REGULATION 18B.

HL Deb 25 January 1944 vol 130 cc487-516

THE DUKE OF BEDFORD had the following Notice on the Paper: To call attention to the continued detention under Defence Regulation 18B of persons arrested in May, 1940, or later, and to the unconstitutional nature of such imprisonment without charge or trial and the unnecessary hardship of the conditions of detention; and to move for Papers. The noble Duke said: My Lords, I desire to call attention to the continued detention under Defence Regulation 18B of persons arrested in May, 1940, or later, to the unnecessary hardship of the conditions of detention, and the unconstitutional nature of such imprisonment without charge or trial. Persons detained under Regulation 18B may perhaps be divided into two categories—those who are of hostile origin and those whom the Home Secretary says he thinks are likely to commit acts prejudicial to the safety of the realm. It is obvious that during war the Government have to impose some abnormal measures of control over persons of hostile origin, but that is no excuse for some of the things which have been done in the case of this class of political prisoner.

There was, for example, no excuse for sending a large number of these unfortunates abroad in the ship "Dunera" under conditions which recall the worst conditions which are said to exist in enemy concentration camps. It would also seem that in deciding on the subsequent release of these persons, in some cases at any rate the Home Secretary has put a number of names into a hat and taken out the first which came to hand. In the case of persons of Italian origin some who were released were definitely interested in political Fascism. I do not mean for a moment to suggest that they harboured any traitorous designs against this country for that reason, but there is no getting away from the fact that they were actively interested in political Fascism. On the other hand there are others known to me who have never been interested in political Fascism and yet are still detained. I have in mind in particular two Italian families of the name of Pacitti and Bertolini, who are resident in Glasgow. The senior members of these families came to Scotland in their early youth and they and their children, except for their appearance, would not be distinguished from ordinary Scottish people. The fathers of the two families were both definitely Anti-Fascists, but they were packed off abroad in the "Arandora Star" and both were drowned when the ship was torpedoed.

The sons had belonged to an organization called the "Friends of Italy." This organization had for its honorary president Sir Harry Brittain who, I believe, has not been interned. Although it had the approval of the Fascist Government of Italy, it was not primarily a Fascist organization, but rather a social and compatriot organization for promoting good understanding between the two countries. The two young men, when they joined it, had not the slightest idea that they were doing anything which would ever be regarded as disloyal, but they are still interned in the Isle of Man. Some time ago Mrs. Pacitti went over there to visit her son and her friends, and, walking long distances from camp to camp, overtaxed her strength and has since become dangerously ill. Pacitti was recently brought before the Advisory Committee and asked whether, if he were released, he would agree to join the Army and go to Italy. He replied that in the early days of the war he would have been quite prepared to defend the country, but since his father's death his whole attitude had become profoundly changed and he could not take part in war in any shape or form. I say that to make a suggestion of that kind to a man in Pacitti's position is to add insult to injury.

With regard to the detention of ordinary British citizens, I have not the slightest hesitation in saying that the administration of the Regulation has been —to quote words used in this House some time ago in a different connexion—"wholly irresponsible and completely pestilential." It has been used to pay off old political scores, to get rid of political rivals, to suppress people who have advocated a negotiated peace, and to suppress others who know too much about people in important positions.

I would now like to say something about what I may term the mental back- ground of this Regulation. I, myself, happen to be interested in natural history, and I have observed, as, perhaps, some of your Lordships with similar interests may have observed also, that if some person claiming to be an authority puts forward some completely erroneous view with regard to the habits of some bird or animal, if a few other people agree with his statement very soon it is generally accepted. Some of your Lordships, in your youth, may have read that classic The Hunting of the Snark. You will remember that the captain said: I have told it you once, I have told it you twice, What I tell you three times is true. And I find that if you tell people a thing not only three times but three hundred times, they nearly always assume that it is true even if it is not founded on fact. We have been told that this Regulation is necessary because the Germans, by reason of their peculiar cunning and malignity, have brought into existence an entirely new class of traitors known as Fifth Columnists. I do not wish to be dogmatic in anything I say about conditions on the Continent, because I have not visited the Continent for some time. I do wish, however, to put forward certain ideas and suggestions to encourage that commodity so very rare in wartime, a balanced outlook.

I put it to your Lordships that it is contrary to experience and human nature to suppose that large numbers of the ordinary citizens of any country will support a foreign political idea destructive of liberty unless their own Government are hopelessly incompetent and they turn in desperation to any alternative on the principle of any port in a storm; or, unless, in addition it may be to highly objectionable features, there are also some good features in the foreign system. Much as we may hate at the present time to admit it, there were good features in the continental Fascist systems which at one time earned a warm tribute from our Prime Minister. They had a very fine programme of public works; they instituted some good social services; and, when money was needed for a particular project in peace-time and labour and materials were available, they never allowed lack of money to hinder them. What an excellent thing it would have been for our own country if our Government had followed a similar policy. Neither is it necessarily a proof of treachery if a political or military leader, when the military situation has become completely desperate in his country, decides to surrender in order to spare his people further useless suffering. It may be very annoying to the country's Allies who might have preferred the continued sacrifice of his people, but it is not treachery. I will even go so far as to say that always provided—and it is a most important proviso—that a statesman agrees to assume office under an Axis conqueror in order to spare his people the fate of being governed by Axis officials, even that is not necessarily proof of treachery. One can get a pretty good idea of the reliability of the Fifth Column racketeers from the vicious attack which they delivered on that unfortunate gentleman the King of the Belgians, whose reputation was subsequently completely cleared. And even Marshal Pétain is not considered a traitor by a number of perfectly loyal Frenchmen.

Then with regard to the position in our own country. It was held that Regulation 18B was necessary because, after the fall of the Netherlands, we were in terrible danger of invasion by the Germans. Here again I do not wish to be dogmatic—this is a matter for military experts to decide and I am not a military expert. But I do remember reading in our Press an account of an interview which Goering was supposed to have had with some representatives of Turkish newspapers, in which he said that Germany did not invade Britain at that time because it was too risky. Seeing that Britain is an island and that we, and not the Germans, have the command of the sea, it may well be that he was speaking the truth, and that there was not quite so much justification for the acute attack of the jitters from which our politicians suffered as has sometimes been made out. Even assuming, for the sake of argument, that the entire Continent was stiff with Fifth Columnists, and that the danger of invasion was as great as it was made out to be, there was still not the slightest necessity for Regulation 18B applied to ordinary British citizens, for the simple reason that there has never been in this country any body of men sufficiently numerous to be a military danger to the country, who desired to help the enemy in the event of invasion. A few people have been arrested for acts prejudicial to the safety of the realm, and they have been given a normal trial and dealt with in a normal way, and that is all that was ever needed.

Amongst the most prominent persons arrested under Regulation 18B have, of course, been members of British Union. Sir Oswald Mosley, in his speeches, in his writings and in private conversation, has always urged his followers to defend their country loyally in the event of invasion. In his statement of policy—which I have read, and which I find that most of his enemies and critics have not read—I can discover no undemocratic passage except one in which he suggests that in certain circumstances Jews should be treated as foreigners. If, therefore, the Government know anything about Sir Oswald Mosley and the leaders of his Party which has not been disclosed and which is very much in their disfavour, they should put him and the leaders of his Party on trial. My view that if they are unable to produce such evidence their action is due to political jealousy and spite is greatly strengthened by their treatment of my own Party, the British People's Party. I defy anyone to produce evidence that the statement of policy of that Party is in any way undemocratic. From the point of view of the old established Parties and from the point of view of those financial interests which are so influential in this country and in America, it had, however, one very great defect: it included in its programme the reform of the monetary system, and that meant that, unlike any of the older political Parties, it could not only make election promises but, if it came to power, it could also carry them out.

I should like to say a few words about the treatment of Mr. John Beckett, the Secretary of the Party, as it is characteristic of the treatment of many other persons who have been interned. Before doing so, however, perhaps I might say that I have had many long and intimate conversations with the leaders of the Party. We have discussed the Government, the war and conditions in Germany. Their views of the Government and the war, like my own, were unflattering; but I can say with the utmost confidence that they have no more intention of assisting a German invasion than Lord Vansittart himself, nor could any reasonable person have supposed that they had any such intention. When Mr. Beckett had been arrested, he was charged before the Advisory Committee with being concerned with the issue of a publication called the Headline Newsletter, which incidentally, was far more moderate in tone in its criticism of the Government and the war than some publications which are still allowed to appear. It is rather curious that Mr. Beckett was arrested without any warning, although Sir John Anderson had declared that: The Regulation provides for the issue of a warning to any person or organization who appears to the Secretary of State to be concerned in the systematic publication of matter calculated to foment opposition to the prosecution of the war to a successful issue. He went on: Until a warning has been issued no person can be prosecuted for an offence under the Regulation.

Another charge against Mr. Beckett was that he advocated a negotiated peace. Every member of the Peace Pledge Union and of the Fellowship of Reconciliation advocate a negotiated peace, but they have not been interned. Again, Mr. Beckett was charged with saying that there were financial interests behind the war, and also with discouraging investment in War Loan. Every Social Credit paper has continually said that there are financial interests behind the war, and even supporters of Social Credit who are violently pro-war have attacked the foolish policy whereby the country is burdened with unnecessary debt. I may say also that I.L.P. writers have constantly stated that the war was waged for capitalist interests, but they have not been interned.

I fear that I must point out that in past days, when they were both members of the Labour Party, Mr. Beckett on more than one occasion had to criticize the conduct of the Home Secretary. When an utterly lawless regulation like 18B is being administered, it is exceedingly difficult for a Home Secretary, even if he desires to be fair, not to allow himself to think that a former political opponent is a dangerous man to have at large in the country. After he had been interned for some time Mr. Beckett fell ill and was allowed a temporary release for the purpose of having an operation. Before the operation, and during his convalescence afterwards, he was allowed to see anybody he liked, to move about anywhere he liked in the vicinity of the nursing home or the doctor's house where he stayed, and to send any messages and write any letters that he desired. Yet after a few months, although no complaint was made of his conduct, he was again interned. As he himself pointed out, if he was such a terribly dangerous person that his prolonged internment was necessary, it was reckless folly on the part of the Home Secretary to allow him so much liberty to do harm. If, on the other hand, he could safely be allowed his liberty, there was no good reason for his prolonged internment.

Then there is the case of another member of the Party, Mr. Ben Greene, who is a Quaker and an Anti-Fascist. In order to secure his arrest, the Home Office made use of the services of an un-naturalized German, Harold Kurtz, who was employed as an agent provocateur. This fellow Kurtz, like many agents provocateurs, was an unscrupulous liar, willing to do anything to earn his Home Office pay. He falsely asserted that Greene wished to set up a National Socialist regime in Great Britain with the assistance if necessary of the German armed forces, and that he associated with and offered to assist German agents in Great Britain. Not a scrap of evidence was ever produced in support of any of those statements, and some time later Kurtz, in Greene's solicitor's office, admitted that all the statements were false. When, however, at a still later date Mr. Greene brought an action against Sir John Anderson for bad faith in relation to his arrest, Kurtz went back on his former statement, saying that, as an agent, he had to tell lies in Mr. Greene's solicitor's office. Mr. Greene was then compelled to withdraw his case, since a Judge would hold that a Home Secretary without bad faith could always believe the evidence of his agent. It cannot, however, be pretended that justice was done in this case.

It only shows how utterly helpless a victim of 18B is to secure redress of his grievances or protection anywhere. If a question is asked about him in Parliament, the Home Secretary has only to say that it would be contrary to the national interest to state why he had been detained. If important documents are needed to support his case should he bring an action, all that the Home Secretary has to do is to say that it would be contrary to the public interest to produce the documents. In some cases documents have actually been falsified. In the case of J. R. Smeaton Stuart, released on November 5, 1940, on an order dated October 9, 1940, on taking action as to the delay in his release, the original order was produced with "October" clearly rubbed out and "November" substituted, and it was admitted that this was done after the Minister had signed the order for release. Again, if the 18B victim seeks the protection of the Courts, it has now been laid down in the highest Court of the country that the Home Secretary has only to say that he thinks he has reasonable cause to believe that the person would commit acts prejudicial to the safety of the realm and that is the end of the matter. It seems to me that we have too many Judges who, while they do not appear to fear God, have a deep regard for man, in the person of the Government.

Then there is the case of Captain Ramsay, M.P., who is still detained, although he served with distinction in the last war and is still suffering from the effects of wounds. He is charged with desiring to assist the Germans in the event of invasion and even to take a post under the victorious German Government. It is, however, an open secret that the real reason why he has been detained is that he is anti-Semitic and anti-Communist and may perhaps know too much about certain prominent people. Not a scrap of evidence has been produced to prove that he is disloyal, for the very excellent reason that no such evidence exists. If Parliament had really been concerned with freedom and justice, whether the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary liked it or not, they would long ago have seen that this gentleman was allowed to defend himself in a proper manner. Too often, I am afraid, they have behaved like a pack of political hounds, so well disciplined by the Party Whips that they feared to take any new line of their own on any matter.

After all, if people are to be interned for being anti-Semitic the Government should take the advice of that curiously-named body the National Council for Civil Liberties, and make it a criminal offence to say anything against Jews. They might also make it a criminal offence to say anything against Communists. Then, anyhow, we should know where we were, even if it were a long step further along the road to complete Fascism. And, after all, if we are going to deal in a consistent manner with this "anti-" business and to hold that because a person who is anti-Jew resembles Hitler he therefore must be a traitor anxious to assist Hitler, the same argument applies to those who are anti-conscientious objector, for precisely the same reasons. What is sauce for the goose is surely sauce for the gander. And another singularly disgraceful feature of 18B, though it is strange that it is I who should have to point it out, is the very large number of men with distinguished Service records who have been interned under this Regulation. I believe it is true at the present time that every male British internee who was of military age in the last war served with more or less distinction. If the nation had not completely taken leave of its senses under the influence of war emotion and war propaganda it would detect something uncommonly fishy about a Government which has to detain as potential traitors so many ex-Service men; and, I would add, they might see something rather fishy about the war which is held to render such detention necessary.

With regard to the actual conditions of detention, every form of brutality and injustice has been associated with them, particularly in the early days. People were often arrested on information supplied by anonymous accusers, who were often personal enemies or business rivals. General Sir Guy Williams, G.O.C. the Eastern Command, wrote a letter to the Secretary of State for War in favour of Captain Bentinck Budd, who was arrested in June, 1940. This letter was suppressed by the authorities and never reached the Advisory Committee. When Captain Budd was before the Advisory Committee he was asked to supply the names of witnesses who would speak in his favour. None of these persons, however, were communicated with. It is notorious that the Advisory Committee frequently ask very ridiculous questions. They do not ask questions calculated to show whether the person would assist the Germans in the event of invasion; they commonly, I believe, ask him his views on the Prime Minister and his views on the Jews. Sometimes also they attempt to bargain with him with regard to his release. They ask him whether, if he were released, he would agree not to advocate a negotiated peace. In one instance, even, a man was asked if he would agree not to communicate with the Duke of Bedford! In some cases if a person appears more than once before the Advisory Committee new charges are substituted for old ones on the second occasion.

In the early weeks or months prison conditions were utterly disgraceful, as were those in the detention camps. Some people actually died as a result of these conditions. One unfortunate old man of seventy-four died in Liverpool prison after twelve days' detention, and other persons have died not long after release. It is even recorded that in the Isle of Man the body of a foreign detainee was eventually discovered, through an unpleasant odour, by the next batch of people occupying the hut. Apparently he had died and been overlooked by the authorities like a dead rat. A particularly vindictive piece of Gestapo work was arranged by the Government at Latch-mere House, Ham Common. Mr. Philip Shelmerdine has left it on record that the food ration was approximately one-third of a convict's ration for the first three weeks. No visitors or legal advisers were permitted to visit the detainees. Mr. Shelmerdine was not allowed to receive letters from his wife, who was in Holloway Prison, until the day he was removed to Brixton, although this was during the London "Blitzes" and he was naturally anxious as to her safety. He was locked up in his cell for 22½ hours a day. He asked one of the military officers why the conditions laid down by the Home Office were not adhered to in the treatment of 18B detainees and these punitive methods substituted, and the reply was, "In order to defeat Nazism we have to adopt some of their methods." The doctor, also questioned, admitted: "I understand it is to keep your spirits down." When people's mental and bodily health had been lowered by this treatment they were liable to be roused at any hour of the day or night and subjected to a rigorous cross-examination.

I should like to read to your Lordships an extract from a letter of an Englishwoman who was married to a naturalized German and was detained: Many of the internees who came to Port Erin in August, 1940, had spent three months in Holloway Prison, and there the most appalling things happened. For instance, all young children and babies were taken from their mothers on arrest. The mothers were not told of their whereabouts, and in spite of repeated promises by the Government that they would be restored to them, they did not see them again until the end of August, when what was called the 'Children's Transport' arrived at Port Erin. I spoke to one mother whose child was then eight months old and weighed less than when she was taken away three months previously. The child's diet was written down and pinned to her coat, and read: 'Two table-spoonfuls of water and two of milk four times daily.' I cannot say if the instructions included the child's entire diet, but the lady struck me as quite a sincere and truthful person and full of indignation about her child's treatment. Another internee, English born, who stayed in the same house with me, told me of a young wife in the next cell to hers who was seven months pregnant. She began in labour during the night, and in spite of her repeatedly ringing the bell no one came to her. The child was born on the cell floor, dead. The mother was taken away on a stretcher, and nobody knew what became of her. All the internees were locked in their cells seventeen hours out of the twenty-four, and received only the meanest prison food, all meals served without cutlery. The woman who was then our Camp Commandant, Dame Joanna Cruikshank, O.B.E., was utterly heartless and cruel. She was notified that the husband of one of the aliens was dying in Douglas Camp, and was asked to allow the wife to visit him, a request which she refused in cold blood. When I was interned we spent the first night in Drummond Road School, Bradford, sleeping on iron stretchers three inches from the floor. Some mothers had three children and the scenes and cries of fear and panic were dreadful. We were taken to Liverpool early the next day and spent the whole day in Liverpool Boxing Stadium till 8 p.m. We were not allowed to take our children to the door for fresh air, and I spoke to one mother with a child eleven days old. We each had a large luggage label on our lapel with a number on it, and as they marched us through the streets in the middle of the road, our babies in one arm and our luggage in the other, the crowds lined the pavements and spat on us as we passed. Then at 8 p.m. we were crowded on to a small Isle of Man pleasure steamer, 1,800 of us, and the great majority of these helpless women and children spent the night lying on the deck without a pillow or a blanket. When one of my English-born acquaintances asked the captain where we were going, he replied, 'If I had my way you would all go to the bottom.' One woman with two children, five and six years old, lost her reason during the crossing, and was taken to Douglas Asylum. When I left, the husband, who was interned at Douglas, had not been released, so that he could not care for them. They were still at Port Erin alone, and the mother in the asylum.

Even when interned prisoners are released they are not free from persecution, because the police have sometimes made it a practice to visit their employers, if they have got a job, and inform against them with the result that they have been immediately sacked. I may, of course, be told that there is no reason now to get unduly excited about 18B because so many detained prisoners have been released. These releases, however, will not bring the dead back to life; they will not restore health to those whose health has been irretrievably ruined by the bad sanitary conditions in prison; they will not restore broken marriages or those wives who have left their husbands on account of the 18B position; they will not restore the reputation of those who have been unjustly branded as traitors; they will not restore the businesses of those who have been ruined. One of the most disgraceful features of this utterly disgraceful measure has been the failure to compensate the victims, even in cases where it has been admitted that a mistake was made. The Government can find millions of money for making munitions, but not even a few thousands for compensating their victims. Seeing, however, that they cannot even find enough money to pay decent pensions to old age pensioners, decent allowances to the relatives of serving soldiers, or decent pensions to men discharged from the Services on account of wounds, this perhaps is not wholly surprising.

Even, however, if all detained prisoners were now released—and I should like to say that there is not the slightest reason why the comparatively small number now kept under detention, if they have to be kept under detention at all, should not be given non-penal conditions where their wives, if they desire to do so, could join them—the Home Secretary has ample powers to keep under observation anyone who is released. A person can be required to report to the police, and his private correspondence can be subjected to the unofficial censorship. This censorship, as I know from personal experience, is very thorough. A letter which I sent to a friend in a registered envelope was delivered in two portions—one by post and the other, very considerately, later by hand. Parcels arriving at my house were also subject to regular scrutiny. Apparently the Home Secretary was under the impression that Hitler was about to send me some infernal machine. So far, Hitler has failed to deliver the goods, but of course there is always hope!

It is a common error to regard 18B as a regulation of a purely war-time character, but I would remind your Lordships that Fascist regulations of this character were introduced by the Government into Northern Ireland a considerable time before they were introduced into Germany by Hitler. Moreover, it is only too evident that there are many persons who would greatly welcome the continuation of Regulation 18B even after the war has ended. Obviously, Communist sympathies would be in that direction, and even some distinguished Socialist leaders, deserting the true principles of Socialism, had shown their desire for Fascist and totalitarian legislation long before the war. For example, Sir Stafford Cripps, in his book, Can Socialism Come by Constitutional Methods? wrote some years before the war: The Labour Government's first step will be to call Parliament together at the earliest moment and place before it an Emergency Powers Bill, to be passed through all its stages on the first day. This Bill will be wide enough in its terms to allow all that will be immediately necessary to be done by Ministerial orders. These orders must be in- capable of challenge in the Courts or in any way except in the House of Commons. Mr. G. D. H. Cole, in a pamphlet called Socialist Control of Industry, wrote: We cannot put limits to the pace at which we should have to proceed when once we set our feet upon the way, nor can we put limits to the degree of dictatorial power which, under stress of the emergency, a Socialist Government may have to assume.

In conclusion, I would remind your Lordships first of the fate which overtook those members of the Revolutionary French Government who, adopting the methods of government by proscription, had the King put to death. In due course, their political rivals had them put to death by similar methods. George Trevelyan's comment on public opinion in regard to the treatment of John Wilkes is also worth bearing in mind: Everyone who had read enough history to know the danger of a bad precedent in the hands of a masterful ruler, was filled with alarm when the house of a politician obnoxious to authority was rifled and his person seized under a process of flagrant illegality, and when the independence of the Legislature was undermined by the shameless coercion and corruption which were put in practice in order to wring a justification of that illegality from an unwilling Parliament. Lord Chief Justice Hewart, in our own time, has said: Arbitrary power is certain, in the long run, to become despotism, and there is danger if the so-called method of administrative law, which is essentially lawlessness,, is greatly extended, of the loss of those hardly-won liberties which it has taken centuries to establish. These liberties have been lost and, war or no war,, it is high time they were restored. There are some people who cannot detect Fascism if it bears a democratic label, but there are others—and I am one of them—to whom a skunk by any other name would smell as bad. I beg to move for Papers.

LORD MORRIS

My Lords, I never laid eyes on the noble Duke until he rose to his feet to address your Lordships what now seems quite a long time ago. I say that because I have no wish to be taken for a disciple of his or as agreeing, in whole or in part, with a great deal of what he has said. On the other hand, it is idle to deny (and this is why I am addressing your Lordships for a few moments) that the question he has raised —namely, the liberty of the subject and the entirely unconstitutional detention of these people in gaol without trial—is a matter of transcendent importance. It is of far greater importance than post-war reconstruction, housing, agriculture, or a hundred and one other matters we have been debating in your Lordships' House during the last few Sessions. The position, as I understand it, at present is that any one of your Lordships, or any member of another place, may well be removed to Brixton Prison on leaving this afternoon without the Home Secretary having to show the ground upon which he bases his so-called "reasonable cause" for certifying that such a person should be arrested. Now that is the most arrogant assumption of absolute power that has ever been known or heard of in this country. Nothing like it has happened since Magna Charta, since the time of Charles I, since the Grand Remonstrance, since the Bill of Rights. Nothing like it has ever been known.

It may well be that some form of explanation, not excuse—I do not think there could be an excuse—for that state of affairs can be found in the panic legislation at the beginning of the war, but now we are in the fifth year of the war and some of these unfortunate people have been in gaol without any charge being brought against them or without their being brought to trial, for three years. During that time they have not been told what is the charge against them and they have not been brought to trial. I do not think anyone in your Lordships' House would pretend for a moment that that is a desirable state of affairs or is not one of considerable gravity. It is for that reason that I, in a sense, support part of the noble Duke's Motion this afternoon when he speaks—to use the words of the Motion—of the "unconstitutional nature of such imprisonment without charge or trial." There I think he is undoubtedly right.

I am sure your Lordships will not mind if I recall to you a dissenting judgment of Lord Atkin, one of the greatest jurists of our time, as the noble Viscount on the Woolsack will agree. He gave this dissenting judgment in the case of Liversidge versus Sir John Anderson in 1041. I will not read long extracts from Lord Atkin's judgment, for I do not wish to keep your Lordships more than a minute or two. This is what Lord Atkin said: I view with apprehension the attitude of Judges who, on the mere question of construction, when face to face with claims involving the liberty of the subject, show themselves more executive minded than the Executive. Mark those words—"more executive minded than the Executive." In this country amidst the clash of arms the laws are not silent. They may be changed but they speak the same language in war as in peace. It has always been one of the pillars of freedom, one of the principles of liberty for which on recent authority we are now fighting, that the Judges are no respecters of persons, and stand between the subject and any attempted encroachment on his liberty by the Executive, alert to see that any coercive action is justified in law. In this case I have listened to arguments which might have been addressed acceptably to the Court of the King's Bench in the time of Charles I. I protest, even if I do it alone"— Here may I congratulate my noble friends and say that if in the last fifty years the Liberal Party has done little else than produce lawyer like Lord Atkin, it has done well. I protest, even if I do it alone, against the strained construction put upon words with the effect of giving an uncontrolled power of imprisonment to the Minister. Then Lord Atkin went on to make a quotation from Alice through the Looking-glass, as follows: 'When I use a word,' Humpty-Dumpty said in a rather scornful tone, it means just what I choose it to mean, neither more nor less.' 'The question is,' said Alice, 'whether you can make words mean different things.' 'The question is,' said Humpty-Dumpty, 'which is to be master … that's all.' Lord Atkin concluded by saying he was profoundly convinced that the Home Secretary had not been given an unconditional authority to detain.

Mr. Herbert Morrison, whose powers do not differ very much from those of Himmler, has been detaining people for three years. They arc not in concentration camps; all the same they arc lugged off to Brixton or elsewhere without being brought to trial. I really dc think, and there are many people outside this House who think, that it is time these things were looked into. After all we are trustees. Your Lordships are just as much trustees as are Members in another place. I, personally, would be very sorry to go to the Peace Table as a British plenipotentiary and talk about liberty and freedom and the Atlantic Charter when we have here in this country locked up people in gaol for three years without bringing them to trial before a Court of Justice. We may laugh at the noble Duke. God knows I should be the last to say that I agree with many of his observations made both in this House and elsewhere, but it is idle to laugh at him when he talks about the hardships these people suffer. When they come out of prison they will have the finger of scorn pointed at them and people will say "That fellow was put in gaol during the war."

The point is this. No one denies for a moment that in time of war it is necessary to incarcerate certain people, but what possible reason is there, unless their case is bad, for the Government not bringing these unfortunate people before a properly constituted legal tribunal? If in the interests of public security it would not be advisable to try them in public:, well then let them be tried in camera. I do not object to that, but for God's sake do not put them away without trial and without knowing what charges have been made against them. That, as I' see it, is the serious thing. We are supposed to be fighting against things of this sort being done in Germany, where they are done without challenge, and in Italy. Yet here hundreds of people have been put away without trial, since the beginning of this war, and it seems to me, in doing this, we are giving up the essentials of liberty in return for a promise of temporary safety. People who do that really are not worthy either of liberty or of safety. To that extent I must say I feel bound to support the noble Duke's Motion. This matter has been ventilated many times in another place and very many people are very unhappy about it. For myself I feel that someone here should say something on behalf of your Lordships in order to voice our grave dissatisfaction and considerable anxiety in regard to the continuation of this Regulation. In particular, now that we are in the fifth year of war and all our leaders are telling us the end is in sight, I think some consideration should be shown for these unfortunate people. I am not in any way an apologist for their ideas or for anything they may have done. It may be that they are criminals. That is not the point. The point is that they should be brought to trial on some charge and convicted before they are put away. That is only their civil right. They should know what they are accused of and have a chance of putting their case before a properly constituted Court.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

My Lords, I cannot say whether the noble Lord who has just sat down is well warranted when he claims to be voicing the opinion of your Lordships, but I quite agree that the subject to which he has referred is one of absolutely first-class importance, and nobody who really cares about the principles of British liberty could deal with it lightly. I will say one or two words, if I may, in the course of my speech on that aspect of the matter. But first I will turn to the speech of the noble Duke. Your Lordships have listened, as you always do, with great patience, but I venture to say that the mildly philosophic air with which he puts forward his observations conceals a capacity to swallow any yarn which supports his jaundiced views and leads him to make the most outrageous charges against perfectly honourable men. However strongly he feels—and I am sure he feels strongly—may I, with great respect, say to him that he has no right to make such charges against honourable men? Let me remind him of some of the things he has said in his very pleasantly pronounced and elegantly phrased discourse. He says His Majesty's Judges are mere time-servers in thi3 matter, that they are reckless of truth, honour and justice, neglect the laws of God and think of nothing except to try to please the Secretary of State. That a man should be allowed to say such things in silence is a proof of the liberty which reigns in this House. That anybody out of a lunatic asylum could seriously advance them shows what a pretty state of mind he must have got into.

He says that the orders which have been made by Sir John Anderson and by Mr. Morrison are orders that have been made—I took down his words—out of malice and spite." He says they have been made merely to assist" to pay off old scores." He says they have been made in order to "put away people who know too much." If the noble Duke is going to make any short reply at the end of this debate, I should be greatly obliged to him if he will tell the House whether he really means those things which he said in his speech just now. I suppose it was intended to be an effort of humour, and therefore I only mention it in passing, but he did say that the Home Secretary's method was to put names into a hat and release men whose names came out first. That I suppose is his notion of a joke. An even greater joke, however, was his allegation that he put people into internment because they had certain new financial ideas and had a form of financial policy which I understand the noble Duke himself favours. People who can say things like that seem to be leaving all canons of good sense.

I will not go into details—the noble Duke gave me no notice, nor did he give notice to the Home Secretary, of the detailed matters he intended to bring up— but he mentioned in the course of his speech a case I know a little about, so I will here and now expose it. It had to do with a man named Greene. He told your Lordships that Greene had information laid against him by a person named Kurtz, and he said that Kurtz afterwards admitted that the statements he had made were untrue and that none the less Greene, I cannot think why, was compelled—that was his word, "compelled"—to withdraw the action which he had brought against Sir John Anderson. That is not an accurate account of the matter and I happen to know what is the truth. I think the solicitor who acted in that case for Mr. Greene has since died, so I will call him Mr. X. This agent who had given information against Greene was trapped by a trick into Mr. X's office, and he there found himself surrounded by men much bigger than himself. It is true that he did in those circumstances retract what he had previously said against Mr. X's client. Mr. X or his advisers were so foolish that when Mr. Greene brought his action against Sir John Anderson they called this man as a witness, and of course as soon as he went into the witness box he described the circumstances in which he was compelled to withdraw his statement. I am informed by those who were there that the people in court were perfectly convinced that what the man Kurtz had said was true. Greene was not compelled to withdraw his case for that reason. He withdrew it, or rather his counsel did for him, for the reason apparently that when the Attorney-General cross-examined Greene, Greene had to make most damaging admissions which destroyed his case. What an extraordinary thing that the noble Duke should have made no effort to ascertain what really happened before giving to your Lordships such a grotesque misinterpretation of that incident.

Now, my Lords, I turn to what I think is the crucial matter mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Morris. Really this Motion deals with two matters which are distinct, or at any rate separate, and I would like briefly to deal with them separately. One question is whether there is justification for this Regulation 18B which authorizes internment. That Regulation gives to the Home Secretary, under certain conditions, power to detain in time of war, in the interests of public safety and for the defence of the country, British subjects without trial or conviction. The noble Lord, Lord Morris, is perfectly right when he says that this is just as grave a question as anybody could have to consider. The second and quite different question referred to in the Motion is the administration of the Regulation and the allegation that certain people have been treated hardly under it. Let me, if your Lordships will allow me to detain you, say something about both those questions.

First, as to the need for such a regulation. Nobody will ever hear me speak lightly or indifferently about the keeping of British subjects in confinement without charge and without conviction—never. It is as grave a departure from our ordinary normal system as could be conceived, and if it has to be done, it has to be justified. I exclude, of course, those unhappy people who have to be put in mental hospitals, but apart from that, as the noble Lord, Lord Morris, said, it is the tradition, the precious possession of those who live in this country, that is involved. Everybody who understands the doctrine of individual liberty, everyone who knows the opportunity which the writ of Habeas Corpus, which we inherited from our ancestors, gives and is used to get people out of confinement when there is no justification for keeping them held—everybody who realizes the value of that safeguard of personal freedom in this country, which has given us the greatest amount of personal freedom in the world, must understand that Regulation 18B is the most serious departure from that principle.

I think that Lord Morris spoke of it as unprecedented, but there he is entirely mistaken. A very similar order was made in the last war. It was then called 14B. I happened to be the Home Secretary who had the duty of administering it in the first part of the war. Before that time, again and again there had been occasions when the Habeas Corpus Act itself had been suspended by Parliament, which is a still more serious step to take, because if you suspend the Habeas Corpus Act there is no possible means by which a person interned can challenge the internment. So it would be all wrong to say that this is something which was only recently invented. All the same, for my part, I most whole-heartedly agree that the question ought to be faced with great seriousness whether such a regulation as this, in a war like this, is necessary, grievous though is the temporary invasion of individual rights. The answer to that part of the noble Duke's speech is that it is necessary and has been recognized by Parliament again and again to be necessary, and has been recognized by the great mass of public opinion to be necessary.

I am afraid that I shall not persuade the noble Duke. He thinks he is the only righteous person in this assembly, and that everybody else except himself is quite wrong headed. I do not hope to convince him. I do not believe, with great respect to the noble Duke, that he is the sort of person who is in any circumstances open to any form of conviction. But I would like to put before your Lordships briefly the considerations which I think justify this most grievous departure. The first thing to notice is this—I do not think the noble Duke or indeed the noble Lord, Lord Morris, mentioned it—that the point involved is not Order 18B—it is the deliberate decision of Parliament. The Home Secretary could do nothing if it were not for the deliberate decision of Parliament. It is Parliament itself which has thought it right to confer these exceptional powers on the Executive and it has done so in the present war in the most express terms. I have here a copy of the Emergency Powers (Defence) Act, 1939, which passed through both Houses of Parliament a week before war broke out. That Act gave power to make regulations for a number of things, and one of the things which was expressly mentioned by the actual language of the Act of Parliament was this very regulation. It enacted that Orders in Council may be made "for the detention of persons whose detention appears to the Secretary of State to be expedient in the interests of the public safety or the defence of the realm."

So it was not that Parliament was asked to pass a few general words out of which the Executive might carve out this Order 18B with great ingenuity. This is the particular instrument itself that both Houses of Parliament passed, these very words written in that very Act of Parliament for this very purpose. I have reminded myself of the debates that took place in both Houses at that time. There was discussion in both Houses, and very properly so. I find that there was no one in either House of Parliament who resisted that proposal at all. It is interesting to note that in your Lordships' House the noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, speaking from the Liberal Benches, used these words: But these are not ordinary times. We live in times of great peril, and Liberal democracy is wise to be ready in times of great emergency and peril to allow the most drastic and comprehensive powers to the Government of the day. We have noticed the downfall of democracy in other countries, and it cannot be denied that it has been largely due to the fault of the democratic authorities themselves in that they were not able in times of emergency and danger to achieve domestic unity, and were not willing to concede sufficiently large powers to their Executives. If free government is to mean weak government, then freedom indeed is doomed, but in this country I think we have always been wise enough in times of danger to grant to the Government of the day, whatever its Party character might be, powers adequate to meet the needs of the times. That declaration of my noble friend, which seems to me to have been very finely phrased, was universally accepted, and this is the attitude that Parliament has taken ever since. Nothing has been said to-day of the fact that every order has got to be laid before Parliament as soon as it is made, and that either House may, within twenty-eight days, resolve that it be annulled. Who is there in this House who has ever suggested anything of that kind?

No one has mentioned the fact that the Emergency Act is only an annual Act and has to be given renewed effect by both Houses at the end of a year. The noble Duke may be interested to notice that it has always been approved up to now, and that there will be a new opportunity of approving it later in the year, when he will see whether or not the opinion of this country, or the opinion of Parliament, is in favour of ending it. In fact, it is hardly suggested that this power is a power that is either unnecessary or excessive. Everybody has recognized that the power itself is necessary.

I would like to point out that, in a sense, the need for such a power in time of war is all the greater because of our extremely liberal institutions in time of peace. In this country a person is a British subject if he is born here. His parents may be German or Italian. He may be removed from this island within a few weeks of his birth and he may be brought up in a home which is entirely pro-German and anti-English. He need not speak English and yet when he comes back here, as before, he is a British subject. And again, the complete freedom with which different points of view, and institutions for the purpose of expressing those points of view, are permitted in time of peace means that you do get a situation in a time of terrible war which needs some special treatment.

In the early months of the war, as I think the noble Duke said, the number of persons who had to be interned was quite small—they totalled in all under one hundred, I think. Most of those who were interned were of enemy origin. But in May, 1940, which is the month to which the noble Duke specially refers in his. Motion, what happened? The invasion of Holland, the invasion of Belgium and the invasion of Luxemburg in May, 1940, created an entirely new situation. The noble Duke assures us—in the comparative security of the present place and the present time—that he thinks people may have exaggerated about the danger of invasion. Fortunately, we had to take the guidance of others, and it is a dangerous thing to take too cheery a view at a moment when neighbouring countries have been swept over by the German Army. It was obvious that the collapse of the countries I have mention 3d, and of Norway, had been hastened by divided counsels and the corruption of morale from within, by individuals and by organizations which were under enemy influence! or control or inspired by enemy ideas, or were, I would add, possessed by foolish admiration for Nazi or Fascist methods. I quite agree that that sort of disloyalty—I would rather call it that sort of perverseness of mind—is not at all common among the British people. Of course it is not. But the times were much too serious to allow any risk to be taken with those who seemed to be tainted.

The Government had to take special precautions against the British Union of Fascists. After all, the organization—I am sure the noble Duke in speaking of it just now was speaking with generosity, because he cannot have any sympathy with it—had long advocated a Fascist form of government. It had largely borrowed its ideas, as well as its uniform, first from Italy and then from Germany. It excused the Italian aggression into Abyssinia. It did its utmost to fan resentment against the Jews. I must pause here to say that it surprises me that the noble Lord, if he wishes to be fair, should have made such a very slight reference to that aspect of the matter.

LORD MORRIS

The noble and learned Viscount, I am sure, means the noble Duke. I do not wish to be identified in any way with this.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

I am sorry; of course I did mean the noble Duke. He must know perfectly well that there was a period when riots were constantly occurring in the East End of London because uniformed Fascists and Red Communists fought one another with the most shocking results. I have done many mistaken things in my own life, but at any rate I am very glad that I was responsible for introducing and carrying the Uniforms Act which stopped that thing for ever in the course of a week. This Fascist organization denounced democracy as obsolete. Everybody pays the most abundant compliments to democracy today, but that was not a very safe moment to leave those people at liberty. Their organization denounced our entry into the war in the cause of Poland. It preached that we ought to remain outside these disturbances in Europe. I am sure that a great many people who did this did it merely from a confused idea that it was for the public good, but all the time before the war this British Union of Fascists was attracting to its ranks numbers of shortsighted people, not themselves treacherous people, but I am sure loyal enough, who were blinded by this insidious pro-Axis propaganda carried on by this organization. I think that I have given a fair account of the situation; I claim to have done so.

What, then, were the Government, authorized by an Act of Parliament passed by both Houses without a single dissentient voice, to do? According to the noble Duke, it was nothing but malice and fraud and envy and every form of low, discreditable trickery which caused them to intern, as they did, the leading members of the British Union of Fascists. But observe how it has worked out! The situation to-day is that that peril being overpassed, Italy being overthrown, and the Fascist creed being utterly discredited, until I suspect that some members of that organization wish that they had never joined it, the Home Secretary has found it possible to release great numbers of those who are now sadder and wiser men. It is amusing, in view of this assault upon the Home Secretary, to remind ourselves that when Mr. Morrison released Sir Oswald Mosley he was not assailed on the ground that it ought to have been done long before, and that Order 18B was a perfect disgrace, or that the rights of Englishmen were being gravely assailed. Not at all. He was attacked by all sorts of people, including a great many people who did not like Order 18B at all, for releasing Mosley! Such are the strange experiences in times of war of a Home Secretary!

The noble Lord who spoke last put a question which I have often heard put outside, and which I should like to deal with in the most friendly way. He said: "If there is a case against any of these people, why not put them on trial? If there is ground on which they should be interned, then try them first; but unless some definite accusation is established against them in a Criminal Court they ought to be free." That is really a most fallacious observation. You cannot accuse a man unless you accuse him of a crime, and a great many of these people who have been interned are, as far as I know, guilty of no crime. It is not a crime to have foreign associations or to be of foreign origin. It is not a crime to profess political opinions which appear to me at least to be the height of folly, or to support a reform in our finances which I at least am unable to understand. These are not crimes. None the less, these people in the crisis of a war, although they are not criminals, may be capable—some of them, at least—of doing an infinity of mischief, without being criminals at all, and certainly without being proved to be criminals; because our good English law —and here I hope that no one is going to attack it—insists that however much you may have good ground for suspecting that a man is a criminal, he must be discharged from the accusation and go out as an innocent man unless the charge is proved up to the hilt.

In the nature of things much of this suspicion is not of that character at all; and it is doing a very poor service to these people who are so unfortunate as to have been interned to treat them as unconvicted criminals. I have never done so, and nobody who understands the subject would dream of talking like that. They are not criminals at all. They have not been convicted of anything. They are people who in the interests of the State in the crisis of a war must be restrained from the full freedom of action which at other times they would enjoy. It cannot be too clearly understood that these people whom it has been necessary to intern, or whom the Home Secretary and the authorities believe it is necessary to intern, ought not to be regarded as criminals, for they have never been convicted of any crime, and most of them, as far as I know, could not be proved to be guilty of any crime. In a word, detention is preventive, not punitive, and the reason why the Home Secretary has found it necessary, under authority given to him by Act of Parliament, to direct that these people should be detained is that, applying his mind to the information before him, he reaches the conclusion that the safety of the realm in time of war requires this treatment; and he is responsible to Parliament for his decision.

Every detainee is entitled to go before the Advisory Committee. The noble Duke has thought it right to say some very slighting things about the Advisory Committee, but I would remind him that the President is a man who, I believe, is universally respected in this country, although he is a High Court Judge; his name is Norman Birkett. The Committee requires the applicant to put his case, but he can consult a legal adviser, and in some cases a solicitor also has been heard to put his arguments. The Advisory Committed receive testimony from the detainee's friends and relations. It is not, of course, a trial, and I do not for the moment suggest that it is. The questions which are raised are not questions which are being judicially determined. It is a protection, however, so that there may be applied to the man's case minds other than those who examined it in the first place.

Here I should like to say a ward about the responsibility of the Home Secretary in these matters. I feel it very much, in view of the fact that I have twice held that office. I assure you, my Lords, most solemnly that next to the dreadful responsibility which falls on the Home Secretary of deciding whether a convicted murderer shall be hanged, there is no duty which falls upon him which he regards as so much his personal charge, his deep personal responsibility, as the decision in these internment cases. It was so in my time. I have seen papers of Sir John Anderson's and Mr. Morrison's, and I know that it is so. We are rendering no proper recognition of the burden which falls upon a Secretary of State in this matter if we do not recognize that Parliament has put this burden upon him, and it is unfair to treat him as though he were the original author of the power of internment. Parliament has decreed that the Home Secretary shall do this and, if he does it, as I know is the case, to the very best of his powers, is it not rather a pity to talk about him putting names into a hat and taking out that which happens to emerge? Is it not rather a pity to suggest that Home Secretaries are paying off old scores, and locking up people of whom they are afraid because they know too much?

Lastly, and very much more briefly, I want to say a word about these special cases to which the noble Duke has drawn our attention. I think that so far as the administration at certain points is open to blame—and it may be in the past that it has been open to blame—it was due to the circumstance to which I referred—namely, that when the danger of invasion suddenly presented itself with the complete codapse of France, Belgium and Holland, it was inevitable that so many people then had to be interned at once that for the moment the arrangements were not the best possible. I wish to admit that most frankly, and I think it would have been quite a useful service to call attention to that fact if the noble Duke had done so at the time; but all that, to the best of my belief, has been completely remedied. The internees, for the most part, have now been moved to that unbombed holiday resort, the Isle of Man, and in that respect they are better off than many other people.

In conclusion I would say with great respect to the noble Duke that it is perfectly right that we should concern ourselves if there is needless hardship and any discomforts are unnecessarily employed. Is not it also right to say that these inconveniences are nothing to the trials, hardships and perils that are being endured by hundreds and thousands of British fighting men who are fighting to secure and to maintain and to preserve and to enlarge those very British liberties which the noble Duke professes to call to his aid in this debate?

THE DUKE OF BEDFORD

My Lords, I should like first to say that with regard to my reference to putting names in the hat, I naturally assumed that your Lordships would possess a sense of humour. I can only repeat that when men known to have active sympathies with political Fascism are released, and those who have no active sympathies with political Fascism are not released, it looks as if the method of selecting those who are to be released is, to say the least of it, somewhat haphazard. Then we have been told that this Regulation is Parliament's responsibility. I agree, but I can only say in comment on that that a Parliament which, to quote a phrase which has often been used in this connexion, puts Magna Charta in the dustbin, has well earned the name of the Suicide Parliament. Then as regards the case of Mr. Greene, I know Mr. Greene very well personally, and therefore I know that what that German agent said, even when he was rather frightened in Mr. Greene's lawyer's office, was the truth, and what he said on other occasions were lies.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

If the noble Duke is so well acquainted with the facts perhaps he would tell me why the gentleman was frightened in the solicitor's office. Is it a very frightening place?

THE DUKE OF BEDFORD

Yes, I should say that if you were acting in that capacity and knew you had been telling lies and were cornered by the solicitor of the man you had been attacking, especially if you happened to be a foreigner of enemy nationality, you would be quite likely to lose your nerve. I should not like to be in that position myself. But if what he said was not false, if that very grave charge that Mr. Greene was harbouring enemy agents was true, then why was he released? I also ask why criminal proceedings, not 18B proceedings, were not taken against him. Then the noble and learned Viscount has reminded us that we live in times of emergency and danger. Of course we live in times of emergency and danger, but not danger from these people who were interned. The noble and learned Viscount, because we live in times of emergency and danger, would not advocate the internment of all jackdaws, if that were possible. He has spoken about the opinion of the country and the opinion of Parliament. It is such a very long time since there was an Election that I myself should be rather slow in identifying the opinion of Parliament with the opinion of the country, especially the free and well-instructed opinion in the country, when so much propaganda is going on.

I am certainly anything but a wholehearted supporter of British Union, but in justice I must say a word in support of it in reply to what has been said. Apparently the noble and learned Viscount thought that it was a necessary proof of treachery in time of war because Sir Oswald Mosley's Party wore uniforms of a certain kind, and because they had rowdy political meetings. I certainly hold that, in peace-time at any rate, if you treat your audience with reasonable courtesy—which the British Union often did not—there is no cause to get into a fight with any audience in this country, but I repeat that British Union is not the only organization which has rowdy meetings. Then apparently they are to be criticized because of their attitude towards Italy in Abyssinia. The noble and learned Viscount did not mention that there is, I believe, a White Paper in existence which proves that the British Government and the Italian Government were bargaining for Abyssinian territory for some years, and the Abyssinian Government addressed, in terms of equally vigorous protest, Notes to the League of Nations for protection against Britain and Italy. Then with regard to Sir Oswald Mosley's opposing our going to war over Poland, I wonder, I wonder very much, if the position of Poland at the finish will be better than it would have been if we had advised the Polish Government to allow Hitler to have Danzig and the Polish Corridor, and had not been forced by present developments to sacrifice territory on the other side of Poland.

The noble and learned Viscount said that those who are interned are not criminals. I almost wonder if he could be entirely serious there. Why are they in the main treated as criminals and compelled to bear the stigma of something almost worse than that of criminals—that of traitors? Apart from one or two minor relaxations they are still given normal prison conditions when the whole country is at the Government's disposal to provide better accommodation for them. Their wives may only come to see them once a week, a table separating them, with a warder present; and, unless it has been very recently altered, they only receive the food of a short-time prisoner, which is incapable of sustaining health for a long period. If they are too poor to have relatives able to supply their needs from outside they are in a very bad position. It is no use saying that they can buy food from outside, because they may have no money and no ration cards.

With regard to the President of the Tribunal, I myself knew him slightly and had a great respect for him, and, to tell the truth, to quote a common phrase, I rather wondered "what the devil he was doing in that galley." I was in communi- cation with him once and had a very courteous letter from him in which I was given to understand that in the case of agents the utmost care was taken to see that they did not provide evidence of an untrustworthy character. But just afterwards I heard about that fellow Harold Kurtz, which rather shook my faith. Then with regard to the alteration of the bad arrangements, it is quite true, I believe, that after a positive riot among the victims in the Isle of Man, they were altered, but why did it take weeks and months before they were altered? With regard to the inconveniences they suffer being as nothing as compared with those suffered by the fighting men, if I may say so that seems to me a perfect non sequitur. You might just as well argue that because the soldiers at the Front are suffering grave inconveniences and danger, therefore if the sanitary arrangements in the house break down and there are still plumbers available to mend them—which of course is rare—plumbers should not be used for that purpose. I do not think that I have anything else to say. I thank the noble and learned Viscount for his reply and I am sorry that we seem rather to have got across one another. I ask leave to withdraw my Motion.

Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.