§ 4.50 p.m.
§ LORD STRABOLGI rose to ask Her Majesty's Government whether visas have been refused to a party of Polish lawyers, including two Supreme Court judges, who proposed to visit this country to study British judicial methods and practice; and, if so, what are the reasons for this refusal; and to move for Papers. The noble Lord said: My Lords, the subject of my Motion arose out of a notice in the newspapers. I want the noble Earl who, I understand, is to reply for the Government to realise that I knew nothing whatever about the matter, and know very little now except what has appeared in the Press. But that, I believe, is sufficiently disturbing to warrant the inquiry I am making. Before I put the Motion on the Paper I checked up on the bare facts, as announced in the Press, with the Polish Embassy and with the Haldane Society, who I understood had invited these eminent Polish lawyers to visit this country. I may also say, in passing, that, not being a lawyer myself, I do not know very much about the Haldane Society, except that a number of my colleagues in this House and in another place are members of it. Apparently the Haldane Society proposed an exchange of visits between parties of British and Polish lawyers, and the Poles were to come here first. They consisted only of three people, two of whom, I understand, are judges of the Supreme Court of Poland, while the third is a 561 professor of jaw at the University of Warsaw. They were to come here purely and solely to study the legal practice and procedure in this country, of which we are all so proud. I should have thought that the more people from abroad who came to see our legal system in action the better.
§ I have since had sent to me the programme that was arranged for them, and I find that they were to take part in three meetings. The first was to consider marriage and the family in Polish law; the second the industrial law of Poland; and the third (I wish the noble Earl, Lord Howe, were here at the moment, and I am sorry he has left the Chamber) Polish criminal law and the treatment of offenders. There is nothing very revolutionary about those matters. Then they were to take part in a discussion on what is to some people a most exciting subject, the Rent Acts—repairs and rents—between the Vice-Chairman of the National Federation of Property Owners and the Leader of the Opposition on the St. Marylebone Borough Council. And I am sure that it would have been a most interesting and illuminating discussion. Apparently they were not invited to come here to discuss peace. I stress that, because the word "peace" seems to have become an obscene word in certain quarters. Anyone who desires to discuss peace is, apparently, at once suspect; and any one who proposes to come for a conference to discuss peace is automatically refused admission to this country. Any one who wants to go abroad to discuss peace is also refused permission to leave this country—thus breaking one of the leading provisions of Magna Carta. Incidentally, I understand that a social party had been arranged for these eminent Polish lawyers to meet a number of leading lawyers in this country, and the note which I have mentions that the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack was one of those who were to be invited to meet these two judges of the supreme Court of Poland and the professor of law of the University of Warsaw. These people were refused visas to enter this country, and I want to know why. The reason for my wanting to know why is this. We have a traditional friendship with Poland of long standing. In the two terrible world wars of our generation they were on our side; there has always been a community of interest and sympathy be- 562 tween the Polish and the British peoples—incidentally, we do a considerable trade with Poland—and, so far as I know, except for the unfortunate affair of a Polish tanker which was requisitioned after being built in this country, there have been no troubles between the two Governments and countries.
§ People are always complaining—I complain myself—about restrictions on travel to countries beyond what is known as the Iron Curtain. I think it is a pity that there should be any restrictions on travel of any kind. But why should we copy this example and prevent people from coming here—people who, so far as I know, are otherwise respectable? There may be special reasons for it, and if so, perhaps we can be given them. If there is a strong case for refusing admission to these people, in that they might endanger the stability of the realm here, we can accept that. But surely our policy to-day should be, so far as we can, to encourage the freeing of restrictions on travel and the exchange of visits and views between different peoples. I believe that is the way to get understanding between the peoples of the world; and if you get understanding between the peoples of the world, then you may preserve the peace of the world. I suggest that it is a retrograde step to use your power of refusing visas to prevent visits of this kind, unless, as I say, there are special reasons which make it embarrassing to allow these three lawyers into this country, in which case, of course, we can accept the refusal. Otherwise, I hope that the matter will be reconsidered. It is in the hope, first of all, of getting information, and secondly, if everything is all right, of having the position considered further, that I have raised this matter to-day. I beg to move for Papers.
§ 4.55 p.m.
§ THE EARL OF SELKIRKMy Lords, the noble Lord has raised this question, and if I interpret aright what is in his mind the thing that is worrying him most is that there should be any interruption in what I might describe as understanding from personal contact. I should like at the outset to assure the noble Lord that my right honourable friend the Home Secretary is very glad that any man should come to this country on legitimate business. That is a principle which I think has been continued with no great 563 alteration since the change of Government took place. But, in fact, not only are these three lawyers, of whom the noble Lord says two are judges, members of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers, but they are high officers of that organisation. One is a vice-chairman, and two are council members. The International Association of Democratic Lawyers is closely associated with the World Peace Movement. It is true that in some senses there is probably no greater crime which the Communists have committed than to degrade the word "peace"—a matter to which the noble Lord referred in his remarks.
But, if I may emphasise the point, there is no great difference of opinion between us on that subject, on whichever side of the House we sit. If I may, I should like to quote what Mr. de Freitas said on this subject in the other place in July 1951 (OFFICIAL REPORT, Commons, Vol. 490, Col. 1205). He described the World Peace Movement
as an instrument of Soviet foreign policy designed to stir up resistance to the Western Defence Agreement and the Atlantic pact. It is no more than a fifth column movement run from Moscow. The members owe allegiance to Russia and not to their own countries.I could quote what Mr. Attlee said on the subject with perhaps even more force. I would emphasise that there is no great difference of opinion on either side in this respect. In September, 1951, the International Association of Democratic Lawyers passed a resolution in support of the World Peace Council's appeal for a five-Power Pact. Furthermore, in February of this year they sent a commission to Korea to investigate the so-called American use of bacteriological weapons. As a result of that visit, the commission made allegations about the use of germ warfare by the Americans, and those allegations have received a great deal of publicity in the Communist Press and radio.I think, therefore, that the nature of the organisation is clear; and I want to emphasise that it is the nature of the organisation to which exception is taken. Frankly, Her Majesty's Government are not prepared to allow members of front organisations of the World Peace Movement to visit this country for purposes of carrying out their propaganda. The proposed visit of these three lawyers is a 564 case in point. The excuse for the visit is an invitation by the Haldane Society, but the three lawyers concerned are leading members of a Communist-dominated organisation, whose primary concern is the development of the current themes of Soviet propaganda under the guise of concern with legal matters. Her Majesty's Government see no reason why they should facilitate that propaganda.
There is one other point that I should like to make, and it is this. The Home Secretary does not want to cut off cultural links with the other side of the Iron Curtain, and records show that in point of fact a great many people are coming over. I will quote only one or two instances of people who have come over in the last six months to take part in congresses or discussions of any kind. In the ordinary way there is not a great deal of difficulty in that. For instance, in the last six months, representatives have come over to attend conferences of the National Union of Teachers, the Women's Co-operative Guild, the Eighty-Third Conference of the Co-operative Union—
§ THE EARL OF SELKIRKI shall have to look that up, but they come from behind the Iron Curtain.
LORD STRABOLGIAs long as the noble Earl says they are from behind the Iron Curtain, that is sufficient.
§ THE EARL OF SELKIRKI cannot remember off-hand whether they are Polish or Russian, but they come from behind the Iron Curtain. I hope that I can give the noble Lord an answer before I sit down. In point of fact, he may have noticed a statement which was made recently that six Russians were coming over at the invitation of the British Soviet Friendship Society, in which visa regulations were relaxed especially to enable them to be over here in time.
§ LORD HENDERSONMay I ask whether these people were not expected last week, but have not left because the arrangements had not been made on their side of the Iron Curtain?
§ THE EARL OF SELKIRKThat is correct. I was not going to refer to that 565 matter, but as the noble Lord has brought it up I must agree. We endeavoured to expedite the visas, and when we had done so the people were not given permission from the other side of the Iron Curtain to leave. We are endeavouring to allow people who are on legitimate business to come over here. I understand that visas have now been granted, and that they will come over in due course.
§ LORD CHORLEYI do not follow the noble Earl. Who are likely to come over in due course?
§ THE EARL OF SELKIRKI mentioned a number of different people who had come over in the course of the last six months—I am not referring to these lawyers. A number of different invitations have been issued, and representatives from behind the Iron Curtain have been allowed to attend, or have come over to attend, organisations of one sort or another. I read out a number, and I am quite prepared to read more if the noble Lord wants them.
§ LORD CHORLEYThe noble Lord said that there had been difficulties on their own side in the case of certain people. He understood that those difficulties had now been cleared up. I do not follow to whom the noble Earl is referring.
§ THE EARL OF SELKIRKThe noble Lord was not following the debate quite closely enough. We were referring at that time to an invitation extended by the British-Soviet Friendship Society to six Russian singers to come over here and take part in a concert. I am given to understand that the concert should have taken place last Saturday, but that visas were not issued in time by the Russian authorities to permit them to come over. Visas have now been issued, and I am given to understand that the singers will come over. This has nothing whatever to do with the subject of the noble Lord's Motion, and I apologise.
We are not anxious to help at all in this propaganda, which exploits the love of peace and which depends for its success on the ignorance and credulity of non-Communists. It is quite true that, to a great extent, the propaganda is not successful, but we do not see any reason why we should help it in any way at all. In point of fact, except for a few 566 crypto-Communists or fellow travellers, it is only the very credulous or very ignorant among the genuine peace lovers who have failed to see that it is an instrument, not of peace but of political warfare. I have endeavoured to answer the noble Lord's case as fairly as I can, and I think I may say that there has not been any alteration in the broad approach to this problem since the change of Government. I hope that I have satisfied the noble Lord.
§ 5.5 p.m.
§ LORD CHORLEYMy Lords, I am afraid that I cannot regard the noble Earl's explanation on this matter as altogether satisfactory. He is advancing what appears to me to be an exceedingly dangerous argument; that because certain people who have applied for visas to visit this country happen to be associated with a particular organisation which the Government do not like, therefore they are to be refused visas. It is true, of course, that the Society of Democratic Lawyers is very much in the hands of Communists, but it is not true to say that it exists for the purpose of propaganding the Russian—
§ THE EARL OF SELKIRKMay I ask what body the noble Lord is speaking about? I could not hear what he said.
§ LORD CHORLEYThe International Society of Democratic Lawyers. That Society existed long before the peace movement to which the noble Earl has referred in such strong terms. I was myself a vice-president of it at one time, and a learned friend of mine, who is a Member or the other House, was another vice-president. Its president for many years was M. René Cassin who is the President of the Conseil d'Etat, the Supreme Administrative Tribunal in France, who is a very well known Liberal and who is as far away from Communism as the noble Earl is himself. It does not follow that all organisations in which there are many Communists are completely Communist organisations. Some people who still retain a good amount of Liberalism in their composition think the world will be got back on to an even keel only if some of us try from time to time to treat the Communists as if they were human beings.
It seems to me that it is altogether a wrong policy to identify these three 567 eminent Polish lawyers with the Russian propaganda to which the noble Earl has referred. The Haldane Society is not a Communist organisation at all. Its chairman at the present time is one of the joint secretaries of the International Law Association. Its president of the past was the late Sir Stafford Cripps. It is a Society of which I have been a member since it was formed in commemoration of the great work of the late Lord Haldane in the first Labour Government. These Polish lawyers have been invited over here to discuss legal questions which are of great interest to lawyers, and it is of great interest and importance to lawyers in this country that they should have some knowledge of the way in which these problems—which, after all, are common to all countries—are being tackled in countries on the other side of the Iron Curtain.
A few years ago, a number of Polish lawyers were invited to visit this country—I believe by the Haldane Society. They came, and the discussions with them were very fruitful. They were just as much Communists as the three eminent lawyers who are proposing to come on this occasion—or I presume that they are. I myself was present at an interesting meeting which was presided over by the Attorney-General of that time, Sir Hartley Shawcross, at which I had the pleasure of hearing more than one of these Polish lawyers (who spoke excellent French) discuss legal problems in a very liberal and sensible way. We derived benefit from what they said, and I am quite sure that they derived a good deal of benefit from what they heard about the way in which we deal with legal problems in this country.
I suggest that these matters are matters which ought not to be treated in the way in which the Government are evidently treating the present application for visas. It is important that these obstructions, these barriers, should be broken down. I feel strongly about this method, which is beginning to develop all over the civilised world, of refusing visas to people because they happen to be members of some organisation to which the Government take exception and to whom there is no other objection. If the noble Earl had said, "We object to their coming for such and such a reason"—which is a perfectly good reason—"and 568 therefore we refuse a visa," I should have understood it. But to say that they must be refused visas because they belong to the Democratic Lawyers seems to me to be no reason at all. I hope the noble Earl will take this matter back and that Her Majesty's Government will consider it again, for this seems to me to be a most retrograde step.
§ 5.11 p.m.
§ VISCOUNT STANSGATEMy Lords, I was glad to hear the noble Earl say that it was the policy of the Government to encourage international contact. If that were not so, then the future would be even blacker than it looks at present. I understand also the need not to permit anyone to come here who is likely to endanger the military security of this country. That would be folly and should be prevented. But between these two points come these lawyers. I should like the noble Earl to define exactly what his reason is. Does he allege that they are coming here to promote propaganda to undermine the military security of this country, or that they themselves are associated with something which in one of its aspects may be thought to aim at that object? If he says that, if he makes it so wide, then obviously it is folly to have any Eastern Europe Communists at all, except Yugoslavs, because they are all linked with the Kremlin. If the noble Earl is, in fact, making that general observation, I think it is a matter which deserves wide and deep examination, because this country has very sound Liberal beliefs. If the noble Earl says that, the matter should certainly be pursued by my noble friend. If, on the other hand, the noble Earl can tell us that any of these persons are coming here to undermine, in some subtle way, the security of this country, then I am certain that the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, will not wish to pursue the matter.
§ THE EARL OF SELKIRKMy Lords, I have endeavoured to fulfil the task which the noble Lord asked of me and I can only think that the noble Lord did not quite understand me. I must conclude, therefore, that I was extremely indistinct. The first point I tried to make is that these three lawyers are prominent members of an organisation closely linked with the Peace Movement. I will read what Mr. Attlee says about the Peace 569 Movement, because it is essential to get this thing in its framework. He says:
This Committee"—that is, the British Peace Committee—is an offshoot from the World Peace Movement, an instrument of the Politbureau. More than 90 per cent. of the members of its permanent committee are known to be Communists or fellow travellers. What are their aims? They are very simple. They are to try to paralyse the efforts of the democracies to arm themselves. They seek to persuade the workers of the democracies to refuse to manufacture arms. At the very same time they urge the workers of totalitarian States to increase their efforts in munition production.We consider that the International Organisation of Democratic Lawyers, whatever it may have been on former occasions, is now closely linked with and is in fact part of that organisation and that these men who are coming here are coming as officials of that organisation. That is as we see it. We say definitely that their visit can only be for propaganda—propaganda which, in point of fact, is one of the instruments used by the Foreign Office in Moscow to further their foreign policy—and that they are working on behalf of the Soviet Union.
§ VISCOUNT STANSGATEThe noble Earl knows that we permitted Mr. Ehrenberg to come over here and address a meeting in Trafalgar Square. It was a very wise thing to do, because Mr. Ehrenberg went back a disappointed man.
LORD STRABOLGII think the noble Viscount, Lord Stansgate, has put his finger on the spot. I did not know what a train of explosives I was starting when I put down this Question. After all, there are 1,200,000,000 people behind the Iron Curtain—more than half the population of the world—and they are all nominally Communists. If they are professional men, they belong to their professional organisations, whether they be lawyers or doctors or members of any other profession, and so they belong to what is described by Her Majesty's Government as a "subversive organisation" because these professional associations are under Communist auspices.
§ THE EARL OF SELKIRKWhat I am saying is that this body is an active instrument of foreign policy of a certain character—
§ VISCOUNT STANSGATEMr. Ehrenberg, in his speech, urged the Peace Movement, and he told me afterwards he 570 had never been so disappointed, because he thought his visit had been a "flop"
§ 5.17 p.m.
LORD STRABOLGIAll these people who come over as Communists and those who are hoping to come as our guests have probably signed the peace pledge. They probably could not help it, as I members of the various bodies.
Let us look at the matter from another angle. These people were invited here as members of the Association of Polish Lawyers. Now it is dug out, apparently from the Embassy at Warsaw by some smart person, that they are also members of this International Society of Democratic Lawyers, and because they are members of one of the affiliated bodies to the so-called World Peace Movement they are not allowed to come here. That is the curious network which has led to the refusal of visas to these persons, who are high members of the profession—two of them, I believe, Judges of the Supreme Court and the other a Professor of Law at Warsaw University. I am sorry indeed that the noble Earl should have had to make the reply he did. The British Government and the British security machine are being made to look utterly ridiculous. To think that these three people could do any harm in this country is absurd. They are coming here on a set programme of legal studies; and I should have thought that the more people who came here to study our legal system, the better, and the more good it would do. I regret the reasons put forward by the noble Earl. I am sorry that the Government are not willing to reconsider the matter. In the circumstances, I beg leave to withdraw my motion.
§ Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.