word "betrayal." I do not hold to any particular word, but what is betrayal? Every young islander of suitable age and strength was on this side of the Channel, fighting for the Crown. The older men were trained soldiers, and every man had his rifle. There were guns, and there was a rock fort built at the cost of a million pounds not a hundred years ago. The arms and ammunition were taken away; the guns were taken away. The flag was hauled down; the flag with the cross of Normandy and the cross of St. Andrew was hauled down by British hands, and we ran away and left the people there. I do not pretend to be a master of the English language, or indeed a master of anything, but what is that if it is not betrayal? It is abandonment, certainly; it is desertion, presumably. I say that it is betrayal. If I had a friend in jersey, and we had been the only inhabitants, and I had said to him: "My dear boy, the Germans are coming to-morrow, and I am off by plane"—if I had done that, I should not be addressing your Lordships now, and I should not be very proud of myself. A baser betrayal has never occurred in English history—and we have done some little things that I can remember. I can remember 1878, when we sent Sir Garnet Wolsey to tell the people of the Transvaal that as long as the British Union Jack was flying we would give protection to the Transvaal. Then a few Boers came in and joined us, and four years later the flag was hauled down, and the people had their throats slit. That was not betrayal; that was abandonment. What does it matter what it is, if you leave your friends in the lurch? That is the main point.

My noble friend will hold that the position of our own people, our own blood, in the Norman Islands, and of the people of Greece and of Poland or elsewhere are on the same plane. Well, of course, that ends the matter so far as I am concerned, because I say they are not. If I had to choose between my noble friend and any Pole, any Belgian, any Greek—if it were Leonidas himself—I should drop them and help my friend. That may be idiosyncrasy on my part; it may be even hysterical. I do not think so, and as long as I have those opinions so long will I hold that we have betrayed those islands, and that we should help them.

I thank my noble friend for the suggestion that we would drop coffee. It is not a question of the mere pounds of coffee; it is the fact that the islander will know that he is not forgotten, that he has not been betrayed. He will say: "I still count for something. I am the property, the absolute apanage of the Crown, and the Crown, through the Government, has not forgotten me and is doing what is possible and will continue to do what is possible, besides bombing us"—because of course the Government have shown that little kindness to the islands. They have bombed Jersey harbour and killed a few Germans. Well, that was at any rate an indication that they valued Jersey and had not forgotten it. But I do not want them to remember it in that regard any further. I thank my noble friend for his kind words, and more still for the kind sentiments that I seem to feel lurk behind his words. I know that he is in an official position and he cannot give me all the things I ask for. But at any rate he does give me that comfort that he is thinking, and the Government are thinking, of the islands, and that they will in good time do their best for those unfortunate people. I beg leave to withdraw the Motion.

Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.