COMMUNISTS IN THE PUBLIC SERVICE

HL Deb 29 March 1950 vol 166 cc607-61

2.35 p.m.

LORD VANSITTART rose to call attention to the extent of Communist infiltration into the public service and other important branches of public life in this country; and to move to resolve that continuous and resolute precautions are necessary for public security. The noble Lord said: My Lords, I have now had the honour to be a member of your Lordships' House for nine years, and I think I may fairly say that I have not unduly inflicted my opinions upon you. I have spoken only when conscience impelled or when I knew something of my subject. To-day is a case in point. I have some disagreeable things to say, but they will be said in no partisan spirit. We are all in this. The day before yesterday the Manchester Guardian wrote: On Wednesday Lord Vansittart will resume his battle against the Communists. No, it is not that at all; it is not my battle; it is the battle of every man and woman of good sense and good will in the country. This is a case where the national interest is involved. Therefore, I am distributing no tenderness and asking for none. I beg that we shall not be deceived by superficial appearances. We have certainly come a long and healthy way since those days of 1945 when some Socialist Members of Parliament, successful candidates, were thanking the Communists for their support. Happily now, in 1950, the Communists have been thrown out of another place, and some of their fellow-travellers as well. In that Election the British public declared itself overwhelmingly against Communism and is therefore entitled to protection against it. But I do not think it is getting enough.

Before I proceed to demonstrate that fact, there are two things that I simply must say. The Fuchs affair has resulted in the United States in a recrudescence of that rather irritating "holier than thou" attitude. In mild retaliation, I venture to say that the Motion before your Lordships' House this afternoon has nothing in common with the shy-making ballyhoo of Senator McCarthy—the very way not to handle matters of this kind. What I shall set before you this afternoon is fully documented, fair and factual. I hope, therefore, just to level things up a little that this afternoon the British Upper Chamber will set an example to the American Upper Chamber. The other thing I wish to say is this. Although I shall be fair and factual, I shall be vigorous, but not a whit more vigorous than was the Lord President of the Council in his speech last Friday. I thought that was an admirable speech, if I may say so, in which the Lord President said any number of things I should have wished to say myself; but when I saw that the Lord President had said that the Communists should be democratically cleaned out of the unions, I could not help thinking that what is sauce for the unions is going to be sauce for a good many other people before I sit down today. I am very grateful indeed to the Lord President for making that speech, because I think he has made it hard for the Government not to accept my Motion this afternoon; and of course I shall do all I can to make it harder still.

My first concern is with the public service, but I have a great deal of ground to clear before I get there. In some comfortable quarters, seeing the complete Communist defeat in the Election, I might be thought even alarmist for bringing this Motion before the House, for we are all naturally elated that the Communists have forfeited their deposits. But wait a minute: what was the total sum involved? It was £13,950–a mere bagatelle to Moscow, which is spending more than that on the Daily Worker and other forms of sedition which are financed by the abuse of diplomatic privilege. Moreover, even before the date of the Election was fixed, it was fairly common talk that Messrs. Gallagher and Piratin would lose their seats, though I congratulate the Government none the less on the result. I should say that every household and every house sparrow knew that the Communists would forfeit their deposits.

Why, then, was the sorry exhibition staged? Mrs. Pollitt let the cat out of a fairly wide open bag on February 24, the day after the Election. For some unknown reason the B.B.C. gave the Pollitt family a double innings on the air. Mrs. Pollitt said, in substance, that they were not in the least dismayed by this result because the Parliamentary Elections and Parliamentary institutions were not at all their cup of tea; they work through the streets, the unions and the factories. Of course, that is perfectly true, but the Communists know very well that democracies seek for nothing better than an excuse to go to sleep if they can. And here is a whole tankful of soothing syrup, cheap to Moscow at £13,950. Therefore, I hope that while we all rejoice at the Communist defeat, we shall not lounge too far into the trap. We must not swallow every Soviet bait.

Take, for example, this matter of the maintenance of our missions behind the Iron Curtain. There are only two arguments in favour of maintaining them, both quite respectable. One is that the Foreign Office say they want a window on the world. I have already retorted that the panes are frosted. The other is that we must stay because Stalin wants us to go. Well, yes, but have we not learnt by now that dictators always want several contradictory things at the same time? For example, Hitler wanted diplomatic triumphs, but he also wanted war —he wanted it both ways. Stalin wants us to go, but he also wants to destroy our prestige, to destroy it utterly, and nothing suits him better for that purpose than to maintain our missions there as a sort of Aunt Sally. That is one argument and here is another. Stalin is doing what all tyrannies not only do but are inevitably driven to do—they all seek to reconcile their subjects to their sufferings, particularly to the huge burden of aggressive armaments, by preaching to them that they are surrounded by a hostile and conspiratorial world wishing to spring upon them at the first possible opportunity. The Germans played that card ad nauseam before both world wars. Their principal card was the cry of en- circlement. Similarly, Stalin keeps on staging these fake conspiratorial dramas because it suits him to point to the West and the Western missions as the villians of the piece. We play his game to that extent by maintaining our missions there. That is the second counter-argument.

I come to a third counter argument, and it is this. In the Cominform headquarters at Bucharest there is a Bureau of Supervision presided over by Signor Reale and a Monsieur Boysson. Signor Reale is an Italian Communist who at one time was Ambassador to Warsaw; and Monsieur Boysson is a "big noise" in the Communist Movement and is, on the whole, just as bad a man as Herr Baldur von Schirach, who is now in gaol. The Bureau directs the activities of diplomatists and agents in the non-Communist countries—including, of course, here. I think that very objectionable. It is done, as I have already informed the House on a previous occasion, through the intermediary of the satellite missions here. That also I think entirely objectionable. But it goes further than that. The Bureau also directs the activities of native-born Communists, and that I think quite intolerable. Here we have a hostile and alien Power ordering about people in this country—and it is still our country—again by abuse of diplomatic privilege. Nothing of the kind has ever prevailed here before, and I sometimes wonder how much longer it is to go on.

In passing, may I say that there is one thing that may not only interest but amuse your Lordships. That Bureau also spends some of its time in drawing up black-lists of the people who are to be "bumped offs" when the opportunity offers—that is, principally, in the event of war. Your Lordships will no doubt take that no more seriously than I do. At the same time, it is perhaps right to mention in passing that I have personally known people who have been threatened with being put on that list unless they desisted from their anti-Communist activities; and, furthermore —again I mention this without any particular emphasis—I have also known people, when I have been collecting anti-Communist information, who have shown distinct signs of being afraid to talk. Intimidation in this country is in its infancy, but it would be unwise to overlook entirely the fact that the beginnings are there.

These communised States are perfectly logical: they behave to us as if they were enemy States—and that is exactly what they are. We on our part must realise that we are at war—the greatest war in history. There is no abiding accommodation between democracy and any totalitarian form. I do think it is most necessary that all British Socialists should take warning from the bitter lesson of their Continental brethren. These men were bemused and betrayed by illusionists who thought accommodation was possible. So Socialism was murdered. This country is full of illusionists, and so is the Commonwealth. For example, I noticed a short while ago that it was reported in the Press that Mr. Chifley had said that Communism was only another philosophy. Such ignorance in high places is truly dangerous. The plain fact is that the cold war is being waged without quarter by the Communists, and is hardly being fought at all by us. It never will be properly fought so long as we are handicapped by this damaging farce of technically correct relations. So long as we believe in that nonsense we shall always be fighting with one hand tied behind our back. Therefore, we shall not win the cold war, and he who does not win, loses—and how! We are naturally perturbed by the Fuchs case, but it would be the height of unwisdom to see in that only a slip on the part of M.I.5. What is fundamentally wrong, and what needs to be corrected, is the whole national attitude and frame of mind: the frame of mind of laissez faire and "slop along" in the nation at large, which often seems to be frighteningly reminiscent of public opinion in the Hitler days.

I shall begin my illustrations with the B.B.C., which ought to be, but is not, the most potent weapon in the cold war. A short while ago the B.B.C. refused to cleanse itself of Communists, and consequently Communists have remained. There is no mystery about it: the B.B.C. admit their presence, and I naturally know some of the offenders. On the other hand—I want to be strictly fair throughout everything I say to-day—we must be careful not to exaggerate this. The percentage is small but, as the Lord President has also observed, the Communists always manage to arrogate to themselves a degree of influence out of all proportion to their real numbers. So the Communist taint peeps forth from time to time, and particularly, as one might expect, in the Russian section. That section is in rather a poor way—again I do not exaggerate—both as regards personnel and performance. I do not for a minute say that all its output is bad; but some of it is unhelpful, and some of it is harmful. Moreover, it is not technically well equipped for its job. Some of its members do not speak Russian at all, others have learnt through books, and others speak with faults of grammar and accent. Again that is not a universal application. I have a number of affidavits from highly-placed professors of the Russian language deploring these low standards. Why are they tolerated? I think for the same reason as has permitted the continuance of a series which has in the main been definitely harmful, called "Soviet Views." As one would expect, "Soviet Views" are inevitably hostile to this country—indeed, they contain large chunks of Pravda. So that virtually, on occasion, we are carrying out Soviet propaganda.

Another shortcoming that I lay to the charge of the B.B.C. is that they have failed to make adequate use of the large number of most distinguished exiles that we now have in this country. That is a subject on which I may have more to say on another occasion. I consider, and many people with me, that the fundamental attitude of the B.B.C. is feeble. Could anything have been more mistaken than to give the Communists broadcasting time during the Election? You may think that all very well from the domestic point of view, but nobody in the B.B.C. seems to have paused to reflect what an extraordinarily discouraging effect that would have on people in Eastern and Central Europe. They naturally think we are not serious in this fight. But we are fighting for our lives, though the B.B.C. do not seem to realise it. This country is full of exiles who have lost their political lives precisely because they allowed the Communists to broadcast too much. What, then, are they to think of us if we give a free run to the Party of terror and persecution? They think we are crazy. In a word—and I do not want to dilate on this subject too much—what is fundamentally wrong there is that the B.B.C. share the delusion expressed by Mr. Chifley, that Communism is just another philosophy. Either they must change that notion or we must change the management. We cannot afford that luxury nowadays.

I pass to another infected field—that of education. I raised that matter here on December 7 last year, when I quoted the claim of Communist teacher Mr. C. G. T. Giles—a fellow Etonian, I regret to say —who affirmed that there were 2,000 active Communist teachers. When I did so, the noble Lord, Lord Crook—who I am sorry to see is not in his place to-day —queried my figure. Of course, I should not wish to split hairs with anyone. That is a round figure—it may be rather less and it may be rather more. In any case, the important point to retain is that it is an exceedingly moderate figure which represents 1 per cent. of the teaching profession. I am the first to congratulate the 99 per cent. that went not astray, and to testify that the vast bulk of the teaching profession in a is country is entirely sane and sound. At the same time, your Lordships would be unwise to assume that that overall figure of 1 per cent. invariably holds good. For instance, it may not have escaped the notice of your Lordships that the percentage of teachers among the Communist candidates at the Election was very largely in excess of 1 per cent. In any case, there are areas where that figure is not only exceeded, but markedly exceeded. I think you would find that to be the case, for instance, in Birmingham University, where there is certainly a Communist clique which seems able to indulge in rather a curious performance to which I shall allude later.

Now when I asked that question about Communist teachers, I received an evasive and non-committal answer. I am not in the least criticising the noble Lord who gave it; I rather commiserate with him on the text provided by his scribes. That answer said, in effect, that it did not matter if teachers were Communists, provided they were Communists out of school. I really do not know whether anybody but an idiot would expect Communist teachers to get up in class and scrawl across the blackboard "I am a Communist," or that anybody but a tom-fool would suppose there were not a dozen different ways of inculcating Communism otherwise than by preaching and teaching Stalinism in class.

We are facing years of increasing grimness, and none can tell whether they will culminate in a Soviet war of aggression. I can only say that in my considered judgment the odds are on such a development rather than against it. In all my life I have never seen any nation preparing for war quite so overtly as the Soviet Union, And I would add that I have in the past proved a fairly accurate prophet about these matters. Therefore, it seems to me that democracies are bound to take some elementary precautions. I ask for no persecution. There are nine and sixty ways not only of constructing tribal lays but of enabling Communists to earn a livelihood, but I do not think that teaching and broadcasting should be among them. That is too great a risk, seeing the times in which we live. I venture to say explicitly that if we do not insist upon Communists and fellow travellers being cleared out of the B.B.C., we shall not be acting on the mandate of the British public, which has been clearly expressed.

I come to another field in which there is some infection, and that is the Church. I should like to make it plain from the start that I am not in any way criticising the Church. What I am trying to get at is the apathy of public opinion in relation to offences when they are committed: that is my constant theme throughout. I always proceed by concrete examples, and therefore I will begin in that way. I have protested several times in the past, but in vain—it has aroused no interest at all—against the activities of a body that called itself the Council of Clergy and Ministers for Common Ownership. Formerly known as the C.C.M.C.O., they have now changed their initials to the S.S.C.M., but I do not pay much attention to this Communist or semi-Communist gyration. The leading personalities in that organisation have been the Dean of Canterbury and the Bishop of Bradford. There are, of course, a considerable number of other members, and for years they have been writing a series of pamphlets called Magnificat. The first was by a particularly murderous priest called Canon Gilbert Cope, in which he openly advocated the killing off of his political opponents and the distribution of the loot among the boys who did the job. That pamphlet received a glowing preface from the Bishop of Bradford. Anybody who knows anything about this man Cope must have known that he was a potential killer, and yet somebody in Birmingham University has been able to secure him a job under the auspices of the university. That seems to me remarkable, because to profess oneself a Christian in one breath and in the next to advocate the liquidation of people who disagree with you on a point of economics is the most revolting hypocrisy and nothing else.

The second pamphlet in that series was contributed by the Bishop himself. In it he says that "Communism in Russia is delivering the message of Christ." I do not know whether that message is supposed to be delivered to the 15,000,000-odd souls who are undergoing forced labour. Not much attention was paid to them. There are other phrases of the same kind in the pamphlet, which has a distinct Communist implication. Some go a great deal further. No. 3, for example, and, for that matter, No. 17, were both written by a priest called Mr. Stanley Evans. No. 17, by the way, is called Christians and Communists, and I need hardly say (and this is characteristic) that there is much more about Communism in it than about Christianity. Now this Mr. Evans is the man who scuttled out to Budapest at the time of the trial of Cardinal Mindszenty, and then scuttled back to tell us all that it was a jolly good show; that the Cardinal had jolly well got what he deserved, and that all the Hungarian Communists were jolly good fellows. That was greeted by the British public with relative silence. In fact—I may have been unlucky—mine was the only voice I heard raised in fury. This man Evans is so far—I can find no other word—prostituted to Stalin that he went out to Russia and said that there was more religion in Russia than in his own country. Again silence.

Mr. Evans has an equally tainted colleague called the Reverend Mr. Chambers. And when the fifteen Bulgarian pastors were being destroyed the Reverend Mr. Chambers scuttled out to Sofia, and then scuttled back again to say that that also was a jolly good show, that the pastors had got what they deserved and that all Bulgarian gangsters were jolly good fellows. Again, there was dead silence, I noticed no reaction in the Press or from the public at all—in fact, I knew nobody but myself who was really furious. Before I leave this Magnificat series I would monition one more, No. 9, by a gentleman called the Reverend Mr. Worlledge, in which he said that Marx and Lenin are the instruments of God. Well, my Lords, it is news to me that such instruments are usually picked from among people who deny and assail God. I should have thought that that was most unusual; and in any case I do not much care to see God degraded to the position of an antiquated and ferocious economist. But again there was dead silence from the public.

I will quote an even more extravagant case. On February 12 there was a Communist rally at Harringay, addressed by Mr. Harry Pollitt. He said: You must learn to hate, hate, hate, and if you don't hate you know nothing of Communism. He was followed by the Dean of Canterbury who said, "This is the Gospel of Jesus Christ." But I thought that if there was one thing on which we were pretty well united, it was this: that we have regarded Christianity as something in the nature of what Whittier called The silence of eternity interpreted by Love. But along comes the Dean and says it is hullabaloo interpreted by hate. It is hard on us Protestants to be saddled for keeps with that evil charlatan and his acolytes. In the Catholic Church, I believe—and perhaps, if I am wrong, some Catholic noble Lord will contradict me—that such people would be excommunicated. But we are handicapped by old rules and also, I think, by the public apathy, the weakness of the public stance, to which I have already alluded. It is that weakness which leads many Churchmen and Socialists still to look upon the Communist as only some slightly erring brother, and which leads Liberals and Conservatives also to say in my astonished presence that some particularly bad fellow-traveller is "not a bad chap really at bottom, you know." These are luxuries we cannot afford.

But I am drawing my illustrations from clerical circles and I will return to them. My next instance is concerned with an episode on March 9, when the Reverend Leslie Weatherhead said publicly that we ought to send their Royal Highnesses, Princess Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh, to Moscow, to convey to Stalin our sincere good will. And that passed in the Press without a murmur! It was a most impertinent and ignoble suggestion. Stalin has broken forty treaties aid has killed off thirty million people in peace time. One would have thought it a little more fitting for Mr. Weatherhead to wish to express good will to the victims and their surviving relatives. But they, again, passed almost unobserved. That is the tendency—to look the other way. In that, we are—some sections of us at any rate—rather like the Swiss who only the other day refused General de Lattre de Tassigny permission to go into Switzerland because he was going to assail Communism there.

This is a struggle in which there is no neutrality: there is only courage or cowardice. We sing "Fight the good fight with all thy might"—one of the finest relit ions songs ever written—but I do not think we do. We fight at half strength, with a sort of shandy-gaff faith in our own case. In any case, this half-heartedness leads to some remarkable laxities in other directions. I will begin with one of the less important examples. Who was it who sent the venomous, treacherous Mr. Johnson to Moscow to look after our futile paper, British Ally? And who followed him up with the callow Mr. Dalgleish, bursting with uninvested calf love? And who was it sent to Prague the shapeless Miss Rides—one of the most unprepossessing exports that I have ever seen? And, alas! not unrequited. And who was it who sent the amorous and convertible Mr. Bidwell to Warsaw? How he bit his own country, like all the others This was not a case of Samson and Delilah; it was a case of Delilah and Little Tich. But who picked Little Tich? Somebody must have been responsible. It is perfectly human to make mistakes. One in a way is all very well, but to go on making them like this seems unpardonable. It is gross carelessness which we cannot afford.

While on this topic, perhaps I may be allowed to make a constructive suggestion. I think we should be well advised now to save the taxpayers money by cutting out that paper British Ally. It does no good. The Russians are already cutting its circulation for us, and in any case it goes only to chosen recipients and they probably, to save their skins, stuff it straight into the wastepaper basket. So I. say to the Government: Cut it out, and in return crack down on Tass and the Soviet Monitor; and you will certainly save on the swings a hundredfold what you have not lost on the roundabouts. And do not stop there. There are other iron curtain agencies here which spend their time in sending out the most venomous misinformation about this country. We should make it clear that we will not tolerate this. Alternatively if you feel that you mast go on with this futile British Ally for heaven's sake send out men skilled and seasoned in cold warfare, and not pink pups who have not even had distemper.

It is still too easy to get into this country. I have the greatest sympathy with our authorities on this score. If they are too easy-going they get into trouble with people like me, for example; and if too stern, they run into tragedies like that ii which an unhappy Yugoslav recently cast himself from an aeroplane rather than return home. It is a terrible dilemma. But I must none the less maintain that charge to some extent; and as I always proceed from concrete things I will give your Lordships one case of less importance. There was in this country a Hungarian called Mr Zoltan Roman. He was a prominent member of the Hungarian Communist Party. I should have thought on the whole that he was a rather doubtful quantity. He held a prominent position in the Hungarian textile department, and then he was made Minister to Pakistan. Instead of proceeding via Alexandria he elected to go via London, a distinct loop. He then opted to stay here. He stayed wits another Hungarian called Mr. Imre Molnar, who was also a prominent member of the Hungarian Communist Party. They obtained permission not only to stay but to work. Mr. Roman, anyhow, was recently travelling, I think, for the Compensation Trading Company of 140, Park Lane, which was founded by Messrs. Robert Benson and Lonsdale. They said apparently that they had been allowed to stay because they had been vouched far by people in the Board of Trade. That may be all right, but what I would like to know is who vouched and on what authority?—because I have a very good and legitimate reason for asking.

There are in this country a number of Hungarians who are passionately anti-Communist and pro-British to their fingertips. I cannot find one of them who was consulted in this matter, and those that I have consulted have told me that, if they had been consulted, they would not have recommended that course. I think we are wrong to neglect elementary precautions of that kind. The planting of agents under the guise of apostasy is the oldest and simplest trick in the world. The Russians make a practice of it. In fact, they have schools for teaching ostensible apostates. I know the addresses of many of them. One was at the former Hotel Imperial in Carlsbad. They send ostensible apostates wholesale into Western Germany and they push them in also elsewhere. I am the last person in the world to wish to refuse asylum to any genuine refugee from any form of totalitarianism, but I think we have reached a point when we must be cautious about those who, having made a good thing out of Communism, ostensibly change their minds. Even then I would be prepared to make exceptions in absolutely sound cases, but in borderline cases the British public must have the benefit of the doubt. Then our answer must be: "I am sorry. You have made your bed and you must lie on it, even if it should turn out to be the bed of Procrustes." While I am on this matter, I make one further suggestion. Your Lordships will have observed that in Italy very great Communist penetration has occurred by the simple device of allocating all trade with the iron curtain countries to Communist firms in Italy. That cannot happen here but, at the same time, the personnel of the trading associations, and even of commercial houses, engaged in that sort of business ought to be the subject of constant vigilance. If the Government draw those coverts from time to time I do not think they will draw a blank.

While it is still too easy to get into this country, it is also sometimes too easy to get out. I wonder how it came about, for example, that a bunch of British-born Communists—I have their names but they are of no interest to your Lordships' House—were allowed out to the Gold Coast where they raised considerable trouble. For that matter, I also have wondered in the past why the "Yellow" Press of West Africa was allowed to go on with those incitements to violence for so long until an explosion occurred. I do not wish to deal with that matter now. In all this, there is no sign of that stern spirit by which cold wars are won. In all the fields that I have traversed so far, there is no breeze stirring. There are only sluggish streams, and the sun goes down on nobody's wrath.

Next, I pass to naturalisation. In my official days this was the province of a section of the Home Office. I presume that that is still the case. I always said that that was too narrow a basis, and I urged an inter-Departmental Committee, with the Home Office, of course, in the chair, but attended also, at the minimum, by members of the Foreign Office, the Board of Trade and the fighting Services. That was not accepted. Of course, the Home Office do consult other Departments, but that desultory consultation is no real substitute for the permanent work of a Committee such as I have suggested. I have no complaint whatever to make of the Home Office. On the contrary, I found them good colleagues. I consulted them sometimes; sometimes they consulted me. Most of the time I was in the same position as anybody else; I used to wake up and see that so-and-so and so-and-so had been naturalised. Sometimes I knew nothing about them. Sometimes I did. I can remember at least one instance where I learned only six months afterwards that a man had been naturalised, and if I had known sooner I should on no account have approved it. Another reform I have urged in the past was brought up before your Lordships only last week—I refer to the suggestion that those who sponsor aliens should be prepared to have their names made public. I have sponsored quite a few myself without any qualms, and I am always prepared to answer in public for what I have advocated in private. I hat would have a certain effect in deterring any levity in recommendation. That does occur sometimes, believe me. There is sometimes a little too much of the atmosphere of "Oh, Schmidt or Apfelbaum or What-have-you is a very good fellow. I will get up behind him." No harm is intended. He is a perfectly good chap so far as they know, but it happens that people are sometimes sponsored by those who have no adequate knowledge of the roots which go back into Europe and which require considerable study. So you occasionally find your Stanleys and your Fuchses slip through the net. I think those accidents could be prevented.

Mention of the Fuchs case brings me naturally to M.I.5. Normally I should not have mentioned that Department in public. In my time I would have thought it anathema to do so, but the Fuchs case has been followed by such a spate of ill-informed criticism that from considerable experience I feel conscientiously obliged to offer a few words of sober and discreet rectification. Above all, I take this occasion of deploring very deeply the bandying about in public of the names of high officials connected with that Department. That, believe me, is absolutely dead against the public interest. That has occurred so much in this case. Only last week I heard one of the most prominent names made the subject of an exceedingly poor pun in "Much Binding in the Marsh." So low have we come ! Having said that, I venture to suggest, with very great respect, that I think the Prime Minister was mistaken in saying that we could not avoid accidents of this kind without some force equivalent to the Gestapo. That statement might leave a certain misapprehension in the public mind which I would like to rectify to-day. To start with, no comparisons with the Gestapo or any other secret police are possible. As we all know, M.I.5 has no executive power; it can only report to the Ministers concerned, and if they deem action appropriate it will be taken by the Special Branch of Scotland Yard.

We have never had a secret police in this country, and I hope we never shall. I venture to say that we have the ideal system for a free country. But these accidents can be prevented, though not by police methods; other qualities are required, and I should not be indiscreet enough to discuss in public what they are. One thing I can say without indiscretion is obvious—that a requisite is sufficient personnel and, therefore, sufficient funds. Here I am on familiar ground. Throughout the long years that preceded the war, I was the intimate personal friend of the heads of our Security Services. We had no secrets from each other, and we shared our apprehension at the oncoming war. When that war came it is only fair, particularly in the light of much of what has been said lately, to remind your Lordships that M.I.5 was equal to the occasion; the Axis agents were "taped," and picked up quickly.

Equally, it is only fair to this House, to this country, and indeed to M.I.5 itself, to repeat what I have already once said in this House—namely, that in the event of another war, M.I.5, through no fault of its own, would not be equal to the occasion. For every Axis agent that there was in those days there are now a hundred Communist agents. This country has been infested by hostile missions, masquerading as diplomacy, and by all the agents that radiate from them; it has been plagued by bogus friendship societies which exist mainly for spreading sedition; and it has been infiltrated by a whole host of fellow-travellers and double crossers, who present the greatest problem of all. In other words, our security services are confronted with an impossible task, and if war came, I think it more than possible that not only would they be overrun, they would be swamped.

I am quite used to having my advice disregarded—I take that all in good part but I have it on my conscience to say to-day, that if we continue to drift along as at present we may be courting disaster. If we were really wise, we should reduce all our missions behind the iron curtain, beginning with Moscow, to the level of consulates, and insist upon a similar reduction here. In that way, we should greatly diminish the area of espionage and sedition, and all the rest of it. I do not suppose such a step will be readily contemplated, but it would be in the national interest if we did it. Even that would not be enough in the case of the worst offenders. Take Hungary, for example, which has not only treated this Government with the utmost insolence but has treated British subjects with brutality that defies description. Let us make an example of them. I say, break off both commercial and diplomatic relations and let them whistle for the Western trade that they need so badly. I would apply much the same criticism to Czechoslovakia. At the very next "crack" out of the box, the next piece of insolence from them, I would apply the same medicine. But that is a digression.

I said just now that M.I.5 sufficed in 1939; but it only just sufficed because within my experience it has been the Cinderella of the services. It has been under-staffed. I wonder how often in my time I asked for just a little more help in this vital branch of national defence. There was a time, indeed, when recruiting was difficult—though I am not going into details about that. Again, I am not speaking from gossip or hearsay, but of my own knowledge of circumstances and events, when I say that I have known good men go in and come out because they did not think the prospect good enough. Perhaps I may leave it at this, my Lords: that we want the best security; we may want it badly, even desperately; and to get the best we must make security a career worthy of the best. I am happy to say that there have been considerable improvements since my time, but I doubt still whether they are enough. To my mind, the numbers are not adequate, and to that extent the Prime Minister is right. Simple sums will show that. For example, to watch a man for twenty-four hours a day requires three men working in shifts of eight hours.

Look at the matter in another way. There is disquieting information about the state of the public services. There is no reason on earth why all that information should not also be in the possession of our own authorities. Some of it may be, but undoubtedly some of it is not; and that is simply because there is neither time, men nor money to investigate the whole of that vast field. I myself have been more favourably placed, and I say this is no spirit of blame whatever—rather would I help our own authorities to similar possibilities. But before I leave this subject, I must again say that, if the Government want the best—and believe me, my Lords, they are going to need it—they cannot have it if this unpatriotic publicity continues. On the very day the Fuchs case broke, all sorts of "know-alls" rushed into print with criticism and nostrums. I do not wish to be personal where so many offended, but I noticed in one Sunday paper an article which said that M.I.5 had been a laughing stock, and then went on to recommend something which was beside the point. That, I regret to say, was by one of the supporters of their Lordships of the Left. We cannot have that sort of thing if we want a good service, because men in such a service neither can nor should defend themselves. We want silence over this sort of thing in the future, and I hope what has happened in the last few weeks will never be repeated.

Other branches of our military intelligence have perhaps been rather more legitimately open to criticism—and here I can be a little more indiscreet, because a great deal of publicity has been given to an instance by the Belgrade radio, which put out a story about four British Communists who had been in our Intelligence Corps in Cairo and had gone to Yugoslavia on various missions. According to Belgrade, their names were Major Peter Wright, Major James Klugman, Mrs. Betty Wallace and a Mr. Kenneth Syers. Major Peter Wright appears to have been a military attaché in Belgrade until the end of 1947–please note the date. I have not bothered to inquire much about the activities of Mrs. Betty Wallace, but I can tell your Lordships definitely that she is a member of the Communist Party headquarters here, and this headquarters rather indiscreetly let it out last month that she was "on a job in France," as they put it—presumably connected with strikes. The last that I heard of Major Klugman was that he was an enthusiastic electioneering agent for Mrs. Pollitt. He has an editorial job on a Communist "rag" called World News and Views. That is a pretty bunch to have in our missions abroad!

I come now to the daisy of the bunch, Kenneth Syers. Mr. Syers, in the early stages of the war, was Secretary of the Oxford Regional Committee for the Education of His Majesty's Forces. Curiously enough, I heard some complaints that they were getting only Communist stuff and Communist lecturers. I was not surprised; I thought that other people might have shared that view. From there he went to Cairo, and from Cairo he went to Yugoslavia. Now he is a pamphlet writer for the Bureau of Current Affairs at No. 117, Piccadilly. As late as April, 1949–again, please note the date—this Mr. Syers wrote a pamphlet, which was published by the Bureau, on Eastern Europe. I went through the stuff—I wade through an awful lot of muck every week—and this really was an extraordinary compound of ignorance and mendacity.

As I told your Lordships, I never speak without my book. Let me give you an example of what has been served up. On page 9 of the pamphlet you will find Syers explaining what an excellent thing it was for Eastern Europe to have been skinned alive by the Soviets for reparations. That was an excellent thing for them, he said, because it facilitated the restoration of their economy. That is nice stuff to give the troops, is it not? We must remember that all this output is taken as standard material for army education. I find it hard to be tender about this sort of thing. Someone is distinctly to blame. Perhaps the kindest thing I can say is that this country is largely peopled by lotus-eaters who would invite Guy Fawkes to the Carlton Grill: "Not half a bad fellow, my dear chap, and of course he would be much more at home underground."

I cannot leave this topic without quoting one most typical instance of what I call our "national slop-along." The offices of the Festival of Britain have been used for the dissemination of a pamphlet by a gentleman who calls himself Jiri Hronek. As your Lordships are aware, I have rather specialised in Communist aliases, and I need hardly tell you that his name is not Hronek but Langstein. He is a Viennese-born Jew who came to this country to escape Hitler, and who has rewarded our hospitality with most violent and vehement Anglophobia. He is one of our worst enemies. I can find no word to say in extenuation of Mr. Lang-stein. It seems to me a little odd that the offices of the Festival of Britain should be used for the popularisation of the works of this gentleman. I know that it is an accident, I do not for a moment believe that there is anything sinister in it—I call it just darned silly. I say that this is a typical small instance of the point which I have been trying to make during my speech so far, that what this country needs is a good shake-up. And if it cannot take that, it must take the consequences—and they will be bitter.

At last, I come to the public service. I have not time to deal with such matters as Communist penetration into the dockers' unions or the British Legion. I want to get on to my own stamping ground, the public service, in which I have spent the greater part of my life and to which I am still profoundly attached. I have retained as many contacts as possible. I am still President of the Civil Service Society of Authors and, I hope not inappropriately, President of the Civil Service Boxing Association. I take the greatest interest in all the activities of my colleagues, for such I still consider them to be. Above all, I have a deep and warm sympathy for that great body of loyal public servants who for long have been fighting against Communist infiltration, as I believe, without adequate support and encouragement. I hope that to-day this House will give them the praise which they deserve, because they have deserved well of the nation.

I am perturbed at what is going on in the public service. I have avoided using the word "alarm" at this stage because I must tell your Lordships, with my usual frankness, that there ate only 2 per cent. of Communists in the public service. But we always come back to the point that they have much more than their share of influence. Infiltration has been going on for some time. It has two purposes The first is probably well known, and it is obvious; it is the collection of information, which is then passed on to Communist headquarters whence, if deemed worth while, it is sent to their alien masters. The second purpose has escaped the attention of both the public and the Press, and even, possibly, of His Majesty's Government. It is to ensure the smooth running of the Civil Service in the event of a coup or, to use Communist jargon, "the transfer of power." Your Lordships may all think that that is exceedingly optimistic. So do I. But we must understand the working of the Communist mind if we are to tackle this question at all. Our own Press is often filled with speculations as to what would happen if the Russians made a drive to the coast on the Continent, and this country were then subjected to bombardment, the dropping of parachutists and so on with the result that chaos was created. It does not seem to them quite so mad to prepare for a possible transfer of power just on the off chance. Members of the first category I mentioned just now seek to get into key Departments like Defence and Supply. Their main purpose, as I have said, is espionage, and when an agent is a member of a civil service trade union under Communist control there is clearly an open channel to any Soviet authority. The second category keep under cover. Their instructions are to learn as much as possible about the working of the Department, to inspire confidence and so to be ready if opportunity knocks. Put more crudely, their job is to find as many "mugs" as possible (to use Mr. Morrison's word) who will say: "Cryptos are not half bad fellows."

Before 1941, Communism in the public service was kept out of sight. Hardly any members of the service were allowed to take out Party cards, but cells were formed and cell leaders were appointed in liaison with organisers who co-operated with them and kept contact with Communist Party headquarters. There were usually six to eight members in each cell; at least one in each Department. False names were used—I suppose it added a little to the excitement—and members were educated in accordance with a syllabus issued from Communist Party headquarters. Briefly, Communism in the public service followed the pattern of Communist secret societies, whose members observe and report on each other. After 1941 some more active members were allowed to come out into the open, but the majority still stayed under cover and, of course, after the outbreak of the cold war there was a natural trend back to the ban on open membership. But members were enjoined to seek promotion, to "muscle in" on good positions in secretariat, welfare, training and general establishment, and to keep open the door for others. Moreover, there was formed a body of so-called watchers, ostensibly unconnected with the Communist Party but reporting indirectly and regularly. And so infiltration increased.

I am going to give the House a concrete example in the Department of Inland Revenue. This is all the more remarkable because the Inland Revenue Staff Federation has had excellent representatives, Mr. Douglas Houghton and Mr. Callaghan, both Members of Parliament—but accidents can happen in the best regulated families. I have full particulars of sixteen Communists and 100 per cent. fellow travellers who have got themselves into good jobs in the Department of Inland Revenue. Again I am not talking from gossip or hearsay. In some cases I have actually seen the Communist Party membership cards, and to avoid argument or any nonsense of that kind, I have taken the suave precaution of retaining photostatic copies. In other cases I have full evidence of 100 per cent. collaboration. What they really have done is to form a chain between the junior and the senior appointments, and they begin to nourish hope of being able to exercise some influence on departmental policy. You may say that that is optimism; very possibly it is, although I am not entirely sure in this case; or again you may say that sixteen in a large Department is a small number. Yes, I agree again; but we always come back to that cliché about influence and numbers. I am not starting any hare or scare; I am just telling you of the things I know. The point I am trying to drive home to the House and the country is that the infiltration is not only reaching, but has actually reached, a point where it no longer can be treated with inattention.

Other Departments are also affected, though to be frank with the House, I find the figures and names in my possession are on a smaller, and sometimes on a very considerably smaller, scale. Nevertheless, the taint is there. There is a touch in the Admiralty, more in the War Office, and other Departments affected are Food, Education, and Health. I venture to suggest that the Government, of their own initiative and responsibility, should undertake an investigation into the state of affairs in these various Departments, an investigation which I will do nothing to prejudice. But if our authorities should ever find themselves short of material or unable to conduct the investigation to their satisfaction, I am equipped to furnish certain indications which would enable the inquiry to be conducted efficaciously. Meanwhile, the House will have noticed that I have scrupulously forborne reading out a string of names, partly because some of you might not have thought that fair at this stage and still more because it would not have been fair to the public, for that is the last way in which any inquiry should be prefaced. Nothing could be more harmful. So much for details.

I come now to the general picture, which is slightly more alarming. Before I go any further I should like to say that nothing of what I have said or am about to say has any applicability at all to the Ministry of Labour Staff Association, whose Secretary, the noble Lord, Lord Crook, is a member of this House. Here is a happy exception, on which I should like to congratulate the noble Lord. The same remarks apply to the Post Office unions, which have generally conducted their affairs with virility and common sense and awareness of the danger of Communist infiltration. If all associations were in such good shape I might have been able to speak less seriously to-day. I take some pride in paying these compliments, partly because they are deserved and partly because I want the House to feel that I am trying hard to be entirely fair throughout.

Now for the darker side. The staff side of the National Whitley Council comprises 550,000 civil servants in fifteen organisations. In three of these organisations the Communist technique of infiltration into full-time negotiating posts has been highly successful, and it is in these posts that information is most easily obtained.

I will say a word briefly about each. In the Civil Service Union the direction is fairly solidly on Communist Party lines. In the Institution of Professional Civil Servants the Secretary-General is a man called Mayne, who is widely and firmly reputed in the public service to be the real leader of the Communist group. I can only say that in this union the position is quite unsatisfactory. The same remark applies to the Civil Service Clerical Association, the largest of the Associations, with 150,000 members. Its General Secretary is probably known to your Lordships. He is Mr. L. C. White, who is actually on the editorial hoard of the Daily Worker. Nothing could be more unsatisfactory than that. Mr. White has behind him seven full-time officers who are entirely on the Party line. These men do the negotiations with other Ministries, including the Defence Ministries. It is not only the associations who cater for the lower grades which are affected; even the association representing the administrative class has a touch of it. The whole field of Civil Service trade unions as regards headquarters officers at negotiating-level has twenty-one Communists or virtually 100 per cent. fellow travellers.

Only forty-five Communists have been affected by the so-called "purge." I hope your Lordships will never use that misnomer. It is nothing of the sort; it is an extremely mild measure which one might call a small security transfer. It way well intended when it started, but In my judgment and in the judgment of many others it is no longer adequate to the situation. If I may offer a word of friendly advice to the Government, I would say that they should drop it in its present form and instead we should take certain selected Departments for screening throughout—and the operative word is "throughout"—and all Communists or suspected Communists should be relegated to non-screened Departments. In every borderline case the British public must have the benefit of the doubt, because all Communists and fellow travellers are really enemy agents. The non screened Departments should set up active security units until their turn has come for screening. That is a rock bottom minimum. I hope our authorities will display some diligence in investigating a matter which is not only potentially but actually dangerous.

My own feelings are 100 per cent. with the main body of loyalists throughout who have already proclaimed their faith They have said and written that Communists have no place in the British Civil Service and we say to them 'Get out!' I am in sympathy with that. After all, as I have already said, there are many other ways in which Communists can earn a livelihood. But in the acuity of a cold war, which may at any moment burst into a hot one, it does seem folly to maintain enemy agents in our inner fortress. A few weeks ago General Billotte, who speaks with authority on these matters, warned us that we have only two years in which we can count on security. I think in some ways even that is optimistic, because no wise man would guarantee any fixed period at all. I certainly should not.

In 1933 I calculated that peace could not be guaranteed after the beginning of 1938–that is, five years. For 1933 to 1938 read 1945 to 1950–five years again. We have had them. We are very much in the same position as in 1938. We have before us a short period in which we can make ourselves sufficiently formidable to be a deterrent. But progress is slow, and the danger great and imminent. But there is one thing that, we can do quickly, and that is to recover the sense of self-preservation—I wonder how often before in my life I have used that phrase. That instinct will surely tell us that the first thing to do is to set our own house in order against the day of evil. I hope I have said enough to show that action is imperative.

I wish to make one other constructive suggestion. The Western Allies should get together and form a Joint Department of Psychological Warfare as an integral part of Western defence. It should be put under the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and none but the best candidates should apply. I am asking for nothing impossible. I expect no miracles, no legions of angels conjured from the clouds. I ask simply that we should do our plain and inescapable duty to the British people. I beg to move.

Moved, That attention be called to the extent of Communist infiltration into the public service and other important branches of public life in this country; and to resolve that continuous and resolute precautions are necessary for public security.—(Lord Vansittart.)

3.53 p.m.

LORD MILVERTON

My Lords, I feel that in making the small contribution that I wish to make to this debate it would be presumption on my part to attempt to add in any respect to the brilliantly comprehensive survey of this menace to our national life which has just been made by the noble Lord who moved the Motion. The point I wish to make is something in the way of postscript to what he has said, and I make it in the same spirit which animated the noble Lord's speech—namely, that there are throughout the Empire repercussions of what is happening in England; and in order to take an effective grasp of this problem in what is known as the dependent Empire, it is vital that, first of all, it should be grasped in England itself. These repercussions take various forms, but there are two ways in which one can look at the problem. One finds that in many respects the inspiration for Communist movements in the Colonies really springs from London—that London is the centre for a great deal of this trouble. Even in cases where the trouble is local, one finds again and again that the local Government are hampered in their efforts to deal with the menace by what is some- times called weakness and indecision in London but what is probably an inadequate appreciation of the real seriousness of this question—a tendency to regard Communism, as Lord Vansittart has said, as just another form of philosophy.

The noble Lord has given us a full-length picture of this problem, and it is, indeed, a grim picture. In dealing with the question, I should like to quote some instances from abroad. May I say, in a general way, that in my view, there is no room in the world for Communism and freedom: one or other must eventually win. I suggest that no Government will be able adequately to deal with this question until they see that as clearly as so many of us who have been brought into personal contact with the administrative problems which it evokes think we see it. The steady infiltration of Communist doctrine becomes perfectly easy when once the habit of individual freedom has been undermined. That is why I deplore the tendency in England to-day for personal freedom not to take the priority which once it did.

Let me give one or two instances from places as wide apart as Malaya and West Africa. In Malaya much has been said about misrepresentation by the Pekin radio of the objects and achievements of the Communist bandits in Malaya, and also of its reproduction in the local Press. As your Lordships are doubtless aware, the Emergency Regulations allow the local Government to deal with such manifestations in the local Press, or with local exhibitions of opinion of that kind. But what of the British Press? It seems sometimes to be overlooked that some sections of the British Press have made a point of undermining law and order and of publishing, apparently without check, the most venomous misrepresentations of the actions of British troops and British civil officers abroad.

May I give your Lordships one instance of this by quoting from the Straits Times, the leading paper in Malaya, of January 20, 1950? They referred to an article in the Daily Worker dated January 4, 1950. This article was a most venomous description of action being taken in Malaya, and it dealt with what the writer was pleased to call the "National Liberation Army." In the view of the staff of the Daily Worker, the National Liberation Army is the name which is appropriately given to Communist guerrillas, that collection of murderers and thugs who are at present endeavouring to disturb law and order in Malaya. Before I quote from this article, may I add that there was in this particular publication of the Daily Worker a photograph which showed some British troops carrying a dead bandit back to base after he had been killed. Underneath that photograph was printed "Troops carrying away the body of a Malayan democrat." We all know—no doubt the staff of the Daily Worker know it too—that the man in question was probably neither a Malayan nor a democrat. He was an alien, a murderer and a thug. That is what is happening from day to day in that paper—this misrepresentation of our actions. The Straits Times, in its comment, states as follows: "The Daily Worker is the newspaper of the Communist Party of Great Britain.… The Malayan public is entitled to ask why the British Government permits such stuff to be published in London when any journalist who did so in Malaya would be clapped into prison at once. In publishing the comments quoted above, the Daily Worker takes sides against the British administration in Malaya and against the British Forces in Malaya. Any Colonial Government is quick enough to take action against any Colonial newspaper which imperils law and order … yet the British Government permits a London newspaper to publish the disloyal and subversive comments quoted above, if the British Government defends its policy on the ground that it is safe to allow revolutionary violence to be defended by a newspaper in London, whereas it is not safe to do so in Colonial countries, the British Government is wrong, for there is unmistakable internal evidence in the columns of the Daily Worker that that newspaper has readers in Malaya. … We must confess to being completely unable to understand why the British Government is allowing the Daily Worker to abuse the freedom of the Press to the extent of supporting terrorism in a country of the British Commonwealth. I think we must all echo the sentiments of the leading paper of Malaya. It is very difficult to explain to the people of Malaya why these things are allowed to be published in London. They know only too well the emergency which they are facing in that country. They know what apparently is not realised in London —that it is not a mere local matter; a matter for the civil authorities there. They realise that they are possibly the spearhead of the Communist attack upon the British Empire.

In the last eighteen months I have several times suggested in this House that while undue attention is being paid in this country to other parts of the world such as, shall we say, Africa, it is not impossible that we are losing the whole fight in South-East Asia. The sooner it is realised how improper it is to allow a newspaper in London to publish strong statements supporting our enemies in that part of the world, the better it will be for our reputation and, indeed, for our future. Of course, the Daily Worker is, not the only paper. There is a paper called the Malayan Monitor, published by Mr. H. B. Sim, which has been banned in Malaya but is allowed to be freely printed here.

May I now turn to West Africa, where Communist propaganda is being steadily spread and where Communists are being infiltrated into almost every department of the public service? Most people know that the Zik Press in Nigeria features regular articles by George Padmore, a London Communist, and even the phraseology of that group of papers betrays strong Communist inspiration. I do not propose to name in detail all the branches of the public service which are involved in the infiltration of European Communists They range over most departments, and one of the most alarming features of it is that the educational authorities are not immune. The leading firms and even the Services are also not immune. The noble Lord who moved this Motion referred to the B.B.C. I think that some inquiries into the staff and activities of the British Council are well merited. It is notorious that many European employees of the British Council in West Africa are at least fellow-travellers, if not members of the Communist Party, and actively propogate Communist doctrines. Then there is the Bata Shoe Company, which is allowed to operate there and which has on its staff several members of the Czechoslovak Communist Party. In a philanthropic way they organise educational trips to Czechoslovakia for some of their workers, and it is natural that those young Africans, when they come back, are deeply steeped in Communist doctrines. There are increasing numbers of Socialist bookshops in Nigeria. They are being opened all over the place and they purvey Communist literature ii a country which is full of book-hungry young people Anti-white and anti-imperialist literature from South Africa can be purchased openly in any town in Southern Nigeria May I mention, incidentally, that the importation of 9 mm. and 16 mm. films is completely and absolutely unchecked and uncensored? It is difficult to expect that this medium of introducing Communist propaganda into the very homes of Africans themselves has been overlooked.

Let us come back to London again. There exists what is known as the W.A.S.U.—the West African Students' Union. I am well aware of the high patronage that that Union enjoys, but I am also well aware that it is a common medium for the contact of Communists with West Africans when they come to this country, and I think that an inquiry into the situation would be well merited. It is no pleasure to me, nor to anyone else, to have to mention these things. I could take you round the Empire and show you how lax have become the guardians of our way of life. The pass is being sold down every alley-way of the Empire, and these things are perfectly well known to all those in authority—they know a great deal more than I am able to indicate. But, in the sacred name of "Liberty," its bitterest enemies are being allowed to undermine the principles of liberty itself amongst all the adolescent nations of our Empire. I am convinced that in this matter of militant Communism it is true to say, as the mover of the motion said, that "He who is not with me is against me." There is no middle position.

At home, with the illogical hypocrisy of our times, we take great care over the films. We label certain films "For adults only," but what do we do abroad? Apart from films, we allow almost complete latitude to the Communists to poison the minds and corrupt the souls of the adolescent millions of our Empire. It is not as if we were dealing with the ordinary educated Englishman. These are people to whom the printed word means so much more than it should mean. That is typical of the attitude of the adolescent. It seems to me—I know I shall be attacked as a Liberal for saying this—that the Press ought to be controlled. Consider this, my Lords: I am not allowed to drive a motor vehicle without a licence and without certain restrictions on my freedom; I have to show a certain amount of skill and restraint, because I might inflict bodily harm upon my fellow-citizens. But I can run a newspaper; I can run it to the public damage; I can ruin the souls of hundreds and thousands of people, without a licence and without any check upon my activities, in the sacred name of what is called the liberty of the Press. I suggest that the time has come when not only in this country but in our Colonies it should be recognised that there are limits to what the Press may do in the way of supporting the enemies of law and order.

As President of the Association of British Malaya, I get a good deal of correspondence about these matters and I have a very good bird's-eye view of the astonishment with which people out there regard the authorities in this country. They are quite unable to understand why more drastic action is not taken in these matters. I had only recently a communication on this subject. It says: The propaganda put out by the Communists is convincing to local people and effective…Their story goes something like this. 'Communism is triumphant in China with 400,000,000 people. Naturally Indo-China and Siam will soon also be taken over. Then what can the British Government do in this country? They will be swept out…The British are terrified and already admit they will soon withdraw from this country. They have even recognised Communist China in an attempt to appease them. Anyone who supports the British will shortly be without their support in return. All people who will then be marked as British running dogs will be killed.' If you live in the atmosphere of Malaya instead of in the safe atmosphere of England you realise how very cogent that argument is. These people go on to say: It is clear that we must give up the idea that this is a local affair—a matter for the civil power. It cannot be run on any less drastic lines than any other war. The object should be victory complete and absolute, and the means employed determined and drastic. There is no propaganda so effective as the vigorous use of overwhelming power. Then, when victory is gained, is the time to be magnanimous and meticulous, not now. I suggest that that is a very fair summary, from people on the spot, of the proper attitude towards these things; and I implore the Government to look upon this as a war and to fight it as a war. It means that you cannot any longer tolerate the enemies within your gates.

4.15 p.m.

THE LORD BISHOP OF ELY

My Lords, I crave your indulgence. The noble Lord who proposed this Resolution referred to what he described as some Communist infiltration into the Church of England—although as a matter of fact one of the clergymen to whom he referred is not a member of that Church. I am sure that the most reverend Primate would have wished to be here; had he been here he would have been in a position to make a fuller reply than I can. But he has an engagement in Canterbury to-day, and it was only through the courtesy of the noble and learned Viscount the Lord Chancellor that I knew that the noble Lord intended to refer to the Church of England. The noble Lord was good enough to speak to me for a few minutes before the debate. As I say, therefore, I am not going to make anything like a full reply to what the noble Lord, Lord Vansittart, has said. But there are two points that I would make. The first is that, as I expect many of your Lordships know, a report published in 1948 on the proceedings of the Lambeth Conference, dealt fully in one section with the question of Communism. Leaving aside the fact that there is an aspect of communism which can properly be called religious communism—that life which is perhaps most obviously exemplified in the religious communities—I assume that the word "Communism" was used by the noble Lord, as I am sure it was understood by your Lordships as by most people, as connoting the philosophy of what is normally called Marxism and other kindred materialistic philosophies.

If your Lordships have read the report of the Lambeth Conference I think you will agree that the authorities of the Church of England—or, I would rather say, of the Anglican Communion, for the Lambeth Conference was representative of over three hundred bishops from all parts of the world—made it clear that the Anglican Communion, as has been said again and again, believe insistently and definitely, that what is called Communism in the Marxist sense is fundamentally and directly opposed to the Christian religion. I regret that I have not studied in every way the implication of this philosophy, but in so far as I have studied it, and in so far as I have heard the statement of speakers on that side, I find it completely impossible to understand how anybody professing the Christian religion can for one moment support a philosophy which entirely and completely denies the spiritual meaning of the universe and in ether ways ignores what we understand, even in the sphere of what is called natural philosophy, in the ordinary sense by morals. I cannot see how that is consistent with The profession of the Christian I hope your Lordships will take from me this assurance that officially the Church of England has made, and still consistently does make, a definite stand on that matter.

However, I must turn to another aspect. Your Lordships will be aware that within the discipline of the Church of England no priest can be brought under discipline (he can, indeed, be brought under admonition but not under discipline) unless he breaks the law, whether ecclesiastical or civil. So far as I am aware, these clergymen to whom the noble Lord has referred have not been guilty of any breach of any civil or ecclesiastical law. In the Church of England we cannot interfere with private opinion. Because we happen to know that a priest is a Communist, even if we do not quite understand how that is possible, we cannot take up the stand that he must be deposed from his position. Indeed, it would be difficult to do this from the public point of view, so long as, for instance, a Communist is allowed to be a Member of Parliament. I would venture to remind your Lordships that a few months ago, when a Church Assembly Measure came before your Lordships' House and before another place, some hesitation was expressed because there was a phrase in that Measure which seemed to give the bishops power to deal with a priest for his political opinions. It was not until those who made this complaint were assured that the phrase concerned did not have that effect that the opposition to the passing of that Measure died away.

I do not wish to delay your Lordships, but the noble Lord referred to certain individuals. He referred to the Council of Clergy and Ministers for Common Ownership, of which he said the Bishop of Bradford is President or Chairman. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of-Bradford is a member of your Lordships' House. I do not think it is my place to say anything on his behalf, especially as I must admit that, although I receive a great number of publications of all sorts and sizes clay after day, as I am sure do your Lordships, I have never yet received any pamphlets from this particular Council. Of one or two of the clergymen who have been Mentioned I have learned only to-day. So far as I am able to ascertain, two of them at any rate do not hold any position in the Church. One of them is licensed. It is true that another has a benefice, but on my present information I cannot see that any action could be taken by the Bishop of his diocese.

There is only one comment that I should like to add. Reference has been made to the Dean of Canterbury or, as I should in this connection prefer to call him, Dr. Hewlett Johnson, because I think it is important to emphasise that his various activities—and speaking for myself I am completely incapable of understanding his mentality—are of a purely personal nature. Unfortunately, he holds an office, and not once but several times both the present most reverend Primate and his two predecessors have been successively embarrassed by Dr. Hewlett Johnson's public statements and his various activities. Just a year ago, on March 14, 1949, the most reverend Primate issued a public statement. May I be allowed to read it to your Lordships? Some of you have seen it, but perhaps I may remind your Lordships of what he said, because I think the statement summarises the attitude that His Grace and the diocesan bishops take up towards these matters, and expresses the position we are in. The statement was as follows: In December, 1947, I found it necessary to issue a statement dissociating myself from the politicial opinions and activities of the Dean of Canterbury. None the less, it has recently been supposed by many people in Canada and the United States of America, during the Dean's visit to those countries, that he speaks for the Archbishop of Canterbury or with his approval. I therefore repeat that the supposition is entirely incorrect. In his public utterances upon current affairs the Dean speaks, and indeed claims to speak, only for himself, and not at all for me or for the Chapter of Canterbury Cathedral or for the Church of England. It is a matter of great regret that the Dean should advocate views which are so insensitive to the true facts of the situation. Since it is frequently asked why the Dean is not removed from his office because of his opinions, I must say first that for removal from office the law requires trial and conviction in some civil or ecclesiastical court and that the Dean has not rendered himself liable to a charge in either court. Secondly, in this country we greatly value the right to freedom of speech and the law is slow to curtail it, even when it proves inconvenient, irksome or hurtful. Its suppression is one of the grave charges against those totalitarian and police states which enjoy the Dean's confidence. In conclusion, I will add only that with what the noble Lord has said in proposing this Motion about apathy and a general dullness I have every sympathy. Many of us in this connection—and also, if I may say so, in another connection, with which I am more familiar—feel that it is our duty to try to rouse people from that apathy and make them appreciate the seriousness of the present moment.

4.28 p.m.

VISCOUNT SWINTON

My Lords, it is my pleasant duty to congratulate the right reverend Prelate on an interesting and apposite maiden speech. We in this House, where from time to time we pass or approve legislation dealing with the Church of England, appreciate that the disciplinary powers of the bishops in the Church of England are extremely limited. Indeed, I think it is probably a great deal harder to remove a clergyman in the Established Church than it is to remove even an established civil servant!

That, however, was not quite the gravamen of the charge that my noble friend Lord Vansittart brought. Nor, if I may say so, is it completely dealt with by expressing a moral or ethical opinion on Marxian materialist philosophy. That is the gospel and the common form of Communism to-day, but, after all, the danger of Communism to-day is not just this sterile Marxian economic philosophy. It lies in the active hostility of the leading Communist country and its satellites to this country in steps that in any other century, or indeed in any other decade, would have been tantamount to war. That is the danger—that and the way in which Russia and her satellite States carry out their materialist philosophy. If they confined that philosophy to an unethical process and an extremely unsuccessful process of nationalisation, we should not be so much concerned with it. But what they do is a great deal more serious and a great deal more un-Christian than that. What they do is to murder millions of people and put many more into forced labour camps. Nobody can pretend that there could be anything, not only more unethical but more un-Christian than that. That is why I think we who are lay members of the Church of England feel anxiety when we read speeches made by the Dean of Canterbury, Dr. Hewlett Johnson—let us call him Dr. Johnson, although again that is rather an insult to another epoch—passed almost without comment.

My noble friend Lord Vansittart referred to a number of other priests of the Established Church, and some apparently not of the Established Church. I am bound to say that I have never heard of any of them, nor have I read any of their utterances; but I have not as complete an anthology as he has had prepared for him. Dr. Johnson, however, stands on a wholly different footing. He receives a wide publicity—in my view, a great deal more than he deserves. I do not say that he has any influence n this country, but, unfortunately, he has an extremely wide public outside it. I must honestly say that I considered the statement made by the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury and quoted by the right reverend Prelate, rather a moderate rebuke. And, if I may say so with great respect, I think it would be helpful to what is after all the common cause of us all, if not too much was made of some of these small fry who receive money from articles which we put in the wastepaper basket. But when from time to time these other more prominent, more vociferous and more widely reported people praise the damnable things which the Russian Government are doing to-day, then I think we in the Church of England should be happier if a more definite measure of disapprobation—it cannot be discipline—were accorded to the people who give forth such utterances.

My Lords, I shall intervene for only a few moments in this debate, which has been one of great interest and for which the House owes a very real debt of gratitude to my noble friend Lord Vansittart. There is not a great deal one can add after his exhaustive speech, but we on these Benches have felt that it would not he right for this important debate to pass without sonic very definitive expression of opinion coming from this Front Bench. It is not an easy debate in which to take part, and the more one knows about security and the security services, the less inclined one is to talk about them. I hope to say nothing to-day which could possibly embarrass either the Government or the security services in their most important work; and I would certainly not dream of asking for a disclosure of methods, or of any information, which might be considered to be against the public interest. A security service cannot be secure unless it is secret, and a secret service must be secret if it is to be secure.

If I may say so, having had the pleasure of working pretty closely with Mr. Hoover and with all the American authorities during some of the war years, I have a good deal of sympathy with the disinclination which he has expressed to produce his informations or files to any Committee, however responsible or distinguished. I would never be a party to asking that either House of Parliament should be given information of that kind, because one has to be exceedingly careful not to do damage to the whole system, not to discourage the supply of information which it is essential to have or, still more important, not to give information to the people who are only too anxious to get it and who can make deductions from even the most inaccurate disclosure. At the same time, Parliament has the duty to ensure, so far as it can, that all necessary steps in security are being taken. Therefore I think that perhaps there are a few things in that regard which I can usefully say to-day.

I would like to join with my noble friend Lord Vansittart in the tribute which he has paid to M.I.5, although I too am sorry that these signal names have passed into the common currency which they now occupy. But I am sure of this: that, used properly and given adequate staff and opportunity, that department and other departments associated with it will continue to give good service, such as they gave before and during both wars. But, my Lords, not only is it a question of adequate personnel; there must be the most complete co-ordination and team work. Security has to be informed by intelligence; indeed, only if there is the most complete co-ordination of intelligence and security can you really appreciate what you ate up against; and it is only by that that you can have a comprehensive policy and a comprehensive plan.

There some argument—I am not going to argue it to-day—in favour of having one single service in these matters. There is also a good deal to he said on the other side. I do rot want to argue that at all. What I want to be sure of is that we are making the existing system work to the best possible advantage. And that means the complete pooling of information; it means that the departments and sections, or whatever they are in the organisations, which are all in one way or another concerned in this wide field of intelligence and security, must not work in watertight compartments. If I may so put it, they must try not to be so secretive in the interests of their own security that they keep their secrets from one another. That is a danger to be guarded against, and when the Government answer, I should like to be assured to-day that they are satisfied—the responsibility is theirs; it cannot be anybody else's—that there is a really effective coordinating policy which ensures that the system works to the best advantage.

My Lords, to-day we are in a new and very dangerous situation. In the cold war which is now going on every effort is made to obtain information of the highest value, and information to-day, as we know, may be worth almost anything. We must, therefore, have security measures at least as thorough as any we had in the war. In some ways, our position to-day is infinitely more difficult than it was in the war. I know a great deal about what happened then. German attempts at espionage and sabotage were adequately dealt with. We started with a good deal of information, and our information was increased cumulatively, from a number of sources. Indeed, I think it is not too much to say that we were able almost to put our hands on every enemy agent, to scotch every enemy attempt, whether at espionage or sabotage, and that extremely little information of any value—if any at all—found its way to the Germans in the course of the last war. That was so because of these co-ordinated services all working admirably together. It was also due in some measure to the fact that the Germans, if they were methodical, were also one-track-minded, and it often happened that once one got to know the technique one found that the sealed pattern would continue to be followed, after the seals had been broken.

That is not the position to-day. Communism raises wholly new dangers. The machine is much more insidious in its operation, much more pervading, and there is added the extraordinary situation in which men of very great ability, for apparently no material reward but through some strange perverted sense, act in the belief that in serving the Communist cause and betraying their own country and its deepest interests, they are doing what I suppose is for them the equivalent of God's service. That is a terrible danger which we have never had to encounter before. It is also true that more and more we find that the most important Communist agents, the most dangerous Communists, are people who are not outwardly members of the Communist Party. On the contrary, they are people who carefully refrain from having an obvious connection with the Party, though no doubt their link is of the closest.

There is nothing new in that, of course. As a matter of fact, I do not think I say anything that is not tolerably well-known now when I say that when Russia was attacked and came, not so voluntarily, into the war, the Communist technique changed, and people who were Communists were told: "Do not become avowed Communists. Be the keenest workers in the factories, be Stakhanovites" (or whatever it is). "Get into positions of importance in the factory organisation, because then you will be able to stimulate the war effort for the moment, and when it is over and the victory won you will be in a position to turn against your own country." The result of following such instructions would be that the people concerned would be able to play a most effective part in disrupting what we had all hoped was going to be a united peace. There is nothing in the least new about it; that is the Communist technique which has been in operation for nearly ten years and which, as I am sure the noble Lord well knows, is going on all the time. What is the conclusion I draw? It is this. I do not ask how it is to be done, but I am sure that I speak here in the name of all decent citizens, when I say that they will not only expect but will insist upon any and every measure which can secure us against this danger.

It is a common maxim that the safety of the State is the supreme law. That is indeed true. Without that, none of our liberties is safe. You may speak of liberty of the Press, or liberty of the subject. I believe it was President Lincoln who during the American Civil War, when some of his friends complained to him that measures which he was taking were subversive of some liberties, replied to them: "Gentlemen, if you are too careful of these small liberties, you may easily lose the only liberty that matters." There are no powers which we would not give to the Government to-day in this connection. There are no effective steps in which they would not have the wholehearted practical support of the great mass of the people of this country. I hope that the Government to-day will be able to give us a firm and definite assurance that the safety of the State is to them the supreme law, and that they will unhesitatingly take steps to put it into practice in any way which may serve our common purpose. My Lords, I have the greatest pleasure in supporting this Motion.

4.49 p.m.

THE EARL OF IDDESLEIGH

My Lords, as a very commonplace back-Bencher, who has listened I think to most of the speeches which have been made by the noble Lord, Lord Vansittart, in this House, I feel that it would be candid and perhaps helpful to him if I tell him straight away just where I may be misunderstanding him and where, if I understand him correctly, I have not been convinced by what he has said. The noble Lord has detailed a large number of open, or at least very inadequately covered. Communist activities, and I gather that it is his desire that action should be taken now against those activities. My doubts arise from my fear of driving Communism underground. At the present moment it is the policy of the Communist Party—it is not for me to guess why the Party should pursue that policy—to do a good deal of boasting. The boast was made by the Communists themselves of their 2,000 school teachers. I am informed that there is good reason to believe that that figure represents a very considerable over-statement. But the curious and significant thing is that Communists are boasting of their power. If they are covering their activities to any degree at all, they are covering them most inadequately and, it seems to me, very carelessly.

I am seriously alarmed about what the Communists could do if they abandoned these comparatively open methods and took to secret penetration of the public services and of our public life. Let us remember that the Communist creed is singularly well adapted to secret penetration. Communism is a system based upon materialism. It is claimed by the Communist, and I believe the claim is admitted by others who are not Communists, that Communism is the most logical of all the materialist systems of thought. As a consequence of Communist theory, we have to face the fact that there is such a thing as Communist morality, Let us be clear what Communist morality is. It has been suggested in this debate that Communists are bad men. They are nothing of the kind. They are fanatically good men according to their own lights. Communist morality proposes a simple test for every action: Does that action contribute to world revolution or does it not? I should aid that there is a corollary to which most Communists attach great importance—namely, that only Moscow is competent to say what contributes to world revolution. That, of course, is where they consider Marshal Tito goes wrong. But on this point, the main point of Communist morality, I have every reason to believe that Tito is perfectly orthodox. No one who is a Communist can disregard this fundamental postulate: that actions must be judged by the test of whether they contribute to world revolution or not. Any other conception of morality is called "bourgeois morality" and is held by Communists to be false.

There is one disquieting consequence that we may draw from this survey of Communist morality, and that is that it is impossible (if I may glance at another century's problems) to devise any form of test act, any form of declaration, any form of oath that will exclude Communists from the public service. It cannot be done. Well-instructed, well-trained Communists with a perfectly clear conscience deceive over a long period even well-experienced investigators into their activities. I am not speaking without some evidence. In Czechoslovakia, and I think in other Eastern countries also, for some years the Communists have been sending their well-instructed young men as candidates to Roman Catholic seminaries in which our priests are trained. I understand that some of these Communist attempts to permeate the Roman Catholic clergy have been detected and the offenders expelled. When we read in the Press of the activities of a handful (and I am glad to say it is only a handful) of clergy in Czechoslovakia who have accepted the Government's church legislation, we begin to wonder whether in fact the Communist penetration of that stronghold has not been more successful than we suppose, Of course, as the noble Lord, Lord Vansittart, pointed out, it is the case that the clergy in question have been excommunicated.

The important point we must bear in mind in discussing Communist permeation is that the security service is designed primarily to deal, and did deal during the war most successfully, with enemy agents who are foreigners and with British people who are so weak and so wicked as to be willing to betray their country. The members of our security service have a different problem, indeed, in dealing with a considerable proportion of British men and women who fanatically believe in and conscientiously live up to the full creed of Communism. I have every confidence in the ability of the security service to do their proper work, but I do not know if their proper work is to fight faith, and that is what we are fighting. I wish that we were fighting the faith of Communism with more conviction. Last week the House discussed the prevalence of violent crime in this country and several noble Lords traced the origin of the outburst of violence to materialism in our homes and in our schools. There are many different types of children. I can conceive that one type of child brought up in the materialist atmosphere, the self-regarding child, the dull child, will come out of his schooldays a violent criminal. And I can conceive that another type of child, more intellectual, more altruistic, will seek, as young people ought to do, to find the logical basis for what he has learned to believe and he may become a Communist. I believe that accounts for the fact that in our universities Communism is recruiting from the intelligent type of student. Many young men and women who care for things of the mind are adopting this creed which seems to us so incredibly opposed to any of the values which we automatically accept.

I should like to conclude by quoting the words which fell last week from the noble Lord, Lord Ammon. He said: …the acts of violence and the outbreaks of hooliganism which we deplore to-day are surely the outward signs of an inward sickness of the social order. I would have your Lordships read for "acts of violence and the outbreaks of hooliganism," the words, "dangerous increase of Communism amongst students in this country." The noble Lord went on to say: We need to examine our conduct and our sense of values. We are content now to measure everything by the purely material, and we are paying for it in this way. Just as our own pound has been devalued, so has our moral and social conduct been devalued. That is bound to have its outward effect in the deplorable happenings of the present time. I believe every word of that to be true of the subject we are discussing this afternoon. I would ask the noble and learned Viscount on the Woolsack, who will doubtless call the attention of the Secretary of State for Home Affairs to our deliberations this afternoon, not to forget also to call the attention of his colleague, the Minister of Education, to what has been said.

5.2 p.m.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR (VISCOUNT JOWITT)

My Lords, the form of the Motion on the Order Paper, to which I have to address my remarks, is in two parts. The first is: To call attention to the extent of Communist infiltration into the public service and other important branches of public life in this country; and the second is: And to move to resolve that continuous and resolute precautions are necessary for public security. If I put the Motion in that form it would be rather meaningless, because the Motion would be simply: That continuous and resolute precautions are necessary for public security. I gather that the noble Lord, Lord Vansittart, would be agreeable to having the wording of the Motion altered to the form which I will now read, to which I have no objection at all: Moved to resolve that, in view of the extent of Communist infiltration into the public service and other important branches of public life in this country, continuous and resolute precautions are necessary for public security.

LORD VANSITTART

I fully accept that.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

I felt sure that would meet the wishes of the noble Lord. I shall in due course proceed to put the Motion to your Lordships in its new form, and I shall speak to it as though it had that form at the present moment. In that form it is plainly right that I should accept the Motion, and I have no hesitation in doing so. At the same time, as the noble Viscount, Lord Swinton, said, this is by no means an easy debate for anybody speaking on behalf of the Government. First of all, I must be careful what I say; and, secondly, I feel we have to avoid the traditional dangers of Scylla and Charybdis. I do not want to convey to your Lordships that this is not a serious matter, or that there is any justification for complacency, because I do not think there is. On the other hand, I do not want to convey to the public at large, and to our friends overseas in particular, the idea that we are riddled with Communism, and that a secret given to us will not be kept secret. Therefore, I want to try to consider the problem without going to either of those two extremes, and to tell your Lordships the point of view from which I feel we must tackle it.

In the first place, I am not sure that I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Vansittart, in saying that this is really a question of either courage or cowardice. The noble Lord will remember that "discretion is the better part of valour," and in saying that, whatever steps we take we must not lose sight of discretion. I feel certain the noble Lord will agree with me. In trying to deal with the evil—for evil it is, in my view, and in the view of the Government—we must not fall into the error of adopting those very methods which we condemn in totalitarian countries. The noble Lord, Lord Milverton, speaking from the Liberal Benches, indicated, if I understood him rightly, that he advocated the adoption of some system of Press censorship. It seems to me that that would be a very high price to pay, and I confess that, speaking for myself, I should be entirely opposed to it. I do not believe it is on those lines that we can deal with this menace. I have always thought—and I expect most of your Lordships have—that the use of that particular corner of Hyde Park as a place where orators may speak is a splendid invention. I have no doubt if you listened to the speakers that you would hear all sorts of hot air blown off, and stupid things said. But I think it is probably better that the hot air should be blown off rather than bottled up. If we can possibly avoid it, let us never try to deal with this evil by adopting illiberal methods, which are entirely opposed to our tradition. In spite of that, I do not think the noble Lord, Lord Vansittart, asked us to do so.

VISCOUNT SAMUEL

Nor did my noble friend Lord Milverton, so far as this country is concerned. As I understood it, his argument was that there is a war proceeding in Malaya, aid when there are warlike operations the Government have to he careful what kind of propaganda they allow in the country.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

That, of course, is obviously true. It may well be that a different situation prevails in Malaya. However, the quotations which the noble Lord, Lord Milverton, gave were from the Daily Worker, published in London. I feel that even the Daily Worker published in London should be allowed to publish what it wants to publish, always provided that it does not break the law. If it incites to violence, or to murder, or anything of that sort, it can be dealt with. If it does not, I confess that should be very sorry to see it treated otherwise until it was demonstrated to me beyond all argument that such action was necessary. The situation might get so serious—it might get almost to a state of war, as in Malaya—that we should have to take drastic steps.

I feel the same way about Dr. Hewlett Johnson. As a humble member of the Church of England, I confess that I find his work and his speeches very unpalatable. At the same time, though I dislike and disapprove of them, I am glad he has the right to voice his view, because I think it is important that we should not prevent free expression of opinion. I do not believe that by preventing free expression of opinion we eradicate the menace which we want to eradicate. It is probably better that these things should be said, provided always that they are within the ambit of the law. You cannot cast out Satan by means of Beelzebub. I feel that we had better stick, so far as we can, to our traditional methods, however difficult it may be. Your Lordships remember those lines from Meredith's Modern Love. He says this: O, Raphael, when men the fiend do fight They conquer not upon such easy terms Half serpent in the struggle grow these worms. Whatever else we do in fighting this menace, for menace it is, let us be careful not to grow half serpent in our struggles.

The British are a very unaccountable and peculiar people. You can get all sorts of things done by them if you get them to do it themselves. You can get very little done if you try to compel them to do it. I will give your Lordships an illustration of what I mean. The noble Lord, Lord Vansittart, touched lightly upon the trade union situation and the extent of infiltration in the trade unions. He very rightly said: "Do not let us be too cock-a-hoop because we have got rid of the Communists from the House of Commons. They may easily go somewhere else where they may do much more harm than in another place." On the other hand, if we had tried to take measures to purge the trade unions from outside I do not doubt that we should have aroused immense resistance and that we should have brought about a tremendous accretion to the forces of Communism, because that is not the British way of doing things. In this country if people get the impression that somebody is not having a fair deal that man has all their sympathy. It used to be notorious at the Bar that if a Judge summed up a case too strongly in favour of one side, so that the jury thought the other side was not having a fair crack of the whip, they would almost certainly decide in favour of the man against whom the Judge summed up. Therefore, we must be careful to let these things be done from within.

I am not going to trouble your Lordships with facts and figures. No doubt the noble Lord, Lord Vansittart, will have seen them, because they are published. I am bound to say, however, that the activity of many of the trade unions in taking steps to rid themselves of Communist influence has been very marked, very commendable and very praiseworthy. Something was said about driving. Communism underground, and I think there is a good deal of force in that. Communists in this respect are like that harmless animal the rabbit, which spends half its life underground and half browsing on the verdant pasture outside. I suppose it is true to say that the more you stop him getting to the pasture the more activities he pursues underground, and so perhaps it is better that he should be seen.

What about the numbers? Do not let us have an exaggerated idea of these. The numbers of the Communist Party in this country have remained fairly constant for a good many years past. They are approximately 40,000, and there is no reason to think that they are increasing. Of course, it is a fact that the edge is not clearly defined. I am by no means saying that there are not fellow-travellers, as we call them, in addition to that 40,000; and indeed it may be that some of the most dangerous people are fellow-travellers. But there is no sign that Communism as a whole is increasing its hold on the people of this country.

VISCOUNT ELIBANK

There were 97,000 people who voted for the Communists during the General Election. The figure of 40,000 was believed to be the number of the Party, but 97,000 actually voted.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

I have no doubt that the noble Viscount's figurs are right, but that is about three per thousand of the electors. That shows that, hanging on to the 40,000, there are undoubtedly some fellow-travellers, and some dupes who honestly think that things would be better for them if we had a Communist Government.

The noble Lord, Lord Vansittart, mentioned the question of the broadcast. The decision taken was no doubt a difficult one to make, but it was in fact arrived at by common consent of all Parties. All the Parties agreed that the matter should be decided in the way that it was, and so it would not be fair to blame the B.B.C. for it; and still less to suggest that it was due to some underground influence. It was thought right that it should be done and I am bound to say that, having listened to the particular broadcast, it seemed to me a wise decision because I cannot conceive anybody on the strength of that broadcast voting for the Communists—in fact I can conceive a good many people not casting their votes for them who might otherwise have done so.

I cannot go into details, but I can assure your Lordships that the services we have—which I am not going to mention —are taking all possible steps to counter subversive organisations and that we shall not permit any idea of false economy to allow those services to run down, or to prevent our recruiting the right sort of people for them. Having examined these services we have come to the conclusion that they are working very well. Of course, operating in a free country, they do so under the restraint of the law: they are not, as they are in a totalitarian country, above the law. We have not a vast network like the Gestapo, yet we have this great asset—we have public opinion on our side, and that is the greatest help that a police force or any security service can have. We invite that help, and we ask for the co-operation of public opinion. The noble Lord, Lord Vansittart, did not ask for any formal inquiry—and if he had I should have refused it—but if he will convey to me, or, if he likes, convey direct to those to whom I would pass the matter on, the information which he has; or if any other noble Lord or any other person (for all members of His Majesty's lieges are in the same position) does the same, all that information will he carefully examined and screened, and the appropriate action, whatever it may be, will be taken.

It is right that I should say that I believe our services are very efficient. They have certainly proved themselves efficient in the two wars. In the last warª and this illustrates how misleading it is to judge merely by the number of prosecutions brought—we dealt with a hundred persons, but we brought prosecutions in only fourteen cases. There are, of course, many other less spectacular ways of proceeding. We refuse to allow people to land in this country; we deport undesirable foreigners; we can deprive people, if they have become naturalised, of their British nationality; we can say that any diplomat is persona non grata; with regard to British subjects, particularly those employed in Government offices, we can of course say that they shall not be employed in any position where they have any sort of access to any secret information. We have a right to demand that. It is not that we want to interfere with political opinion, but we may claim that no one should allow his political opinions to influence the work he does in a public capacity: if he does, then he is unfit for public office. We do not seek to proscribe opinions, but we do lay down rules for public offices. The principle we adopt is to ensure that no civil servant, industrial or non-industrial, who is known to be a member of the Communist or Fascist Parties, or to be associated with them in such a way as to raise legitimate doubts about his or her reliability, is employed in connection with work the nature of which is vital to the security of the State. We have found before now that these men do regard some other loyalty—for reasons which are not apparent to me—as superior to the loyalty which they owe to their country.

Each Minister is responsible for classifying the work of his Department as "Secret" or "Non-secret." I cannot tell your Lordships about the methods employed to detect Communists—and this applies equally to Fascists—but the procedure is that individuals are from time to time notified to the Minister concerned as being suspected Communists or Fascists, and the Minister then looks into the matter and sees whether there is a prima facie case. If he thinks there is a prima facie case he gives the individual all the information he can, consistent with security requirements; and then the suspect is suspended From duty and sent on special leave with pay. If he admits the charge, then we try to find him suitable employment on non-secret work, either in that Department or in some other, and if no such employment can be found he is dismissed. If he denies the charge he has a right to go before three Advisers who decide whether or not the charge is substantiated. They report to the Minister, who may receive or reject their findings—that, of course, is entirely his responsibility.

In order that your Lordships may have some sort of idea of the number of cases concerned, perhaps I may be allowed to say that the number involved is in all seventy-four. I am lot sure for what period this is: I think it is the last two and a half years. The figure of seventy-four includes both Communists and Fascists. So far as lie B.B.C. is concerned, of course the responsibility for appointing and removing their servants is entirely within the discretion of the Corporation. I am quite confident that if the Corporation thought the political views of any of their servants were responsible for swaying his judgment or influencing his impartiality they would not hesitate to get rid of him.

The noble Lord suggested that we should drastically reduce the strength of our diplomatic missions in countries within the Soviet orbit and impose corresponding reductions here on missions from those countries. That raises, as I am sure the noble Lord will agree, a very important and very large question which is perhaps hardly germane to the subject matter of this debate. He gave the reasons for and against. I think one of the reasons for maintaining our present missions is that the presence of these missions is a tangible proof of our readiness to discuss any matters on which there may be a prospect of reaching an agreement. Unlike the Communists, we do not believe that the world is for ever necessarily to be divided into two irreconcilable camps. Moreover, our political and commercial interests as a world Power demand representation in all independent States. Our missions in the Soviet orbit still play a useful part in transacting normal official business, which continues despite the present political estrangement.

There is only one other matter to which I should like to refer and that is the matter of Dr. Fuchs. And in these words I do not so much address the noble Lord as I do those others, either in this country or outside, who may hear my words. The noble Lord made one mistake in his speech, on which I desire to take him to task. He referred to the case of Dr. Fuchs as though it were a slip-up on the part of the security services.

LORD VANSITTART

I beg the noble and learned Viscount's pardon, but I said exactly the contrary. I said it would be a very great mistake to look at the affair of Dr. Fuchs as if it were a simple slip on the part of the security services. I said that what was needed was a fundamental change in the attitude of this country. I made the distinction very clearly.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

I must have misheard the noble Lord. I was afraid he thought that in this particular matter there had been some error of judgment, and it is because that has been suggested that I want to deal with the matter. I think, as a matter of fact, that the handling of this case reflects the greatest credit on our security services. What were the facts? In the early autumn of last year we received from the American security authorities (with whom, I am happy to say, our authorities maintain the closest relationship) a report which suggested that there had been a leakage of information connected with the work of a British scientific mission in the United States. It did not point to any one individual; it did no more than provide an opening for inquiry. Within six months of receiving this information our security service had not only discovered Dr. Fuchs as the source of the leakage but had completely uncovered his long career of espionage, and had brought him successfully to conviction at the Old Bailey.

It may be asked why Fuchs was not detected earlier. Look at the facts, my Lords. Fuchs had recruited himself. There was no time when his masters were tempting or testing him; there was no period when he was undergoing training in conspiratorial technique during which our security services might have had an opportunity of detecting him. When he first offered himself to the Russians he had all the accomplishments of an experienced spy; and for two years of his career he was in the United States, beyond the reach of our counter-espionage services. And he has admitted that for another whole year, 1946, he had made no contact at all with his Russian masters or their intermediaries. Knowing as I do the elaborate technique which this brilliant man employed, I think it fair to say that his detection, certainly in a democratically-governed country, was an exceedingly difficult task; and to bring the crime home to him was a really brilliant achievement.

Why, it may be asked, was he asked to undertake this highly secret work? May I deal with two assertions which have been made, the first in the Press and the second at the Old Bailey by counsel for the defence? It has been said in the Press that at the time of the revelations of Soviet espionage in Canada in 1946, the Canadian authorities passed to our security services a copy of a diary containing the name of Dr. Fuchs from which it might have been deduced that Dr. Fuchs was a spy or was associating with spies. There is no truth whatsoever in that statement. Our security services received T10 such information at any time from either the Canadian or American authorities.

The second assertion was made by counsel for the defence, and was promptly denied by the Attorney-General. Mr. Curtis Bennett said of Dr. Fuchs: He was a known Communist who never deceived or pretended he was anything else. As the Attorney-General at once pointed out, Dr. Fuchs, from the time he entered this country in 1933, was never a Communist in the accepted sense of the word —that is to say, he was never a member of the British Communist Party; he did not associate with members of the British Communist Party, nor in any other way did he even appear to have any connection with it. There was nothing in his political record after he entered the United Kingdom which would have justified his employers or the security services or his own friends in describing him as a Communist. What was known about him in the slimmer of 1941, when his services were first sought by the Ministry of Aircraft Production, was this. They had been aware of his case since August, 1934, for, as they knew, it was in that month that the Gestapo had objected to the issue to Dr. Fuchs of a new German passport on the ground that he had been an active anti-Nazi and a Communist in 1932 to 1933. I need hardly tell your Lordships that that allegation was commonly made by the Gestapo, because from their point of view there was no distinction between being an anti-Nazi and a Communist. In dozens of cases where that accusation had been made we found it to be wholly inaccurate. We knew that in his private views he had always been to the Left—he had been a member of the Social Democratic Party in Germany—but he had taken no active part in political activities nor come to the unfavourable notice of the police throughout the whole of his eight years here. He spent these years, between the ages of 22 and 30, first at Bristol and later at Edinburgh University.

It was in response to the highest possible recommendation from Edinburgh University that after six months he was released from internment under the 1940 General Order covering enemy aliens. The work for which he was required in August, 1941, was work of the greatest importance to the war effort against Germany. It was decided that no other person was available with such suitable qualifications. In accordance with the normal practice, the security service presented to the responsible employing Department the adverse information then available and set against it the lack of confirmatory evidence obtained cloning his residence in this country. The employing Department decided that Fuchs should be employed. Thereafter his case was kept under periodic and careful review, but in spite of that nothing was discovered which caused him to be regarded throughout his eight years" service as anything other than an exceptionally trustworthy officer.

I have mentioned these facts, not because I misunderstood the noble Lord, nor in answer to him, but because I thought it right that it should he plainly understood, both here and abroad, that so far from our security services having anything whatever to apologise for in this case—and I myself haw gone into everything—I am quite satisfied that they have every reason to be proud of the work they did and the way in which they did it. There is no reason whatever to fear that secrets which are entrusted to our officers are the least likely to be broken. A case of that sort might occur anywhere, whatever system is employed, if the man concerned is clever and wicked enough.

For the rest, I apologise to the noble Lord, Lord Vansittart, for that digression —he will understand perfectly well why I have made it. His object in bringing this Motion, as I understand it, was to make people aware of the danger that confronts them to-day—not to alarm them but to wake them out of any complacent slumber which they might be in. I think re is justified in some of the things he has said and I have no doubt that he has wakened many people out of slumber, complacence; or otherwise. I hope he will be satisfied with me when I say that I think it is right that there should be no complacency about this matter, and when I invite him and any of your Lordships to place at the disposal of the authorities any information which comes to them in the course of their daily life. That information will be most carefully looked at and scanned to see whether we should take further steps than we are taking to-day. That is all I have to say—no complacency; and, on the other hand, no panic, no hysteria. I am not saying that the noble Lord has it for a moment, but, for goodness' sake, do not let anybody think that this country is riddled with Communism. I strongly suspect that of all the countries in the world thus affected, this country is happily more free from Communism than any other.

5.38 p.m.

LORD VANSITTART

My Lords, I shall be very brief. I have rather a guilty conscience in that, in the first instance, I addressed your Lordships' House for rather longer than I had intended. There are only one or two points I wish to take up. I am grateful that the noble Lord, Lord Milverton, raised the point about the British Council, because I feel that their activities need supervision and vigilance just as much as those of the B.B.C. with which I am also not satisfied. In regard to what the right reverend Prelate said about the sense in which we use the word "Communism," I am not interested in what Communism might have been but in what it is. When I use the word "Communism," I simply mean "abominable cruelty." I was very glad to hear him say, as I understood, that he considered that conduct entirely incompatible with Christianity. I valued that contribution very much indeed. I am most grateful also for the support of the noble Viscount, Lord Swinton.

As for what the noble Earl, Lord Iddesleigh, said about driving Communism underground (and I think he was followed in that regard by the Lord Chancellor), I would beg him not to attach too much importance to that argument, because it is largely fallacious. Communists are always underground just as much as it suits them, and what most democratic countries are doing now is achieving the miracle of allowing them to be both underground and above ground as it suits them. "Let them have the best of both worlds and us the worst." I shall not be afraid of their going a little more underground if we have an efficient Intelligence Service, as I am sure we shall have. I hope that that fallacious argument will not have deflected any noble Lord from considering effective measures.

The noble and learned Viscount on the Woolsack said a few words about the Dean of Canterbury, and in that I do not find myself in entire agreement with him. He said: "Let him have free speech." To that I have no objection at all. I do not in the least mind the Dean on the soapbox; but I object to him in the pulpit. I only wish to Heaven that in our Church we had some means of ridding ourselves of these, I will not say "troublesome priests," but rather disgraceful priests. Perhaps some such power will be taken to do so. But even if we get rid of the Dean as a priest, I do not for a moment suppose that that would check his inexhaustible "gab" at the Hyde Park Corner or somewhere like that—nor do I want to stop that.

I agree fully with what the noble and learned Viscount said about the trade unions. The effort that they have made is exceedingly creditable. I think it would be unwise on his part, however, to argue too much on the basis of figures. Figures are extremely fallacious. He mentioned 40,000 fully paid up members in the Communist Party. I suppose nobody imagines for a minute that the Daily Worker is run by 40,000 "bobs or half-crowns, or anything like that; it requires much more than that. I am afraid that Communist instructions are largely, as the noble Viscount, Lord Swinton, said, to remain underground. Those instructions still remain very largely in regard to members in the public service. So do not argue from figures; you will go wrong if you do. Let me give an example in another sphere. If there were an Election tomorrow in France on anything like a sensible electoral basis, the Communists would probably lose a hundred seats, and yet they would still be immensely powerful in the country. It is a slightly misleading argument, and I wanted to issue a warning against it.

For the rest, the noble and learned Viscount on the Woolsack seemed to attach a little more confidence to the good judgment of the management of the B.B.C. than I do. He said that if there were any Communist influences there he was sure that the B.B.C. would clear them out. I am afraid I do not think so. I have little further comment to make, except that do want an investigation into the present state of the public service. Naturally I shall be ready, as I have said, to help in that inquiry. I hope that this debate will serve to implant in the minds of both the B.B.C. and the British Council saner and healthier views. I do not wish to detain your Lordships any longer, having already trespassed for so long on your patience. Therefore I venture now to withdraw my Motion and to move it in its amended form.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

Moved, That in view of the extent of Communist infiltration into the public service and other important branches of public life in this country, continuous and resolute precautions are necessary for public security.—(Lord Vansittart.)

On Question, Motion agreed to.