Lords Sitting of 22 November 1955

Preamble
The House met at half past two of the clock, The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Prayers

  BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
  2.35 p.m.
  THE LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL (THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY): My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.
  Moved, That Standing Order No. 41 he considered in order to its being dispensed with for the purpose of passing the Post Office and Telegraph (Money) Bill and the Rural Water Supplies and Sewerage Bill through their remaining stages, and, in the event of a Message being received from the Commons that they have passed the Validation of Elections (No. 3) Bill, for the purpose of passing that Bill through all its stages.—(The Marquess of Salisbury.)
  On Question, Motion agreed to, and ordered accordingly.

FOOD AND DRUGS BILL [H.L.]
Returned from the Commons, agreed to.

VALIDATION OF ELECTIONS (No. 3) BILL
Brought from the Commons; read 1a.
Then, Standing Order No. 41 having been dispensed with (pursuant to Resolution):
THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (LORD MANCROFT): My Lords, the purpose of this Bill is to validate the election to another place of Mr. Charles Alfred Howell, notwithstanding his holding the office or place of member of certain panels constituted in pursuance of the National Insurance (Industrial Injuries) Act, 1946, and the National Insurance Act, 1946, and to indemnify him from any
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penal consequences which he may have incurred by sitting and voting as a Member of another place. This is the third, and we hope the last, measure of this kind to be put before your Lordships. I assume that your Lordships would wish to deal with it in the same way as you have dealt with the preceding two, and to pass it through all its stages immediately. I therefore beg to move that the Bill be now read a second time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Lord Mancroft.)
EARL JOWITT: My Lords, the noble Lord is quite right in assuming that we wish to deal with this Bill in the same way that we dealt with the other two. We have agreed that it shall pass through all its stages to-day, and the noble Marquess the Leader of the House has moved the appropriate Motion to enable that to be done. Whether the hope of the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, that this will be the last of these Bills with which we shall have to deal, will be fulfilled I cannot say. My hope is that this Bill will be the end of this matter. But unless and until we get the law on this matter clearer and in a more intelligible form we shall risk having to do this sort of thing, which is very undesirable. We certainly should get the law put right and not have to risk this undesirable procedure. On behalf of noble Lords on these Benches, I have to say that we agree to allow this Bill to pass through all its stages to-day.
On Question, Bill read 2a: Committee to negatived.
Bill read 3a, and passed.

POST OFFICE AND TELEGRAPH (MONEY) BILL
2.37 p.m.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
LORD CHESHAM: My Lords, in moving that this Bill be now read a second time. I do not think I need occupy your Lordships' attention for very long. It is less than two weeks since November 9 when we had a full and, if I may say so, very constructive discussion of the Post Office financial arrangements, and this included the plans and proposals for the development of its services. To-day we are concerned with the first and an essential part of the machinery to enable

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these plans to be carried out—that is to say, the provision of capital for development. I do not suppose your Lordships would wish me to go again and so soon over the wider field we have already covered in debate, and I think I may say that it has been shown that this money is to be well and justifiably spent.
In the way that is now customary, the Bill provides for the requirements of the next two years, roughly speaking, and the technical provisions of Clause 1, which lay down the manner in which advances and repayments are to be treated in the national accounts, are exactly the same as in the last Money Act of 1953. Only the amount is different—£175 million this time, compared with £125 million before. The increase, it is true, does to some extent reflect an increase in prices, but by far the biggest part is due to the expanding programme of development described in the White Paper. Your Lordships will recall that the previous debate showed that the majority of this is to be devoted to the telephone service.
On the question of capital development there is one point I should like to make clear, as it could possibly give rise to some confusion. The relevant paragraph of the White Paper, paragraph 21, refers to a total outlay of £300 million over the next three years. It might appear at first sight, therefore, that the £175 million for which we are asking in the Bill, and which is to last for a little over two years, is rather less than might have been expected. I can assure your Lordships however, that it is sufficient, because the Bill is concerned only with providing capital for expansion of the system. The £300 million, on the other hand, covers not only this expansion, but also includes renewals and extensions, the two together comprising what is technically known as investment.
Clause 2, however, does concern a new, though rather minor, departure. There has been diversity in the procedures for crediting the proceeds of sales of Post Office property no longer in use, and we need statutory authorisation to allow such proceeds to be put to capital where they properly belong. It seems only common sense that, for instance, where old
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premises are sold and new ones built, the money should be used for the new construction. It is not a great matter. It has involved only about £25,000 a year during the last five years, but it is an obvious improvement in accounting methods. I hope that I have said sufficient to commend this Bill to your Lordships and to show that it is founded on precedent. It raises no important new question of principle and it is a necessary, if rather mechanical, measure to enable the Post Office to pursue the progressive policies we have already discussed. I beg to move that the Bill be now read a second time.
Moved, That the Bill he now read 2a.— (Lord Chesham.)
EARL JOWITT: My Lords, this is another case of Standing Order No. 41 being suspended with a view to our taking this Bill through all its stages to-day. I should like to emphasise that in this case, as in the last, and also in the next, all this is being done with the consent of the Opposition. I should like to point out to your Lordships that if Standing Order No. 41 were used ruthlessly, in face of Opposition protest, all debate in this House could, of course, be precluded, and we should have an immense engine of oppression which would prevent the Opposition from saying anything at all. Ever since the noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury, has been Leader of the House, and while my noble friend the late Lord Addison was Leader of the House before him, the Order never has been used oppressively, and I sincerely hope that it never will be. It always has been used with the full approval of the Opposition and in this case we gladly and readily give that approval. As the noble Lord, Lord Chesham, has said, we had a full discussion of this matter not long ago. 'The noble Lord must not assume, from the approval vie give now, that, when the Orders come up involving the increased charges we shall not have a good deal to say then, but at the present lime I think that the best thing to do is to pass this Bill through all its stages.
On Question, Bill read 2a:Committee negatived.
Then Standing Order No. 41 having been dispensed with (pursuant to Resolution), Bill read 3a, and passed.

RURAL WATER SUPPLIES AND SEWERAGE BILL
2.56 p.m.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
THE MINISTER WITHOUT PORTFOLIO (THE EARL OF MUNSTER): My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time. I do not think I need delay your Lordships for more than a few moments in explaining the purpose of this small measure. Your Lordships may recall that when I introduced the last Rural Water Supplies and Sewerage Act, in March of this year, I informed your Lordships that another Bill would have to be presented to Parliament to invite both Houses to grant further money for the supply of water and sewerage in rural areas. This is the Bill to which I then referred.
Your Lordships may be interested to know that since 1944, the various Rural Water Supply and Sewerage Acts have provided £45 million for England and Wales and £20 million for Scotland. This money will have been fully pledged early in the new year. The purpose of this Bill, as is stated in the Explanatory Memorandum, is to provide a further sum of £30 million for England and Wales and £10 million for Scotland. The total amount provided will then be increased from £65 million to £105 million. Since the passing of the 1944 Act, the work completed, plus the work in progress, for providing water supplies in England and Wales amounts to £55 million and for the provision of sewerage, to a figure of £40 million. I feel that the House will agree that, in spite of the many heavy calls which are made on the nation's resources, much has indeed been accomplished during the past eleven years of which we all may be justly proud. I think I need say no more.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(The Earl of Munster.)
THE EARL OF LUCAN: My Lords, I think little need be said on this Bill from this side of the House. My noble Leader has already said that we fully concur with the Motion enabling this Bill to be passed through all its stages. We can do nothing but welcome a Bill that will improve the conditions of life of the people who live in rural areas. The noble Earl says that we may take pride in the accomplishment
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since 1944, but may I ask him one question? Is he satisfied, and are the people in the rural areas satisfied, with this accomplishment? Surely this Bill proves that the pace has been none too quick in introducing water to the countryside. The drift from the agricultural industry into the towns and the acute shortage of agricultural labourers continue. Therefore, we may hope that, far from reducing the rate at which money is being spent for this purpose, the Government will see that it is increased.
LORD WISE: My Lords, there are two points I should like to make regarding this Bill. First, I should like to endorse what has just been said by my noble friend Lord Lucan and remind the noble Earl, Lord Munster, of the words he has just uttered—" much has indeed been accomplished." That is so, but much indeed needs to be done. I am particularly anxious, in view of what was said here a few days ago, during the Second Reading of the Agriculture (Improvement of Roads) Bill, that the financial stringency of the times should not in any way hinder the progress which can be made in regard to water supplies and sewerage. I am anxious that in the economy cuts which will no doubt follow during the next two or three years the local authorities should not be expected to cut into their schemes for these two urgent needs of the countryside. I believe it has been suggested in another place that a sum of £17 million will be spent on rural water and sewerage up to April of next year. Apparently, the expenditure for 1954–55 was £14 million, which rose from £12 million in the preceding year. Under this Bill a sum of £40 million is to be set aside for additional schemes in the future. If that £40 million is spread over five years, then we shall not be spending more on an average than £8 million a year, which is a very different sum from £14 million, or even £12 million. I do not in the least know what instructions, if any, were issued to local authorities by Her Majesty's Government, but I am particularly anxious that nothing should curtail the provision of these schemes which are so necessary in our country districts and villages.
In another place the question of the schemes which are carried out by rural authorities was mentioned. I have no knowledge of regional schemes, but I have knowledge of district schemes and parish

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schemes. In my view, it is highly important that, if possible, the district schemes should be encouraged, rather than the local parish schemes which supply one particular village or parish. In the district schemes, which unite two or three villages, the people living in between the villages receive the benefit of a piped water supply; but if a parish scheme only is sanctioned by the Government, then the farms, particularly on the outskirts of the parishes, cannot be connected with a piped supply, and the farmers, in catering for their own domestic needs or stock needs, have to fall back upon their own water supplies, which may not be completely adequate. In addition, the Government are faced with providing a grant in aid for those schemes, which they would not have to face if schemes were started on a piped supply. Therefore, I hope that the Government will advise local authorities, or whoever is introducing these schemes, to form them into district schemes, which I feel is a much better way of supplying the villages concerned. The Bill has received a blessing from this side of the House, and I endorse that blessing, because I am sure that anything which we can spend to keep our people in rural houses and on the land must be for the benefit of this country as a whole.
THE EARL OF MUNSTER: My Lords, perhaps I may reply briefly to the observations made by the two noble Lords opposite. Let MC say at once, in answer to the noble Earl, Lord Lucan, that I think we should be satisfied with what we have accomplished up to date, because in England and Wales alone we have now reached an expenditure on schemes finished or started totalling some £95 million. However, I would agree with him and with the noble Lord, Lord Wise, that there is still a long way to go before we can reach absolute perfection. There are still many of these schemes which call for grants from the Treasury and from my right honourable friend, which
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will be met from time to time as the years proceed.
I come now to the question which was addressed to me by the noble Lord, Lord Wise, with regard to the financial stringency which is now in force. As he rightly said, the expenditure for this year, 1955–56, has been set at a figure of £17 million. More than half of that sum has already been passed, and there are other schemes which are waiting to be authorised which will, in fact, cover the other 50 per cent. of this figure. It is true that in the message which was sent to local authorities by ray two right honourable friends, the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Minister of Housing and Local Government, the local authorities were asked in this next financial year to cut their expenditure to what it was in the year 1954–55. I am not in a position today to tell the House what that programme will be for (he next year (it will be settled, as noble Lords know, by the normal machinery for consideration of these figures; that is to say, by the Departmental Estimates), but I can assure the House that my right honourable friend is fully alive to the urgent need for the provision of water and sewerage in these rural areas, and anything which can be done to help in this respect will be done by my two right honourable friends. I should not like to suggest any figure to the House as expenditure for the next year. I think it is far better to let the demand from local authorities, after consideration of the letter sent by my noble friend, take its normal course through the departmental channels. I can assure both noble Lords who have spoken that anything that Her Majesty's Government can do, within the resources of the nation, will in fact be done.
On Question, Bill read 2a; Committee negatived.
Then, Standing Order No. 41 having been dispensed with (pursuant to Resolution), Bill read 3a, and passed.

PERSECUTION OF RAILWAY NON-STRIKERS
3.0 p.m.
LORD SALTOUN LORD SALTOUN rose to call the attention of Her Majesty's Government to some of the forms of persecution suffered by those railwaymen who remained loyal to their duty at the Prime Minister's appeal; and to move to resolve, That this House regrets the apparent inability of Her Majesty's Government and the British Transport Commission to protect railwaymen who obeyed the Prime Minister's appeal to remain in their duty. The noble Lord said: My Lords, in commending to your Lordships the Motion which stands in my name to-day, I want to begin by saying that it is not my intention to criticise the Transport Commission in any way. I had to bring them into the Motion because, if they had been in a position to do what I always wished they would do, there would have been no need for the Motion at all. As it is, I am not really criticising Her Majesty's Government; I am only trying to point out to them what I believe to be a duty: and if I criticise anybody or anything it is probably a system of industrial bargaining which leaves one side bound by agreements and leaves the other side apparrently free to do what they like.
As your Lordships know, this matter arises out of the strike of engine drivers firemen and cleaners, which started at the end of last May. At the commencement of that strike, the Prime Minister broadcast to us all. He broadcast in his character as Prime Minister, and he was announced as such by the B.B.C. He spoke with exactly the same authority as Sir Winston Churchill, Mr. Attlee, or any of his predecessors when they were Prime Minister; and, as I say, he spoke to us all. He explained that the conciliation machinery had broken down and that the T.U.C. had used all their efforts to prevent the strike. He showed how dangerous to society its success would be and then, in some detail, how it would injure the nation at home and abroad. I think that is a fair résumé of the Prime Minister's broadcast, which I have here, if any noble Lord disagrees with my précis.
I do not think that any railwayman who heard that broadcast could fail to believe that the Prime Minister considered the strike to be wrong and unjustified, and that the proper course would be to remain at work. I hope the noble Lord who is
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to reply for the Government will not challenge that view, because if he does I shall have to go deeper into the matter than I wish at this stage. In the event, about 400 men remained at work, or returned to work. I myself happen to know one man who went back to work. It was owing to these 400 men that a truncated service was maintained throughout the country, from which, of course, the country greatly benefited.
When the strike was over, the public were informed that one of the principal conditions of the settlement was that there should be no victimisation on either side. Shortly after the settlement I happened to see in the Press that one railwayman—I think it was somewhere in the Midlands —was being subjected to harsh treatment by his companions who had returned to work after being on strike. I wrote privately to Her Majesty's Government, and the reply I received did not reassure me on the point and I therefore put down a Starred Question, which was asked in your Lordships' House on July 27 last. Your Lordships may remember that the reply of Her Majesty's Government on that occasion was that there were a few cases of ill-feeling; that the Transport Commission and the officers of the Union were trying to allay them, and that the trouble was dying down: that it had been agreed that there should be no victimisation; that the Government were keeping in touch with the situation and that the matter would be best left in the hands in which it was, without Government interference.
I submit that on that Answer I was justified in assuming that the Union and British Railways were both firmly adhering to the principle of no victimisation, and that, although there was a little natural friction amongst the men, it would die away if left alone. This being so, it seemed to me that the Government were perfectly right to hold their hand at the moment, although, at the same time. I did not feel that any of us was entitled to wash his hands of the matter and put it aside altogether, taking it for granted that everything was all right. At the beginning of the Recess I made a few inquiries, but I was away in Canada for most of the Recess, and it was not until I returned in the middle of October that I set to work to collect some facts.
It is not easy for a private person like myself. I cannot institute a general

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inquiry, and I am also hampered by the fact that men are not very willing to let anybody outside know what is happening to them, for fear that it will lead to further reprisals against which they see no protection. However, I am not entirely without friends in British Railways, and I did get sufficient information to make me feel that victimisation of the men who remained at their posts was pretty well universal throughout the country. At the present moment, five months after the resumption of work, it seems to have lightened in certain respects and in certain cases, especially where men may be judged to have been brought to a more submissive frame of mind. But in others it seems to be eon-tinning just as fiercely as ever. I have taken statements from two men and I have had them examined and drafted by a competent lawyer. I have checked them, where possible, by inquiry on the railway, and I believe them to be true. My information is that, in widely separated parts of the country, men are receiving treatment to-day similar to that which I shall describe to your Lordships—that is, except for one incident, which I hope and believe to be exceptional.
First, I think I had better say what I believe we all mean by "no victimisation." I mean by that that the person who benefits from it resumes or retains a position of similar standing to that which he enjoyed before the dispute started, and that he is not subjected to any inequitable or disparaging treatment by the other parties to the dispute. With that interpretation I think we shall all agree. If that is right, then any impression that we may have formed last July that the promise of "no victimisation" was being mutually kept seems to me to be very far from the truth. Even in July, some of the men who had remained at their posts had been dismissed from their union. I have been told that there were in all about 100 dismissals, and that the greater part of these took place after the middle of August; but certainly some took place at the beginning of July. I think some notices were posted on July 8, but if most of the dismissals took place after the middle of August, then it does seem to me that the honesty of accepting contributions all July from men whom it was intended to dismiss from the Union in August is rather questionable.
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I do not think that ought to have been done.
My main contention is that these dismissals themselves were a breach of the agreement. It is said that the union have a rule upon the subject which they cannot break. The rule says:
Should the Executive Committee decide at any time to withdraw members from their employment in a dispute between employer and employed, any member or members failing to comply with such decision on receiving notice of the same shall be expelled from the Society."
If that rule is, as is contended, inexorable, which I deny, then it is a principle of good faith, which we should all acknowledge, that the people on the other side, the Transport Commission, should have had their attention drawn to that fact when the "no victimisation" clause was agreed upon. After all, the men who were negotiating were not children; they were experienced negotiators. Practically the only form of victimisation which a trade union can adopt as a corporate body is expulsion. Therefore, it certainly should have been a matter for discussion between the two parties when the "no victimisation" clause was agreed. If it was not—and my information is that it was not—then, whatever the force of the rule, they were bound to put it aside. But is this rule inexorable? Even on the facts, I am told that only a hundred or so, and not all, members of the union have been expelled. I am in a position to show that some of the members who were expelled did not receive proper notice of the strike. I do not mean to say that they did not see it in the Press or hear it on the B.B.C., but they did not receive a proper form of notice of strike. And yet they were expelled. If those two things are true, it seems to me that the executive of the union is allowed considerable latitude in interpreting this rule, and that there was, therefore, no obstacle to putting into full force this agreement of mutual non-victimisation. I do not think I need labour that point any more to your Lordships.
This "no victimisation" clause opens up a wide question which we do not want to argue to-day. I remember once writing to a certain Minister of Labour, saying that I thought the "no victimisation" clause was a mistake, because, if men felt they had everything to gain and nothing to lose from strikes, then there would never be art end to strikes. The Minister

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wrote back and said that that might be all very well, but the "no victimisation" clause did tend to do away with the mutual bitterness which was felt after a strike. Of course one admits that that is probably the case. Your Lordships will be able to form an opinion on that matter by what follows.
By the dismissal, the position of these men is radically changed for the worse compared with what it was before the strike; and, of course, they are in daily fear of being dismissed from the railway because they do not belong to a union. I remember the first railwayman I visited. I shall not easily forget the apprehension he displayed when he thought I was an official from the railway, come to visit him and dismiss him because he had not gone on strike. This also involves these men in the loss of their share of the industrial benefit, the orphan fund and the eyesight fund. Your Lordships will realise that although the benefit of these funds is likely to be required later rather than earlier in life, even at the beginning of a man's career in a union there is a small, unexhausted interest which remains to him in these funds. It is not exhausted in the year in respect of which payments are made; it is a gradually accumulating interest in the funds of the union. But of that interest, big or little as the case may be, they have been arbitrarily deprived by this dismissal.
Again, the dismissal has served as a signal to all members of the union to start the process known as "sending to Coventry," where no one speaks to a man unless it is actually necessitated by duty. If, accidents occur in consequence, it is just too bad—I do not mean railway accidents, but little personal accidents. It is against that background that your Lordships must imagine what follows. I shall give your Lordships an example of the kind of thing which I hope is rare but which shows the temper to which men are brought by this business of "sending to Coventry" and victimisation. After the strike, in one station there was a general distribution of new overalls, and one of these men "in Coventry" took his overalls and tied them up in a parcel. He placed it above a notice board in the drivers' room in a place to reach which he had to get on to a bench. When he was engaged on his work he heard a cleaner complaining
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that he had lost his jacket. When he went to get his overalls, he found that the parcel seemed a little different to him. He opened it and there he found the missing jacket wrapped up in his overalls and tied up again. He was lucky to notice that before he left the premises. It is horrible and frightening to a man to be "framed." I believe and sincerely hope that that kind of thing is rare, but the temper that that displays is frightening to anyone engaged in work upon the railway. He happened to be a man of engaging and easy temper. He reports now that, with some exceptions, he is much better treated. I expect he has learnt his lesson—not to pay attention to the Prime Minister, whoever he may be, whenever there is a strike in view.
The other case I want to bring before your Lordships concerns a man of a very different temper and in a superior position. He has endured unremitting hostility, which includes overt acts, during the whole of these five months. Like the rest, he has been dismissed from his union and lost his benefits. He is a driver on a link of the railway which is a considerable distance from his home, and his place on the roster was arranged so that he never had a chance of getting home at week-ends. Therefore he put in a request through the usual channels to have his place on the roster changed, so that sometimes he could get home at a weekend. That request was granted automatically. As soon as that was known, the union officials on that branch roused the men of his link and of other links separate from his, men of grades different from his, to join in a "round robin" to the authorities to ask them to cancel that change of the roster. A superintendent immediately came out and cancelled the alteration of the roster. Your Lordships will appreciate the feelings of a man to whom no one will speak, who has secured the removal of an unjust burden, at finding it replaced by a representative of those for whose sake he has endured his purgatory. I should add that the National Union of Railwaymen were so impressed with the injustice of this treatment that they offered to fight the case for him if he would join the union. He is grateful to them but does not feel inclined to join any union at present—and I do not exactly blame him.
That is the kind of thing that one is hearing about all over the country. It may be said—perhaps somebody will say it—"Ah, yes, but you are mistaken and your friend is mistaken in ascribing his troubles to the action of the union." My information is otherwise. The man strikes me as truthful; besides which I have a letter from a very different part of Britain on the same point. It is too long to read entirely but I will read parts. It came to me enclosing a newspaper notice of this debate to-day. It says:
"A friend of mine has sent along the enclosed cutting and if correctly reported it is welcome news to me. I should like you to know that I am grateful. I am not writing because of self-interest … but I have grave doubts about the future of any individual who dares to challenge the powerful trade union and the branch room bullies. In the recent railway strike the National Union of Railwaymen came to work but were stopped by pickets"—
Then follow details of three men who were frightened off, including one whose home was visited. Your Lordships will realise that when a man is at work this visiting of the family in the home is most terrifying and horrible, and I am not surprised that any man is frightened. We have had it before, on other occasions, and I do not need to labour the point to your Lordships. The letter goes on:
"I could go on, but I leave it to your good judgment to suns the situation up. The striking bullies came back to work to seek their vengeance on the loyal worker. When I challenged them with the 'no victimisation' agreement they just laughed. So I wish you every success in your effort to spotlight this evil bullying and 'Coventry' business before it is too late—for the benefit of others."
This man says "for the benefit of others" because I believe he has left the railway service.
My Lords, I want to add that this kind of situation on the railways is dangerous to the public. It is of the highest importance that men upon whom the safety of the public depends should not he subjected to this kind of strain and worry. I had put that point a great deal more strongly in my original draft notes. I have confined it only because I want to be the last person to suggest that the terrible accident that we have deplored has anything to do with the situation about which I am complaining. At the same time, it would not be right to pass this subject without drawing your Lordships' attention to that side of it. I am
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glad to say that, in Scotland anyway, this business of "sending to Coventry" is receiving emphatic condemnation from the pulpit. It Is a good sign, and I hope it will go on.
Now I want to ask the Government a question. Was it or was it not right for these men for whom I am pleading to go to work? If it was right, why did not the Prime Minister in his broadcast make that quite clear? If it was right, then they deserve protection. I have brought these matters to your Lordships' attention because I think you ought to know the kind of thing that is going on. The healing hand of time invoked by Her Majesty's Government in July has clearly failed. These men have endured a purgatory of five months, and there is no sign of relaxation. Every subject of Her Majesty is entitled to sufficient protection to go about his work unmolested. In this case, and in spite of the terms of settlement, it seems to be the pride of the people concerned that the lives of these men are made intolerable.
Can the Government give no protection? Is the whole force of the Cabinet and Parliament powerless? It seems to me that if the Government cannot usefully intervene, as I think is probable, they can do one thing: they can help such men as are discontented in their employment on the railways, who are unhappy in consequence of what has happened, to find other work; and they can take care that it is not too unremunerative. My information is that some of these men have lost half of their income by leaving the railways and going to other casual labour; and I am bound to say that, after everything that has happened, that is a thing which I cannot realise with indifference. It would be a sad thing for me to realise, as perhaps I must, that the Government I support have led humble people, even if it be inadvertently, into a position of danger and suffering and then left them to bear it. My Lords, we in this House have little political power; perhaps we do not seek it. But we have our reputation and our character, and we can express an opinion. It is that opinion that I am asking your Lordships to express to-clay. I beg to move.
Moved to resolve, That this House regrets the apparent inability of Her Majesty's Government and the British

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Transport Commission to protect railwaymen who obeyed the Prime Minister's appeal to remain in their duty during the recent railway strike.—(Lord Saltoun.)
3.26 p.m.
LORD MATHERS: My Lords, the noble Lord who has put forward this Resolution obviously feels very much the circumstances which he has been describing. I look upon him, in the circumstances in which he finds himself and with the opinions that he holds, as having treated this matter with considerable restraint. Obviously, he is feeling much more strongly than he has allowed himself to express. As he said, he determined to deal with the facts and the facts only, and I pay him the compliment that, from his point of view, he has put this matter forward in a way that we can look upon as in keeping with the manner in which this House deals with subjects. When he talks about facts—well, we all know that
"…, facts are chiefs that winna ding,
And downa be disputed."
If all that he has said is true, then I am sure that there is a great deal of regret in all our minds that such things should be.
But I am not happy that this Resolution should appear on the Order Paper of this House, and I should be sorry to see it passed by this Assembly and to have this noble House embroiled in an industrial matter of this kind. The noble Lord comes of a long lineage, his noble ancestors going back five hundred years. I, too, have a lineage. My lineage is a railway one—I am the third generation in a line of railway workers, and proud of it. I regret that there should have been these troubles on the railways, because I am a lifelong trade unionist who strove for the good negotiating machinery which was established a number of years ago on the railways, and I have been proud of the way in which that machinery has worked—perhaps the best industrial negotiating machinery in existence in this country. I want to see that negotiating machinery used and differences smoothed out by its use.
I think that unofficial strikes and many of the differences that occur in the industrial world are totally wrong and much to be deplored, and that we should be against them. But that is not to say that this House should, on a matter of this
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kind, seek to bring itself into the picture and to take up the attitude that the noble Lord invites us to take up. He is talking from the point of view of one who looks at the trade union movement. I have often had opportunities of comparing the trade union movement with other combinations of individuals in this country. There are organisations which can exert over their individual members a tyranny quite as strong as that suggested by the noble Lord, even conceding for the moment that everything that he has said is true. There have been cases of professional organisations dealing with what they describe as "unprofessional conduct" whose actions have been quite as drastic and destructive of the individual's livelihood as the action represented by the noble Lord.
He says that his Resolution is not intended to criticise either Her Majesty's Government or the British Transport Commission; but the Resolution inevitably does so. In citing in this House a failure to protect railwaymen who obeyed the appeal of the Prime Minister there must be a criticism of the Government and the Commission. I hope it is quite clear that I am in no way condoning any action which the noble Lord has justly criticised in his speech: but he went to the length of making reference to the deplorable and most regrettable accident which occurred during the week-end and said, quite clearly, that he would not in any way attribute this accident to causes which might arise from matters on which he had been speaking. Yet there he has sown the seed of a suspicion that it might have been.
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: No, no.
LORD MATHERS: That was the one regrettable departure by the noble Lord from those proprieties which we in this House wish to preserve.
LORD SALTOUN: My Lords, what the noble Lord, Lord Mathers, has said makes me regret that I offered any explanation at all. That suggestion was utterly out of my mind; I give the noble Lord my word of honour upon that. I very nearly cut that argument out altogether. I mentioned it only because I felt it was my duty to do so. The last thing in the world that I should wish to do would be to imply such a thing.
LORD MATHERS: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord most sincerely for completely absolving himself from any suspicion of that kind that might be directed against him by anyone reading his speech. Perhaps he will forgive me for having spoken strongly on the point, but I felt that it was regrettable that the noble Lord should have made even the tentative suggestion which fell from his lips. I have spoken of being a railwayman and a trade unionist, and I would tell the noble Lord and this House that it is not wise to get embroiled in a family quarrel. It will be remembered that this was a family quarrel with two unions taking different views on a matter relating to industrial activities. I am sorry that the noble Lord has raised the matter in this way. I wish he had accepted the advice given to him when he raised the subject before, when he was told that it would he wise to leave the situation as it was. The noble Lord has now stirred things up again and has erred in doing so.
Victimisation does not occur very often in the railway industry, but it has occurred, within my experience, to colleagues who have been on strike and have later been subjected to official victimisation. There I am going back many years and I thank God (I say that quite reverently) that over these years the temper in the railway industry has improved. Yet there have been times when men striking for much more modest demands than are made by the trade union movement nowadays have found themselves punished for their stand. I remember one particular instance which affected a large number of people. There was a declaration by the then railway company that they would not show upon a man's service record card the fact that he had taken part in that particular strike; but they clearly indentified him as having taken part in the strike because those who had remained at work, whom we had called "blacklegs," had their cards endorsed to the effect that they had remained loyal. That was the manner in which a declaration and an undertaking of "no victimisation" was observed in the old days. I am glad to think that the railway management to-day is much better than that which took such action in the past. I will not go into the details raised by the noble Lord. I could not attempt to defend what he has condemned. I will only say that I do not
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believe he is rendering a service to this House, to the country, or to the people on the railways, by bringing forward a Resolution of this kind; and I hope he will find himself advised to withdraw it.
3.39 p.m.
LORD AMULREE: My Lords, many of you, like myself, will have been very worried by some of the facts which the noble Lord, Lord Saltoun, has put before us this afternoon. Many of us will not have been happy about past occurrences involving this curious action of "sending people to Coventry." I feel, however, that these are not matters upon which Her Majesty's Government should take any particular action. As the noble Lord, Lord Mathers, has just said, this is really a family quarrel which can best be dealt with by the members of that family. One would like, however, to see somebody speaking out against this kind of practice. We are told that the Churches of Scotland are taking up a certain line in condemning this attitude, and I believe that to be a more satisfactory course than for Her Majesty's Government to take any action.
The matter which we are discussing to-day, however, is not quite the same kind of thing. It seems to me that on this occasion workmen who were obeying a request by the Prime Minister, and who were going beck to work under a "no victimisation" agreement have, in fact, been victimised. That is where I think Her Majesty's Government might lend some kind of assistance to see that this sort of thing does not occur in the future, and even, possibly, to put a stop to it now. No one welcomes more than myself and noble. Lords en these Benches the fact that victimisation does not now occur after strikes. I have always been particularly interested in railway affairs because when my father was alive he was very much involved in work connected with railway wages. That is what tempted me to speak to-day. I would only add, speaking on behalf of noble Lords behind me, that we support the noble Lord, Lord Saltoun, in his Resolution.
3.41 p.m.
Loan AILWYN: My Lords, in rising to support the Resolution moved by my noble friend Lord Saltoun I am mindful of the Answer that he received from the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, on July 27 last, to the effect that he did not consider that Her Majesty's Government

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could usefully take action in the matter. In a further reply to an interjection of mine, the noble Lord gave it as his opinion that it was inappropriate for the Government to intervene in matters of this sort. That was four months ago, and the persecution, as we have heard, still continues. I wonder whether Her Majesty's Government really are of the opinion that this victimisation and intimidation of men such as those to whom my noble friend, Lord Saltoun, has referred should be allowed to continue without let or hindrance from the Government—always remembering the Prime Minister's urgent appeal in this connection.
Much play was made in another place the week before last, in the course of the Burgess-Maclean debate, on the imperative necessity of preserving at all costs the liberty of the subject. Great concern was expressed—and very rightly—lest any new measures proposed for improving the efficiency of our security services should savour too much of McCarthyism and interfere with the British traditional way of life and liberty. Very well. We may hear a little more of that in the debate which is to follow in this House this afternoon. But how in the name of all that is wonderful do Her Majesty's Government equate such sentiments, such wholly admirable sentiments, with the case of tyranny which we are discussing to-day? I am one of those who regard as wholly regrettable the virtual disappearance—in fact the elimination—of the Independent Member of Parliament. To my mind, nothing is more deplorable than the trend to-day, both in the political world and in the industrial sphere, to stifle all expression of independent thought and judgment. If you want a voice in the Parliamentary counsels of the nation to-day, however original and thoughtful and constructive your ideas may be towards benefiting your country, you must align yourself with one or other of the massive, mammoth, monster murmurations called political Parties, and be whipped into abiding by the leaders' decrees. And unless you are prepared to be shepherded in this way and become a mere soulless cog in the juggernaut machine, you not only incur the wrath of the slaves of the lamp, but you are looked upon as a rebel and a renegade.
LORD REA: May I interrupt the noble Lord for a moment, to remind him that there are exceptions to that general rule?
LORD AILWYN: My Lords, I am much obliged to the noble Lord, I fully appreciate that.
Lest your Lordships are beginning to think that this is somewhat of a digression from the subject under discussion, let me say at once that I regard this particular matter which we are discussing to-day as symptomatic of this general trend towards clamping down upon independent thought and action. Here to-day it occurs not in the political but in the industrial world. Nobody in his senses will deny the great value of the trade unions of this country, nor seek to minimise the immense benefit they can be, and indeed have been, over the last decade or two. The influence and wisdom and humanity of men like the late Ernest Bevin have shaped and nourished, invigorated and sustained them, and watched over their progress and achievement—to the benefit of many millions in this land. But to-day one is sorely tempted to quote Lord Acton and his dictum on the corrupting influence of power. The attitude of some trade unions to the proposal, for instance, to import foreign labour at a time of urgent need —at a time when jobs just cannot otherwise be filled—is to the ordinary thinking man indefensible. There are other unhappy instances well known to your Lordships, and there is this one that we are discussing to-day. I beg the trade union leaders concerned to tread softly —to be a little more discerning, a little more discriminating. Let it never be said that the Welfare State, through any action of theirs, has acted as a steamroller and has served to crush the welfare of the individual. Let it never be said that their watchword is: "Stand and Deliver!" But if it should be so, then Her Majesty's Government have not only the right but the duty to step in and to give protection to those who have put the country's welfare before that of sectional interests.
3.48 p.m.
LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGH: My Lords, before the noble Lord who is to reply for the Government rises, may I say that I personally should find it of some assistance if we could have an expression of opinion about this matter

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from the Opposition Front Bench. The noble Lord, Lord Mathers, in his interesting speech, quoted some ancient history. Quite frankly, I do not think that that helps us very much in judging what is a current tragedy —because it is a tragedy. No one who listened to the noble Lord, Lord Saltoun, can doubt that the continuance of this state of affairs is tragic, and I feel that I, for one, should be greatly helped if we could have some expression of opinion about this from the Front Bench opposite. Great as is the weight which Lord Mathers carries in the Labour Party, I should have liked some expression of guidance from the Leader of the Opposition in your Lordships' House or, at all events, from the Front Bench of the Labour Party.
LORD MATHERS: My Lords, may I intervene at this point to say to the noble Lord, Lord Balfour of Burleigh, that the noble Viscount, Lord Hall, had intended to take part, from the Opposition Front Bench, in this debate. But he had to fulfil another engagement, and he asked me to go to the Front Bench in order to speak to your Lordships as I have spoken. I had nothing prepared, but Lord Hall knew the general trend of the line that I should take. When he suggested my speaking from the Front Bench I told him. "That does not really matter; I will just speak from here." So I hope that nothing will be read into the fact that I did not take my rightful place on the Front Bench in order to make the statement I have made.
LORD HENDERSON: My Lords, perhaps I may he allowed to say that my noble friend Lord Mathers speaks on behalf of the Labour Party. He is a Front Bench speaker, but he happened to-day to be sitting on the second Bench and preferred to speak from that place. What he has said represents the general view of our Party, and I do not think I could say anything that would be different from what he has said. We rest our case on what my noble friend has said.
3.50 p.m.
THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY on DEFENCE (LORD CARRINGTON): My Lords, I am sure that we are all grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Henderson, for his explanation. My noble friend Lord Saltoun, as I think all noble Lords will agree, has
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raised an extremely important question this afternoon. As he mentioned in the course of his speech, he and I had some correspondence about victimisation at the beginning of July, and at the end of that month my noble friend asked a Starred Question in this House on the same subject. On that occasion, I gave him such information as I then had. Now to-day we have the Motion which is on the Order Paper, a Motion divided into two parts: first, to draw attention to some of the forms of persecution suffered by railwaymen who did not strike; and, secondly, a resolution regretting the inability of the Government: and the British Transport Commission to protect those who remained at work. Although my noble friend said he did not intend to be critical in his speech, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Mathers, that the text of the Motion is critical both of the British Transport Commission and of Her Majesty's Government. These are two entirely separate issues and I shall try to deal with them separately.
First of all, with regard to persecution. The noble Lord spore of particular cases of which he himself has personal knowledge, and of the suffering which has been caused to a number of men as a result. I imagine that those who have not followed this matter very closely will have heard of these cases with dismay. It is true, as has been pointed out, that in a number of cases hostility has been shown towards men who had remained at work by others who had come out on strike, and that their hostility has been not only irresponsible and childish, but in certain cases unfair and cruel. I should have thought that everyone, both inside this House and outside it, would have roundly condemned this sort of action—whether they be employers, trade unionists, Labour, Conservative or Liberal. This behaviour does no credit to anybody and is certainly not in the spirit of patient negotiation and sensible compromise with which we try to run our industrial affairs. Loyalty, whether it be to your family, your union, your school—or whatever it might he—is an admirable quality, but when carried to a point where it causes suffering and hardship to those who are innocent of any offence, it is surely not to be looked upon as a virtue. There is therefore no doubt that behaviour of this kind has taken place and we deplore it.

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Equally, it would be wrong to exaggerate the size of this problem. There have been comparatively few cases, and I cannot agree with the noble Lord that victimisation has been widespread throughout the country. The vast majority of those who work on the railways would not dream of behaving in such a way. I have been interested to see that several influential commentators and columnists have drawn attention to this situation and there can be no doubt that public opinion is overwhelmingly opposed to retaliation of this kind. This in the end will have far more effect in preventing it than any action which could be taken by the Government or the British Transport Commission.
I come now to the second part of the Motion—that is to say, the Resolution where my noble friend regrets the inability of the Government to protect these railwaymen. My noble friend's case is that the Prime Minister made an appeal to those concerned not to strike. I think I should point out that the Government were not directly involved in the dispute and were not a party to the agreement which ended it. What in fact the Prime Minister did was to explain that any such strike would do great damage to the country. I should like to quote his exact words. These are the words which are relevant to the Motion:
"Whatever happens now, the country is going to be hurt, and many of you will suffer inconvenience and hardship; workers as well as holiday-makers. More serious still, the damage which must be caused will injure our country in a world which is becoming increasingly competitive. Supplies to factories will be affected at once; this must bring unemployment on a rapidly increasing scale to workers in no way involved in this dispute. Hardship and loss there must be, but we will do all we can to protect the nation from the worst effects of this strike."
I should have thought that it was the clear duty of the Prime Minister to put the seriousness of the position and the consequences of a strike before the people of this country. But that is not to say that he or the Government were in a position to protect those who did not strike from the consequences of their action where the consequences were not outside the law.
The position of the Commission, however, is entirely different, and they have taken a very serious view of the agreement which was reached between the
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trade union concerned and themselves when the railway strike was settled. In that agreement an undertaking was given on both sides that there would be no victimisation, and since then the Commission have been in touch with the union in order to draw their attention to action taken at certain depôts against members who had not come out on strike. Officers of the union visited a number of depôts where trouble persisted and the general manager of the railway region arranged for a superior officer to go and talk further with the few men who were associated with this kind of action. The Commission have done everything in their power to restore good relations between all members of the staff. But I repeat that, taking the country as a whole, only a very small number of cases have been reported to the British Transport Commission.
The responsibility rests between the British Transport Commission and the Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen. The agreement which ended the strike last June was reached between the British Transport Commission and the union at the Ministry of Labour and was one to which the Commission and the union were the sole parties. The fact that the Ministry of Labour helped in its normal function of conciliation and in that way may have assisted the Commission and the union to reach agreement does not in any way detract from the responsibility which rests upon the two parties to see that their agreement is carried out. The fact that the Ministry helped the parties to reach agreement does not mean that it has a continuing right to intervene without being asked, in matters which arise out of that agreement. It is a fundamental principle that the Ministry of Labour must be completely impartial in its relationship with the two sides of industry. Any other course would have a most serious effect upon the position of the Ministry in conciliating in industrial disputes. The Ministry of Labour, therefore, is not in a position to bring pressure to bear upon either the employer or the trade union involved in this matter which is entirely their concern.
So far as I know, no action has been taken which has resulted in men who remained at work during the strike losing their employment in the railway service

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on that account. The possibility of the Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen taking advantage of their rules to expel members who did not strike was never envisaged by the Commission at the end of the negotiations. The Commission have given full effect to their side of the agreement. I understand that, when the time comes for men who remained at work during the strike to retire, if there is any question of their being deprived of union benefits, the Commission will examine each case on its merits and consider what assistance might be appropriate where hardship would otherwise arise.
My Lords, I hope that in what I say I do not appear in any way to he unsympathetic to the noble Lord, Lord Saltoun. Indeed, one can only thank him for raising and ventilating an issue about which he and others feel most strongly. But I must say again that I think we should be careful not to exaggerate the size of this problem in this or any other industry. It is no doubt perfectly true and deplorable that certain individuals have suffered greatly, and I do not wish to minimise that, or, indeed, to excuse it. But I think we must look at this matter in its true perspective. It would he quite wrong to suggest, as I thought my noble friend did, that the Transport Commission are not concerned for the well-being of their employees. I know, and so does my noble friend, that the Chairman himself has taken a personal and most human interest in this matter and is well aware of what is going on.
I would go further and say that the Transport Commission are behaving as the best employer would behave. They are, as I have just said, prepared in proper circumstances to give assistance where hardship would arise. It is no good, however, pretending that the Government, the Transport Commission or anybody else can force people to speak to each other, when they do not want to. If I had quarrelled with my noble friend and was directed by the Government to apologise and resume my previous happy relationship with him, even though I was wrong, I should be very irritated at this interference in my affairs; and certainly no good would come of it. I noticed throughout the admirable speech of the noble Lord, Lord Saltoun, that he had no suggestion to make to remedy this situation.
LORD SALTOUN: I beg the noble Lord's pardon I did propose a remedy. I said that it was clearly impossible for "All the King's horses and all the King's men" to make people talk to one another when they did not want to; I put it in the same way as he has done, only I used other words. But I suggested that the Government should take special care, through the labour exchanges, to find suitable and remunerative employment for those people who have been forced out of the railway service by the matter of which I complained. I might add that if there are only a few, as the noble Lord suggests, it should be easier for the Government to do something. Why do they not do it?
LORD CARRINGTON: With respect, I do not think that is a remedy. That is putting things right after they have gone wrong. I was trying to get at the evil of the situation before that arose. Obviously, Orders in Council, directives, appeals, and exhortations are not the cure for this problem; nor is the question of compensation with money. This seems to me entirely the wrong approach. What is needed is an understanding of the situation, of the inevitable bitterness which arises after the sort of strike of last June, which was basically a dispute between two unions.
What is needed is patience and good will by everyone concerned. What is needed is a realisation by everyone that actions of the sort mentioned by noble Lords this afternoon are foolish and useless and lead only to more bitterness and more unpleasantness. Of course, I do not pretend that this ill-feeling has entirely disappeared. It has not. But I do assure the House that the British Transport Commission are very conscious of their responsibilities in this matter and are doing everything in their rower to bring about a proper solution. I think it very important that we in this House should not say or do anything this afternoon which will make their task more difficult. My noble friend has given this problem an airing and we have had an interesting short debate. We have all recognised the sincerity with which he has spoken, and I think that he, in his turn, will feel that he has had a most sympathetic reply from the Government. I hope, therefore, that in the circumstances he will feel that it will not further his cause or benefit the man whom he seeks to serve by pressing his Resolution to a Division.
4.5 p.m.
LORD SALTOUN: My Lords, in the first place, I should like to thank most sincerely every noble Lord who has taken part in this debate. I was particularly moved by the speech of the noble Lord whom only in this House it is not customary to call "my friend," Lord Mathers. I am much moved by what he said in asking me to withdraw my Motion rather than to press it to a Division. At the same time, I am not very happy at the answer I have received from the Government. In the first place, the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, skated round the Prime Minister's broadcast. But the Prime Minister told everybody in the country:
"The Minister of Labour and the T.U.C. have worked untiringly to try and end the strike."
That must have told every man on the railways that, in the opinion of the T.U.C., to whom they look for guidance, the strike was a mistake. I should like to repeat, without any special innuendo, the remark of the first Duke of Wellington, who said that in dealing with nations the only way is the absolutely straightforward way. I feel that if the Prime Minister did not mean to urge people to stay at work he should have said definitely that he did not want the men to disobey their unions. I feel that he did influence men to stay at work, and the Government have a responsibility and should take the line that I wish. However. I will take the advice of the noble Lord, Lord Mathers, and, if he will allow me. I will resort to him for further advice as to the future outside the walls of this House. When we are asked to have patience, I cannot conceal from your Lordships that it is not we who have difficulty in exercising patience, but it is the men who are suffering. That makes me reluctant to do what I am about to do—namely, to beg your Lordships' leave to withdraw this Motion.
Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

DISAPPEARANCE OF BURGESS AND MACLEAN
4.8 p.m.
VISCOUNT ASTOR VISCOUNT ASTOR rose to call attention to matters arising from the disappearance of Mr. Burgess and Mr. Maclean (Cmd. 9577); and to move for Papers. The noble Viscount said: My Lords, since I put down my Motion this distressing matter has been considered in another place, and it has been put to me politely that to have this debate to-day is perhaps inopportune. However, I have carefully searched my conscience on the matter and I feel it would be wrong that this subject should not be discussed in your Lordships' House. It is a matter that is irrelevant to Party but of the utmost importance to the State, when treason apparently is esconced for many years in the very centre of a great policy-making Department, and where conduct unworthy of officers and gentlemen is tolerated for a considerable time. I am aware that on our side the Whip apparently considers disappearing diplomats less important than reappearing rabbits; but I am surprised that noble Lords on the Front Bench opposite, who were in power at the time, are not proposing to speak in this debate.
I was induced to go on with this Motion because of the somewhat unsatisfactory character of the debate in another place. Although the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary made remarkably eloquent debating speeches, there were many questions left unanswered which, if full confidence is to be restored, had better be answered once and for all. If there is to be this private meeting of Privy Counsellors, surely it is right that the opinion of this House should be known to them. And should we not know that certain questions will be considered? I would ask the noble Marquess who is to reply for the Government to tell us whether those Privy Counsellors will make a report which will be debatable in this House in due course.
That this matter has gone on as long as it has done is largely the Government's own fault. In the early stages of this sad affair they seemed concerned more to hide the truth than to uncover it. Answers given here and elsewhere gave the minimum of information. Inquiries, journalistic and others, were discouraged. But, surely, the sad affair of Crichel

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Down should have shown the Government that nowadays the affairs of great Departments cannot be carried on veiled in mystery, and that it is far better to get the truth out and finished with than to try to save prestige by hiding it. I think it is particularly unfortunate that the Minister of State should have used the phrase "witch hunt" for those who were trying to find the truth. The term "witch hunt" got into disrepute because the existence, let alone the prevalence, of witches was a highly hypothetical and uncertain matter. On the other hand, Communists are not uncertain and hypothetical. Nor are traitors, any more than murderers or burglars. To try to uncover treason is as much a duty as it is to prevent burglary, and the honest attempt to clear up these matters should never have been stigmatised by the highly questionable phrase, "witch hunt."
We then had the White Paper, which was like the magistrate, in the sad affair of young Albert, and the lion, who seemed to come to the conclusion that "No-one was really to blame." If the Government had come forward with honest apologies, and had said that great mistakes had been made, that the responsibility was taken and changes had been made, it would have been far better than that curious White Paper which was criticised by all the organs of the Press, including those most favourable to the Government. I think we have seen from these sad events that there has been a lowering of the discipline and standard of conduct in the public service which would never have been tolerated in the old days. That is quite apart from any question of treasonable conduct. This question of the standard of conduct of people in representative capacity is as important as the other question of extreme Left Wing opinions leading to treason.
The cases of these two gentlemen were quite different. I do not want to talk further about the terrible behaviour of Mr. Maclean in Egypt. What Mr. Roberts said was true, and a great deal more, too. What was surprising was that, after this behaviour, he should have been appointed to an important department in the Foreign Office. It is ridiculous to pretend that the American department deals only with sending ballet dancers to Bolivia: it is a most important department. The head of a great department in the Foreign Office sees the flow of papers on all sub-
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jects, and this ridiculous "playing down" of the matter did no credit to anybody. What was curious was that after this gentleman had had this very bad record in Egypt, not only was he appointed to an important department but he continued that extraordinary standard of conduct in this country. He used to go out in the evenings and get disgustingly drunk at a certain club. He twice engaged in drunken brawls with former Left Wing friends, in one of which they were rolling on the floor. This was the head of the American department of the Foreign Office. In each case the cause of his attack on these gentlemen was that they had betrayed their former extreme Left Wing opinions.
The question I want to ask the Government is: Did the Foreign Office know of this conduct and tolerate it, or were they ignorant? If they were ignorant, it is hard to believe that they live in such an ivory tower. Can one imagine the colonel of a regiment, the general manager of a bank or the head of a university not knowing about such conduct among important subordinates about whom they had already been warned? I am afraid that what happened was that the view taken was: "As long as you do your work properly, what you do in your spare time is your own business." But surely people, whether they are Members of Parliament or diplomats, who are in a capacity representative of their fellow citizens should have a higher standard of personal conduct, whether they are in their office or not, than those who engage in purely commercial and private pursuits. We want the answer. Was this conduct known and tolerated, or was it not known? At no moment in the House of Commons debate was it said that this form of conduct cannot be passed over among people who hold important public office.
In the case of Mr. Burgess, he came into the Foreign Office; "through a side door." I think it only right to the memory of Hector McNeil that I should say there was no more loyal person than Hector McNeil: he was the last person who would have consciously tolerated treason in any form. I am one of the few people who never knew Guy Burgess, and apparently I missed a lot. By all accounts, he was one of the most amusing and clever conversationalists there was, who charmed a great many people. But

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he was a drunken, dirty and a sexual pervert. He had been ever since his school days. He made no pretence about it, either in his conversation or his conduct. Now the question I ask is: Did the Foreign Office know about his peculiarities and tolerate them, or were they the only people who did not know about them? At no moment was it said in the House of Commons debate that people with this unfortunate habit are not suitable for confidential positions in the public service or to go abroad in a representative capacity.
I am not one of those who takes the view that the homosexual is a criminal. Those of us who are lucky enough to be normal should, I think, have nothing but pity for people in that situation. But when it is a crime, and when it brings a country into disrepute or lays a person open to blackmail, surely it should be laid down quite clearly that people of those characteristics should not be used in the Foreign Service. If we are to regain full confidence in the Service, which should never have been lost, we must have assurances that there is a tightened discipline and a most careful recruitment. I think the members of the Socialist Party in the House of Commons who wanted an inquiry into the recruitment of the Foreign Service were, on this occasion, hunting the wrong fox.
The only thing that might be said as a result of some inquiry is, of course, that "More care must be taken that people of Left opinions do not get in." That is all wrong. No sensible person should say that civil servants should all be Conservatives; but what we can say—and it should be pointed out to the Civil Service Commission—is that character is as important as cleverness. That was completely ignored in the cases of these two men. We also want to be assured that the system of confidential reports has been improved. If there had been a system of confidential reports such as that to which those of us who were in the Navy submitted, these gentlemen would not have lasted for more than a very short time It must have been a bad system, laxly applied, with low standards. We must be assured that it has improved.
Turning from personal contact to the subject of Communism. I think it is remarkable how slow in this country we
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have been in realising the theory of Communism and its importance. We are practical people; we cannot understand that people of other nations, habits and thoughts put theory above facts. In Communism we see an expression of Russian nationalism or of agrarian reform in China. We say that surely the third generation are looking after their comforts and their vodka and are not devoted to theoretical Communism—as if people who have known nothing but theoretical Communism, who have been stuffed with it educationally from their youth, could not be as strong Communists as their predecessors. It is only by reading the abominably dull works of Communists, as dull as Hitler's Mein Kampf, that we can learn about them. And if our enemies write such dull books, we cannot persuade the British people to read them. We do not know the full horror of what we are up against because of the sheer dullness of Das Kapital and Mein Kampf.
But those people are dedicated enemies with no standards of honour, no patriotism as we know it, no possibility of compromise. They despise socialists even more than they despise capitalists; and the first thing they do in any country is to put all socialists and trade union leaders into concentration camps. We have to recognise that, for the first time since the reign of the first Queen Elizabeth, we have a fifth column in this country, a fifth column that has penetrated, apparently, the highest ranks of the Civil Service, the scientists and even the Church. We are neither at peace nor at war but are in a cold war in which we cannot judge by the normal standards of peace the measures which it is right to take. While the Prime Minister's peroration was remarkably effective. I could not help thinking that, if we were betrayed by Communists and should go down, it would be rather ironical to think that, if the Prime Minister met the Foregn Secretary in the corridors of the Lubianka prison, after a particularly grilling and horrible interrogation, he might say: "But in any case, my dear Harold, we did nothing to interfere with the liberties of British Communists."
We have to face the fact that we are in a cold war. We have to look at our traditional practices from that point of view. The first thing about which the

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Committee of Privy Counsellors has to make sure is that no organisation or body of men should consider itself above security. In the past, the atomic establishment at Harwell would have nothing to do with M.I.5. The highly elite organisations feel: "We know each other so well; we are all such good chaps and there is no need for security procedures." We must be assured that that attitude has ceased. Secondly, we must be assured that security gets full co-operation from all Government Departments. It should not be regarded as "the fellow with false whiskers who is a bit of a bore and tells silly tales," but should have full access to the heads of Departments and should be considered seriously. All of us who are ever concerned with naval, military or other intelligence have considerable sympathy with St. Paul when he wrote "Who hath believed our report?"
I do not think that the change we make need be large or drastic. The Prime Minister rather over-dramatised the issue. I feel sure that there is no need for powers to arrest people on suspicion. No one has proposed that. The power to question a civil servant would be quite sufficient, because if anybody refused to be questioned it would show an immediate guilty conscience, and the right deductions would be drawn. We must be assured that the security service has ample facilities, in men and money, as well as the appropriate technical means at its disposal. That needs to be assured to us. There is one liberty which is a very uncertain one, and I hope this Committee of Privy Counsellors will pay attention to it—that is: is there an undisputed right to leave this country? Is a passport a privilege or a right? We have had contradictory answers from Government spokesmen on this point. I have been told by a member of the Cabinet, since these discussions began, that anybody could leave this country without a passport. I had to go to France, and when I tried, the following Sunday, to leave without a passport I was very politely told by the Scotland Yard man at London Airport that, if I did not produce a passport, he would not allow me to leave. I said that he had no right, and he replied that he knew that but still I was not going to
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catch the aeroplane. He was absolutely right. I told him why I had tested him.
LORD SHERWOOD: The noble Lord can leave without a passport if he goes to Newhaven.
VISCOUNT ASTOR: I am well aware that there are some passportless excursion trips.
LORD SHERWOOD: I have been on one.
VISCOUNT ASTOR: I congratulate the noble Lord, and I hope he enjoyed himself. To return to the point, should there be an unlimited right of leaving this country with or without a passport? Does it exist? Should it exist? Just think of the liberties which we have given up: you cannot cut down a tree, you cannot remodel a cottage, you cannot build a cow-house, without somebody's permission; a diplomat cannot write his memoirs; you cannot float an issue; you cannot do anything 'without permission. Should there be this complete right of anybody, in any circumstance, possessing confidential information, to walk out of this country? Surely that is a point which deserves attention. Whether it is right to have these passportless excursions in which the noble Lord has indulged, and whether it is one of the liberties which, in the minds of all, should not be curtailed, is a question to which I hope the Privy Counsellors will address themselves.
My Lords, to return to the Diplomatic Service, there is no doubt that this affair has been a severe blow to the prestige which the Diplomatic Service and the Foreign Office should, and deserve to, have. Nowadays one of the troubles is the lack of respect for prestige. It was easy enough to say that the fact that a person was a Peer or was rich did not mean he was better than anybody else. As a result, there has grown up among the public a feeling that everybody is as good as anybody else, and that people in the Diplomatic Service are no better than they. It has become a subject for musical hall jokes and' so forth. I think one of the important points is to re-establish that prestige which has been harmed. In my view, the Foreign Office must consider its public relations in the general sense—the way it meets the public in different spheres, whether it be a person

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who goes casually to ask for information, the business man or the journalist. I submit that we are doing no harm to this great Service, the vast majority of whose members have been the most disinterested public servants imaginable, in raising this debate so that these points may be cleared up, and so that in future we can be quite certain that the Service is living up to its high traditions. I beg to move for Papers.
4.33 p.m.
LORD AMULREE: My Lords, I must apologise for my rashness in addressing your Lordships a second time in one afternoon, but this is an occasion when necessity knows no law. I do not want to follow the noble Viscount in the broad survey which he has given you, ably wandering about the various paths of security. I want to put my remarks in the form of one rather simple question. Apparently, the names of Burgess and Maclean have been indissolubly linked together because both ran away from the country at the same time. When we consider Maclean, Her Majesty's Government appear to have a pretty considerable amount of evidence that Maclean had been acting as an agent for a foreign Power for quite a long time. But I wonder whether we have the same knowledge about Burgess. Certainly, upon the occasion when the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs spoke in another place, I think on November 7, he declared upon two occasions that at no time before Burgess left was he under suspicion. Furthermore, in reply to a Question, the Minister said that there was no suspicion on the part of the authorities against Burgess. But that does not mean that Burgess may not have been conscious of his own guilt, and therefore felt that the best thing to do would be to be off. That may well be correct. But there are one or two other alternatives which I feel we should, in fairness, consider.
Before I come to them I should like to mention three things about Burgess: first, that he ran away with Maclean; secondly, he was known to have Communist sympathies, even when a young man; thirdly, nothing has come out in the White Paper issued by Her Majesty's Government, though there is a possibility that the noble Marquess, Lord Reading, may have some additional facts which have not yet emerged. There may be two alternatives which may be worth con-
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sidering, in the case of this unfortunate and stupid man. One is that, as a result of his stay in the United States, he came back here, returned to his former allegiance, and took the opportunity of going to the country of his choice. I think it is fair to say of a person with the curious, unsettled, paranoic mind of Maclean, that perhaps he thought war between the two countries was inevitable, and that he might be able to do something by going to Russia or vanishing from this country. Officially, neither I nor anybody else knows where he has gone, but at any rate he may have gone to do something to prevent war from taking place. I put forward that suggestion to the noble Marquess, but I shall quite understand if he says that he has no further information, and I certainly shall not press him if he says that he has information which he cannot disclose because of security reasons.
4.38 p.m.
LORD TEVIOT: My Lords, I shall not detain your Lordships long. I am not going to approach this subject from the angle adopted by my noble friend Lord Astor; I am going to take a more general line. I am glad that he has brought this noble House into this question. I have felt that for us deliberately to ignore what has taken place would not do us any good and would damage the prestige of the House. Undoubtedly this whole episode has been a dreadful blow to Government prestige, not only here but in foreign countries as well. I think it essential that both Houses should show the strongest support for the proposal of the Prime Minister to set up a committee of Privy Counsellors. I hope that the terms of reference will be as wide and comprehensive as possible, so that the committee can really get down to the roots of this question. Beyond doubt, it appears that Ministers were not given information which they should have had. From what I have heard, not only in this House but elsewhere, that is a point that has impressed me.
In regard to the traitorous side of the matter, any nation may have "bad eggs," but we must do every thing we can to prevent this sort of thing from happening again. If we look back, we find that it has happened five times before. Five men have been caught out as traitors to their country. To me, the most important

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thing is that we should do all we can to see that men of such low character and with such well-known reputations should never be promoted to represent this country again. The respectable world—part of it is still respectable, I think—expects this of us. Do not let us be misled by what I am afraid I must look upon as nonsense—the allegations of "witch-hunting" and "McCarthyism." I feel confident that this House will be rendering a great service to the nation by taking a strong view on this whole matter. Our future must be secured in the hands of worthy men. I commend those few thoughts to your Lordships for your sympathetic consideration.
4.40 p.m.
LORD CONESFORD: My Lords, in examining this scandalous affair to-day our purpose should be severely practical. Nobody would wish to probe the wounds of a great and honourable Service except for the purpose of finding out what went wrong in order to make it as certain as possible that similar mistakes will not again be made. II should certainly not take part in this debate but for two considerations: the defects and contradictions of the White Paper and the fact that these have not been wholly remedied or removed by the fine speeches of my right honourable friends the Foreign Secretary and the Prime Minister on November 7. The two principal points to which I wish to direct your Lordships' attention are, first, the appointment of Maclean to be head of the American Department of the Foreign Office in October, 1950; and, secondly, his flight from the country on May 25, 1951, without let or hindrance. I believe that both these events cast discredit upon the authorities and that the reasons hitherto given in explanation or excuse will not bear examination.
To deal first with Maclean's appointment, he was appointed to be head of this Department five months after his serious misconduct in Cairo. My first regret concerning the White Paper is that it does not tell us what that misconduct was. I do not think that the omission can be on security grounds. Had the White Paper set out clearly and definitely what the misconduct in Cairo was, then the public, and both Houses, would be in a better position to judge whether it was reasonable or unreasonable to give this man
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further employment. But if the White Paper does not state what that misconduct in Cairo was, a Privy Counsellor in another place, winding up the debate for the Opposition, gave particulars of it; and the Prime Minister, who followed him, did not question the accuracy of what was said. I would not make too much of that, but unless the noble Marquess corrects the particulars given by that Privy Counsellor I shall assume that those particulars were, in substance, true. I would also point out to your Lordships that the Privy Counsellor said that the matter of which he gave full particulars was only one among others, two of which he identified sufficiently to indicate to Her Majesty's Government what he had in mind.
I believe that if a man employed by any business or industrial concern had behaved in this way he would have been instantly dismissed altogether from his employment. I believe that the same is true of the fighting Services. If I am wrong in the assumption that he would have been dismissed altogether, I submit that one thing is absolutely certain: he would not have beer given a new post without searching inquiries into all that was known about him, and into the probable cause of his breakdown—if breakdown it was that caused the misconduct. Why was it assumed, in this case, that this man's misconduct had a purely physical explanation? Everybody who has made the smallest study of Communism must know that the Communists will seek to have agents in the Foreign Office and in other Departments. We very much hope that their attempt to secure such agents will be frustrated; but that they will make the attempt we know. If they succeeded in having an agent in such a Department as the Foreign Office, what could we expect? Is it not obvious that their agent would be a man subjected to very great strain? If a breakdown of this nature occurs within the public service, the possibility of a mental cause should not be excluded without inquiry. Had adequate inquiries been made at the time of the breakdown. Maclean's earlier Communist sympathies would have been discovered then and net later.
Let me say at once that I agree with honourable and right honourable members of another place and noble Lords on both sides of the House that the activities

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or political leanings of a man in his university days need not he fatal to him in after life; of course not. But they may have to be inquired into, and in this case they were inquired into—but after these men had fled from the country. I submit with some confidence that those aspects should have been inquired into after the events in Cairo and before Maclean was appointed to another position.
In the debate in another place it was said that there was no suspicion, at that time, regarding his loyalty: but why not? Since January, 1949, it had been known that there had been a leak of information from the Foreign Office to the Soviet authorities and, therefore, that someone in the Foreign Office might have been disloyal. I should also like to remind your Lordships that in January, 1950, some time before these events, Alger Hiss had been found guilty at his second trial in the United States; so the possibility of treachery in high places was certainly vigorously brought to the mind of authorities in all countries. What excuse was there for not considering treachery as a possible explanation of the strain to which this man's misconduct was attributed? After his misconduct in Cairo he should either have been dismissed at once or, at the least, the most searching inquiries should have been made before he was given a further post. Incidentally, was it wise to treat the post of head of the American Department of the Foreign Office as of minor importance? There are two disadvantages in such a course: first, the Americans will not believe us, and, secondly, they would be very much insulted if they did. It really will not do to say that the Foreign Office acted as a good employer in giving him a further post of responsibility without searching inquiries. It simply is not true that a good employer places kindness to a servant above public safety.
Let me pass now to his escape on May 25, 1951. By that time, your Lordships will recall, he was the principal suspect in a very grave matter. Your Lordships will also recall that it had been decided that the security authorities should question him in the hope of a confession or statement which would support a criminal prosecution. Let me say at once that I fully accept what the Government say about the importance of not alarming him prematurely and the difficulty or impos-
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sibility of an arrest at that time. Let me make it absolutely clear that I am not asking for any change in the law that would remove or modify the presumption of innocence or justify imprisonment without a charge. But does it really follow that nothing could have been done to prevent him from leaving the country before he had been questioned? I submit that it ought not to have been beyond the means and the skill of the security services to watch the principal ports and to take his passport from him as he went aboard the ship.
I revert to passports again for a moment because the noble Viscount. Lord Astor, alluded to them, and I think there has been some confusion about the law upon this subject. Fortunately the law was explained accurately and recently in this House by the noble Marquess who is to reply for Her Majesty's Government when he answered a Question put by the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, on the first of this month. The reply made it absolutely clear that the property in a passport had been and remained the property of the Government, or the property of the Crown, and no person could complain if it was taken from him. I dismiss at once the question of taking it from this man before he got to the port because, of course, that would have alarmed him. I merely say that it ought to have been taken from him before he went aboard. I say that the law was accurately stated by the noble Marquess, but it was, inadvertently, wrongly stated by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. In an extempore intervention in another place the Foreign Secretary wrongly assumed that some legal process would have been necessary to remove the man's passport.
It may be urged, of course—and this was admitted by the noble Viscount, Lord Astor—that if the passport had been removed he could, nevertheless, have left the country if the shipping line had been willing to carry him without one. That is true. I do not think the deprivation of a passport would have meant in law that he could have been prevented from leaving this country. But the lack of a passport would have made a very great difference to his being admitted into any other country when the boat arrived on the other side. It seems to me quite useless to say that there was any legal necessity for allowing him to leave the

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country in this way without any let or hindrance. I cannot believe that the Government will seriously contend that they could not legally have prevented Maclean from going abroad in possession of his passport, and I am bound to point out that my view of this matter appears to have been shared by the draftsman of the White Paper. I ask the House to permit me to read the first sentence of paragraph 13. This runs:
"Immediately the flight was known all possible action was taken in the United Kingdom and the French and other Continental security authorities were asked to trace the whereabouts of the fugitives and if possible to intercept them."
Well, my Lords, what is the legal principle which makes it quite impossible to prevent these men from leaving the United Kingdom but makes it easily possible to intercept them abroad when they have landed? I confess that the legal principle evades me. Perhaps the noble Marquess when he replies will make this matter clear. I have heard of only two possible suggestions to account for this discrepancy between the statement that nothing could have stopped them from leaving and the statement in the White Paper that when they had left every effort was made to intercept them.
I have heard two suggested possible explanations —neither, I may say, from a lawyer. The first was that the flight provided that additional proof which was needed as prima facie evidence of Maclean's guilt. But that will not do as an explanation, because, of course, that part of the evidence was complete at the moment he went aboard. The other suggestion was that when he was abroad, after at least a clay or so, he had overstayed his leave from the Foreign Office. That does not really sound to me like an extraditable offence. I am bound to point out the difficulty of this explanation, in the unlikely event of the Government's wishing to resort to it—my noble friend indicates that he will not resort to it. It would, of course, be quite untenable because the passage I have read from the White Paper applies not only to Maclean but to Burgess as well, and he was not overstaying his leave. In fact, they were wishing to get rid of him from the Foreign Office.
I am not going to say much about Burgess but I would draw your Lordships' attention to one passage in the White Paper. After stating that Burgess
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was asked to resign from the Foreign Service, we get at the end of paragraph 7 of the White Paper this statement:
"Consideration was being given to the steps that would be taken in the event of his refusing to do so. It was at this point that he disappeared."
I am bound to say that it is interesting to speculate in what position we should next have found him had he refused to resign and not disappeared. Before I leave the question of Guy Burgess entirely I should like to say that I am also a little astonished at the naivété of the White Paper in saying that he apparently lost his Left Wing interests—indeed he was known after leaving Cambridge to have had some contact with organisations such as the Anglo-German Club. I hope it may have occurred to the security services that he, possibly, did that under instructions.
There is only one other matter to which I wish to refer. In a very fine speech, my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary dealt with some of the grim facts of the conflict in which we find ourselves and he referred to the
"New ideological conflicts which divide the world."
My Lords, the only word in that to which I object is the word "new." New, indeed, they are, if we are considering our whole lifetime, but they were not very new in 1950. I hope I shall be excused if I attach some importance to this matter. For many years I have done my best, by speech and writing, in Parliament, and outside it, to draw attention to the Communist menace. For twelve years the Communists have proceeded with terrifying success towards the achievement of their proclaimed purpose, the conquest and enslavement of the world. In that progress they have had many triumphs and a few setbacks. Possibly in some Foreign Affairs debate we may consider that topic further. The most astonishing minor success which they have had was one to which the noble Viscount, Lord Astor, alluded—their astonishing success in applying the term "witch hunt" to the search for Communist agents. As my noble friend pointed out, the term "witch hunt" has an ugly connotation, because we do not now believe that there were witches and therefore hold that the search for witches who did not exist was an excuse for tyranny and persecution. Does anyone seriously believe that Communist agents do not exist? Of course, they exist and are dangerous. I agree that, in

723
seeking to discover them, Governments can act wisely or unwisely, can act with due respect for human liberty or act with tyranny; but let us abandon at least the use of so misleading and question-begging a term as "witch hunt" as applied to the search for Communist agents.
The use of this term can have some amusing results. I have in my hand, and I should be happy to show it to your Lordships, a fascinating cartoon that appeared in the New Statesman of October 1 of this year. It depicts two witches riding on broomsticks and underneath is written,
"McCarthyism's dead, huh? Perhaps we can cash in on this Macleanism…"
the cartoonist of the New Statesman being under the illusion that a witch hunt was not a hunt for witches but a hunt by witches.
As the result of these events, various inquiries have been suggested. It has been suggested that there might be an inquiry into recruitment to the Foreign Service. I cannot think why, and on that matter I agree entirely with what has been said by the Foreign Secretary and the Prime Minister. It has been suggested that there should be some general inquiry into our security service. I confess that I do not see such a necessity. That is, perhaps, 'because I have confidence in Her Majesty's Government and know that this is a matter on which they will satisfy themselves without an inquiry. There is one matter, and one matter alone, on which I think there should be the most direct and careful inquiry—that is, into the events of this specific case.
5.4 p.m.
LORD SALTER: My Lords, as my noble friend Lord Astor said that he wrestled with his conscience on this point, I want to say strongly that I think he was right to retain his Motion on the Order Paper. It is true that since he first put it down we have had a White Paper, and that since the White Paper there have been important statements and developments elsewhere. We now know much more than we did before: we know that there has been a progressive tightening of security arrangements; we know, too, that a small and formal conference of Privy Counsellors is about to consider what further precautions are needed. I am sure that all of us to-day have had these facts truly in mind and none of us
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has wanted to go into the past or to make an attack on the Government or the Foreign Office or anybody else, except in so far as it seems to us necessary in order to ensure, so far as we can, that any additional precautions that are needed will in fact be taken in future. I think, too, that it may be said of all who have spoken to-day—and I hope it will be true of myself—that we are careful of the dangers of hindsight in looking at and criticising the action, or inaction, of any authority at a particular moment. We shall be careful to take into account only what was known, or could reasonably have been known, at that time and not judge them in the light of later events of which we have subsequently been informed.
Why then is it desirable, after the information we have had, to have this debate? First because, as the speeches which have already been made have shown, there are certain questions unanswered which ought to be answered. If they cannot be answered in public in this House, at least they ought to be answered in private for those who are about to conduct an investigation. Secondly, because it is just at the moment at which this informal but authoritative conference is about to take place that it is most useful for us to express any opinions we have; and thirdly, because, when national security is involved, as it is in this problem, I think it is only right that this House should make its contribution and should do so by means of a discussion held under the particular and distinctive traditions of discussion in this House.
I am not concerned with the cases of these two officials as such. All I care about is the light that they throw on the two continuing problems of the public service, first how to ensure that officials are not retained in positions of trust when they have shown themselves unsuitable, by faults of misconduct, or in temperament; secondly, how to act in the much rarer, but very important, case of suspected treachery or disloyalty. In offering reflections on these two I shall confine myself to the case of Maclean and to two stages only of that case—the Cairo affair of 1950 and the disloyalty inquiry of April-May, 1951. The earlier of these illustrates the first of the two problems I have mentioned, and the later one illustrates the second. For convenience may

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I call them Maclean, 1950, and Maclean, 1951? I apologise if to some extent I have to cover some of the same ground that has been covered by those who have preceded me, but it will be from a slightly different angle.
I come now to the first question, Maclean, 1950—the decision to reinstate Maclean in October, 1950, after his serious misconduct in May of that year, and to make him head of the American Department. I realise that at that time the Foreign Office had no suspicion of treachery or disloyalty. I shall not discuss now, though others may, whether they could reasonably have been expected to have such a suspicion at that time. I only ask now whether, on what was admittedly known of his conduct, it was right to reinstate him. As my noble friend Lord Conesford has said, the White Paper does not give us details of the Cairo incident. However, these details were given in horrifying detail by a Privy Counsellor in another place, and so far this account has not been denied or, I think, seriously questioned. If that account is true, does it not certainly show that the man who was guilty of such conduct was really unsuitable by temperament and personal habit to occupy a high position of trust in the Diplomatic Service? I agree with my noble friend Lord Conesford that it really will not do to say that he was appointed to a position of no great importance, a department dealing with routine and welfare, and, as has been said elsewhere, that he was not in a position to deal with questions of major policy. Our concern is not that a Foreign Secretary was guided in his decisions on major policy by advice from Maclean; but that, after what Maclean had disclosed of his character and conduct. he should then be put in a position in which most certainly he had access to the most secret papers, and in which personal relations requiring personal discretion were involved.
Having that in mind, I want to ask, first of all, whether when this incident took place in Cairo in 1950, the Embassy there gave full information as to what had happened to the Foreign Office. Secondly, if they did, or when the Foreign Office learnt of the events, did they then take the trouble, in the five months which elapsed between the incident and the time of reinstatement, to see if there was evidence as to whether or not this was indeed
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a solitary lapse, or whether similar lapses, showing similar faults, had occurred in the past? Thirdly, when they had reinstated him, I ask whether in the light of what was known about Cairo, they took special steps to see if in the subsequent months between then and the Spring of 1951 there was any similar recurrence of behaviour. As I say, I think these questions ought to be asked and answered, if not now at least for the meeting of the Privy Counsellors. I think that is sufficient to illustrate my first criticism about 1950, which does not concern the question of treachery and disloyalty—and for the purpose of my argument here I am accepting as fact that nothing was then known or (though I doubt it) could reasonably have been known, to give grave suspicion of disloyalty.
I want to press home this point of what is done when an officer has behaved, and is known to have behaved, in a way that, on the face of it, shows him to be unsuitable for a position of public trust. There was a reference made in another place to what is the duty of a good employer. I think that is an extraordinarily dangerous doctrine to apply to a case of this kind. What is the duty of a good employer depends a great deal on the character of the misconduct and on the character of the work which the individual is doing. If the employer is concerned with the foreign relations and foreign prestige and reputation of this country, if the misconduct is of such a kind as was in this case known to have taken place, surely it is monstrous not to recognise that the first duty of the employer is to his country and to the Service, and not to the admittedly flagrantly guilty employee. I am not now pursuing this same point, though I think: I might, in regard to Burgess; I am content to take Maclean for the purpose of discussing this question.
I wish also to suggest that there is an important distinction as to the grounds upon which action should be taken between the appointment and retention in office of a public official, on the one hand, and, on the other, the grounds upon which a court would convict a man of a criminal offence. Of course, I do not mean that rumour or baseless suspicion should be sufficient to deal with the first case; we all realise the dangers and injustice of that. But if, in the careful judgment of those in a position to inquire and assess

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an officer's conduct in the public service, and with due safeguards against arbitrary or purely individual decision, it is clear that an officer has shown himself not to be qualified for a position of trust, surely it is essential that he should be removed, even though, on the evidence available, he would not be convicted in a court of a criminal offence. I wish to press that distinction strongly. So much for Maclean, 1950.
I now come to Maclean, 1951. In January, 1949, it was known that there was a serious leakage of Foreign Office information. By mid-April, 1951, the field of suspicion had been narrowed from 6,000 people down to two or three persons. By the beginning of May, Maclean had come to be regarded as the principal suspect, even though there was no legally admissible evidence to support an actual prosecution. At that time (we do not know the precise date, but I presume the early weeks of 1951), papers to which Maclean had previously had access were withheld from him. I want to direct your Lordships' attention to that point. Then on May 25 the then Secretary of State sanctioned a proposal that the security authorities should question him. During this period of days, or perhaps' a few weeks, during which papers which he had been accustomed to receiving were withheld from him, apparently he was not watched at all except in London. He was not watched in the country, nor was any watch kept at the airports or seaports in case he should attempt to flee the country. I ask: Why not? Why in these last days, at least, from the moment when the papers were withheld, was a continuous watch not kept on an officer who was by then certainly believed to be guilty of treachery, after a careful inquiry conducted over two years which had narrowed the field of suspicion from 6,000 to one?
Two reasons are given. The first is that it would have increased the danger that he would suspect and be more likely to flee. Are we really expected to accept that? Maclean, whatever else he was, was a highly intelligent man. Did the Foreign Office really think that, when papers he had previously been receiving for years were suddenly withheld from him, he did not begin to ask himself whether he was under suspicion? Would
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the most discreet watch that could have been made when he was in the country, or a watch at the ports, in case he might go there, have seriously added to the danger that he would have suspected and changed his conduct accordingly? Really we cannot accept that.
The second reason given—and the noble Lord, Lord Conesford, has dealt with it—is that anyhow he could not have been kept in the country. Can we really accept that? Supposing that he and Burgess had been followed to the ports and had been seen to be about to embark at Southampton on the night of May 25; or supposing watch had been kept at the ports, and when these two people presented themselves they had been stopped, because they were the people for whom instructions had been given to watch, could nothing have been done then? Is it really impossible that they could have been asked to give up their passports—a request which they were very unlikely to have refused? But even if they could not have been stopped there, supposing they had gone with their passports, was it not possible to telephone to the French authorities at St. Malo?—because whatever may be the doubt as to the legal powers that the British Government had to keep these men in, there can be no question whatever that the French Government had ample power to keep them out, and they could have been returned. Then the main question of disloyalty would have been solved. The very fact that these two men had been fleeing together would have answered the question, and any remaining doubt, though it was a very small doubt at that moment. on the part of those who were conducting the investigation, would have been removed.
I press this point, partly because I can hardly believe that the Executive could not find in their existing powers a way of dealing with such a case, but also to suggest that, if it was indeed impossible, then a short, simple amendment of the law to till up this gap in the Executive's powers would be quite easy, and would not involve any infringement of personal rights. The law could provide, for example, a right to bar the exit for a limited period, subject perhaps to a certificate given by an authority other than that of the employing department—let us say, the Home Secretary—that there was grave ground of suspicion with which he

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was concerned. I do not press that point hard, because I find it difficult to believe that, had the Government really known that these men were getting on this ship, they could not have stopped them.
I have taken these two cases, and these only, because they illustrate the two kinds of danger against which I think any new procedure must provide. Maclean, 1951, is perhaps the rare case—but when it occurs it is, of course, an extremely important case—of treachery and disloyalty. Both problems exist not only and not mainly in relation to the Foreign Office, but in the Civil Service and, indeed, the public service as a whole. Treachery is rare, and doubtless is less likely in the older Departments than in some of the new extensions of the public service; but it is possible anywhere and, as we have been reminded, it is much more likely in present circumstances at a time of conflicting ideologies than it has been in the past. We have to face the fact of a fifth column in this country, and we have to adjust many of our notions and procedures to that sinister and serious fact. I remember that many years ago Leon Blum was attacked because he had taken some action against French Communists. He was attacked on the ground that he, as an old internationalist, was acting against his creed, to which he replied (I do not vouch for the precise words): "My complaint of these French Communists is not that they are the servants of an internationalist creed; it is that they are the agents of a foreign and a hostile nationalism." That is the sinister and serious fact to which we have to adjust the whole of our procedure and policy in these clays. However, I do not now propose to go further with this question of suspected treachery.
It is, of course, true that we may rely upon any Department, and the security officers and personnel officers concerned in every Department, to refuse to conceal or withhold grounds for considering that a man was guilty of treachery. But the same cannot be said with the same confidence, for reasons we all appreciate, about those who, though innocent of crime, have shown themselves to be unsuitable by misconduct or by serious faults of character and temperament for continuance in their present offices of trust. Here I come, as an old civil servant, to the question of security of tenure. We all realise the reasons for, and the
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advantages of, security of tenure in the Civil Service, but I think it is essential that we should understand clearly what we mean by this. Security of tenure should mean security against the risks to employment that might result from political changes, personal prejudice or favouritism, or the fluctuations of demand to which others in other occupations are subject. It should mean that and only that; it should not mean in any degree security against the consequences of gross misconduct and gross incompetence and unsuitability. There must be a system which really works in the appropriate cases—not frequent, but important—to transfer, demote or dismiss, according to the seriousness of the offence or defect of character and according to the character of the work involved. What I have been saying does not refer specially to the Foreign Office; it applies equally to the whole of the Civil Service and, indeed, the public service. I know how high are the traditions in the Civil Service. I am confident that it is only in a very small proportion of cases that disciplinary action would be necessary, but I suggest that it is vital that where it is required it should be taken, and that security of tenure should not mean, or be reasonably suspected of meaning, security against the consequences of incompetence and misconduct.
In conclusion, I should like to make a comment on the question of ministerial responsibility which was referred to by the Foreign Secretary. Of course, ministerial responsibility must be maintained. Of course, the Minister must stand between his officials and external criticism. But I suggest that there are two indispensable corollaries and conditions of this. The first is that the officials should present the issues fairly and fully, and with all the requisite information, to the Minister for his decision, so that the decision can be really his and the responsibility really his, not only in constitutional doctrine, but in reality. The second is that when officials fail in that respect the Minister should take appropriate steps in his own Department.
These are the reflections I wish to put before your Lordships, and before those who will be considering this problem elsewhere. Such questions that I and my colleagues have asked as cannot be answered in public to-day, if there are

731
any, will, I trust, be considered by those who are about to consider, less publicly, the questions which now concern us.
5.26 p.m.
LORD KILLEARN: My Lords, may I detain your Lordships for just one moment? I know that there is a Royal Commission at half-past five, and apart from any other reason that is sufficient to cut my remarks short. I hope that when the noble Marquess replies to this Motion he will find it possible to cover two points. The first is a question: Why were both men not dismissed the service as completely unreliable and unfitted to represent their country at home and abroad? The second is an inquiry: Whether we could be informed if the results of this—I do not know what to call it—inquiry, or this Privy Counsellors' conference, will be published, and, if so, whether there will be any opportunity for public discussion in Parliament.
LORD GIFFORD: My Lords, may I ask one question? It has been said that it was impossible to prevent these men from leaving the country. In the three armed Forces it is the rule—and I have verified it—that no officer or man may go on foreign service leave without the permission of his General Officer Commanding or his Commander-in-Chief of his group or area. Is there any system in the Foreign Office whereby Foreign Office officials must get permission to have foreign service leave?
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: My Lords, I beg to move that the debate be adjourned during pleasure, and we will resume immediately after the Royal Commission.
Moved, That the debate be now adjourned.—(The Marquess of Salisbury.)
On Question, Motion agreed to, and debate adjourned accordingly.
House adjourned during pleasure.
House resumed.

ROYAL COMMISSION
5.33 p.m.
The following Bills received the Royal Assent:

Validation of Elections (No. 3),

Post Office and Telegraph (Money),

Rural Water Supplies and Sewerage (No. 2),

Food and Drugs,

London County Council (Loans).

House adjourned during pleasure.
House resumed.

DISAPPEARANCE OF BURGESS AND MACLEAN
5.46 p.m.
Debate resumed.
THE MINISTER OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (THE MARQUESS OF READING): My Lords, since the possibility of a debate was mentioned here on, I think, October 25, this matter has been discussed at considerable and justifiable length in another place, and both my right honourable friend the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State have explained with great particularity what happened in connection with, I think, every aspect of the affair. But it is no doubt of value that your Lordships should, in your turn, also bring consideration to bear upon the subject, if it be only for the purpose not entirely of looking to the past but also of making recommendations, or keeping your eyes fixed upon the possibilities, so far as it is humanly possible, for preventing the recurrence of such an incident in the future.
I do not propose, and I assume that your Lordships would not wish me, to take up time to-day by recapitulating the whole story as it has been told in another place. I therefore intend, for the greater part, to confine myself to dealing, so far as I am able, with the various specific questions which have been raised in the course of your Lordships' debate, and those I will try to answer.
I think the main emphasis in the course of the discussions this afternoon has been laid upon the doubts which your Lordships have expressed whether it was right that Maclean should have been given a second chance by appointment as head of

733
the American Department. That was a theme which recurred in many speeches made by noble Lords this afternoon, and perhaps it is convenient that I should endeavour to deal with that matter first. Something was said by the noble Lord, Lord Salter, of the importance of not attaching too much value in a matter of this kind to what he called "hindsight." I think it is vital in assessing the right view of this question of Maclean's appointment that your Lordships should bear in mind, not what has been acquired by way of knowledge or, indeed, by way of rumour since that time, but what was known to the Foreign Office at the time that the appointment was made and what reasons they had for believing it to be a suitable appointment for him to hold, despite what had taken place in Cairo some five months before the date of his new appointment.
What did we know about Maclean? We knew something of his background and parentage; e knew that when he joined the Foreign Service he had come with the highest of testimony from school and college. We also knew that during the period which he had already spent in the Foreign Office (which he joined in 1935) he had given performance of a very high standard and promise of being an extremely valuable member of the Foreign Service. Those facts must not be forgotten in assessing this matter. In regard to his service in Washington and Cairo, with the exception of the particular incident upon which attention has been concentrated his performance up to that time had been, so far as our knowledge went, uniformly good; and he showed promise of great brilliance in his career. There was this particular drunken bout in Cairo which, I agree, was thoroughly discreditable. I do not know that the account produced in another place, and to which reference has been made in this House, is in every minor respect correct. It was certainly a very colourful description. For my purpose I am prepared substantially to accept it.
It is right to say that the full details given in another place a few days ago were not known, at the time, to the Ambassador in Cairo and, in consequence, were not reported to the Foreign Office; nor were they known prior to the disappearance of Burgess. Some of the details were known, but the information has grown from time to time, being added
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to by further details which have reached us. In this very shocking escapade he was not in the company of any member of the Foreign Service and certainly nothing like the full story reached the Ambassador. The Ambassador took the view that Maclean had been overworking very considerably and that the moment had arrived, signalised by this particular bout of drinking and some violence, when he ought to be given medical treatment, and that, for that purpose, he should be sent home in order that he might be so treated and results of the strain of overwork to which his actions were then attributed dealt with. It was very much hoped that he might be cured.
Some reference has been made in the course of the debate to-day to the doctrine of the good employer which my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary advanced in another place. In circumstances of this kind, where the employer is the State, there are two duties: first, to be fair to the individual; and, secondly, to discharge one's responsibilities to the public. Those two attributes of duty have often to be weighed against each other. In this case the view, strongly held, was that though there had been a very grave lapse it was in itself attributable to overwork. He was given a second chance because, having been brought home for medical treatment and that treatment: having to all appearances been successful, he was so valuable a member of the Foreign Service that it was only right—not in his individual interest only but in the interests of the Service, itself the servant of the State—that he should be given a further opportunity of devoting his talents to the public service. It is easy, in the light of what has happened since, to say that that was a wrong decision. Though it may have been a wrong decision it was at least taken in perfect good faith, on the basis that this man had been, and was capable of continuing to be, a valuable servant of the public and one of the most promising members of the Service. The doctrine of the good employer has this double duty, and in this particular instance both aspects of it were, in the opinion of those responsible for his further appointment, being discharged.
LORD SALTER: My Lords, might I ask the noble Marquess whether, after what was known to have happened, any steps were taken to ascertain whether

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there had been previous instances; and, after reinstatement, were precautions taken to see whether or not there was a recurrence?
THE MARQUESS OF READING: The noble Lord asked those two questions in his original speech and I was about to embark upon the answer to them when he asked a second time—not that I complain at all.
After Maclean had come back, on the basis that this had been a breakdown in health and in the light of all the reports that we had had upon him from the Ambassadors in charge of the various posts in which he had been employed, no inquiry was made further back into the past. Frankly, I do not see any reason why, in those circumstances, there should have been any such inquiry. During the time that elapsed between his appointment as head of the American Department and the moment of his disappearance he was working in London and living in the country and doubtless was going to a number of parties. It may be true, as the noble Viscount, Lord Astor, said in opening, that during that period he indulged in certain drinking bouts, but most certainly we did not know. I would ask your Lordships this: how could we tell? What are you to do with a man living a normal social life in London and the country? Are you to have people posted to watch him at every party he attends, and detail them to report back what he says and does? I want to say one thing at this point, and I think it is really time that it was said. It seems to me that a great many people in the days since Burgess and Maclean disappeared have been dining out quite freely on reminiscences of all they knew about Burgess and Maclean in the days when they were still in the Foreign Office. It would have been much more in the public interest if those people had come forward and told what they knew to the Foreign Office during the time when that information could have been put to proper use.
LORD SHERWOOD: The noble Marquess has referred to the question of a good employer and the giving of a second chance. The noble Lord, Lord Salter, also brought up that point in his speech. Why was it that during the period when this man was clearly on
736
probation, to see whether he could make good, no watch was kept by the Foreign Office? It is no good asking for ordinary people to come forward and say that he was doing this or doing that. One would have thought that he would have been watched to see what sort of character he was manifesting after that assault.
THE MARQUESS OF READING: I thought I had already dealt with that point, but perhaps I did not deal with it sufficiently for the noble Lord's purpose. The point I have been making all the time is that the view was that this was not a case of bad conduct, a case of a man being on probation and needing to be watched. The view was taken, quite genuinely, that this was a case of ill-health and that the man had been cured. It is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to have someone in this position constantly watched in that way. I think that if one looks back upon all the circumstances of the time and bears in mind what we knew and what reasonably we could be expected to know, it was not by any means an unjustifiable risk, or, indeed, thought to be a risk at all, to give him further employment.
It was not a question of promotion. It has been rather loosely said from time to time—I do not think in this debate—that he was promoted. He was not promoted. Something has been said this afternoon about the American Department, as if it were a sort of minor department to which no one paid any attention. The point of putting him into the American Department was not that it was so much a minor department, as that it was a department which did not have a great deal of work to do, for reasons which have been explained elsewhere. Consequently, on the assumption that he had been up to the time of his appointment a sick man, it would impose less strain upon him than the headship of some of the other departments which bear a considerable load of work might have done. That was the purpose.
May I say something in that connection also about the question of papers, to which reference has been made? As a move, the withholding of papers has been somewhat ridiculed. It has been said that the moment you withheld papers from him you were putting him immediately on inquiry and arousing every suspicion. But I think we have to be a little careful as to what we mean by the

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withholding of papers. As my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary indicated in a debate in another place, really it was not done—to use his expression—in quite such a "ham-handed" way as some people have tried to represent. There are, of course, secret papers and secret papers. There are very different categories of secrecy. What is important is that there is a certain number of routine secret papers and there is also a certain number of pretty highly secret papers which are not of a routine character, but which appear only from time to time. And it was not routine secret papers which were withheld from him; it was these secret papers which, as circumstances dictate, come into circulation from time to time, which were not passed to him during the last few weeks. No one in his position would, I think, notice that he was not getting those papers, for the reason that they were not a routine distribution, but were passed to him from above when any paper of that kind happened to come in.
It might well have been that none of these papers came in during that time, and he would not notice their absence; he would be confronted by their presence only when they were passed to him. I know that a lot of secret papers come to me in the course of a week or a month, but there are a great many amongst them the absence of which I certainly should not miss, because they are not papers which appear among the confidential or secret reports which normally come in every week, but are papers which come in only from time to time when they are received from abroad and when the circumstances with which they are concerned happen to be of particular importance. Therefore, it was not just the case that this man was put in a position to notice from one day to another that he was not getting his normal supply of secret papers. It was quite different and really was not such a clumsy procedure. Of course, it involved a risk. But it was thought that the element of risk involved in ii was such that in all the circumstances it was a risk that it was necessary to run. And no one can say to this moment whether or not the withholding of those papers did alert him. The point I want to make is that certainly the withholding of them was not such a blatant operation as it has been sought on some occasions to make out.
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At this stage I should like to add that it is quite true to say that, as the result of this singularly unhappy business—perhaps its one good result, relatively, strained off from much that is bad—what I might call the disciplinary aspect of the administration of the Foreign Service has been very considerably strengthened. The reporting system has been improved and I think greater emphasis is now placed on personal behavour than was the case, perhaps, a few years ago. Also, the new methods of recruitment which have been fully explained in another place do lay, and indeed are designed to lay, special emphasis on character and personality, and are meant to find out any weaknesses in the individual which might unsuit him for the Foreign Service.
I think this can be said, too: that this business has pointed clearly to the possible connection between a particular weakness of character, a particular form of perversion, and security itself. It is realised, certainly now—perhaps it ought to have been realised before—that anybody who is thought to be disposed to homosexual practices is thereby laying himself open to blackmail to an extent which makes him an unacceptable security risk. That lesson has now been learned. But in saying that, I want to say also that a good deal has been said and written, both here and elsewhere, as if there were no doubt that both Maclean and Burgess were on the same level as regards both drunkenness and homosexuality. I did not say it has in this debate, but certainly it has. As regards Maclean, we had no evidence of any kind up to the time of his disappearance that he was in any way affected by homosexual impulses. The only thing that has come to our notice price is one letter from Mrs. Maclean, to which reference has been made.
As regards Burgess, there again it may be that at the time he was with the Foreign Office he was addicted to these practices; but again certainly those in authority did not know that that was the case. He, too, had come with unqualifiedly good testimonials from those with whom he had been employed during previous years. Obviously he was a person of brilliant, though of somewhat erratic, turn of mind and character. As your Lordships will know, he was given a full,

739
perhaps in the light of the circumstances a too full, run before it was decided to remove him from the Foreign Service. But in answer to the question which the noble Lord, Lord Amulree, asked me, I may say that we had no evidence of any kind up to the time of the departure of the two men to suggest that Burgess had any connection with Communism or was in any way acting as an agent for Communism. His early Communist association subsequently came to light, and in view of the information which has come since, largely from information given by Petrov in Australia, it does appear that he had been a long-term Communist agent. But there is no evidence even now that during the time they were in the Foreign Service Burgess and Maclean worked in double harness, as a team; none. In fact, the only association that has come to anybody's attention was that in the last two or three days they appeared to have lunched together or something like that. Apart from that, they were generally in different countries, one in Egypt and the other in Washington or wherever it might have been, and the opportunities for close association, for a mere geographical reason, were extremely limited. If I may take Lord Salter's description and deal with "Maclean 1951"—
VISCOUNT ASTOR: Before the noble Marquess leaves Burgess, may I ask whether or not the Foreign Office knew of Burgess's deviate habits?
THE MARQUESS OF READING: I thought I had answered that. It may be that some of the junior people might have known, but certainly it was not known to anyone of authority; certainly it was not.
LORD SHERWOOD: Was not Maclean warned not to see so much of Burgess?
THE MARQUESS OF READING: I really do not begin to understand the noble Lord's question. Why should Maclean be warned not to see so much of Burgess when, as I have just said and as the noble Lord would have heard if he would pay a little more attention, they had never been seen to associate together except when they lunched together just before their departure? Why any warning should be given to Maclean not to associate with Burgess I am afraid I cannot imagine. Does the noble Lord want to add anything?
LORD SHERWOOD: No.
THE MARQUESS OF READING: We come then to the point at which they departed. As I have said, there was no supervision of Burgess at that time at all, because nothing was known against him. The position was that he had been sent home from Washington, where he had proved unsatisfactory, and was under trial to see whether he should be kept on or not. It had been decided to dispense with his services. At the time he departed he was actually on leave from the Foreign Office. May I interject an answer to the noble Lord, Lord Gifford, who asked whether members of the Foreign Service have to obtain leave in order to go abroad? They have not, except to certain specified countries, of which France certainly was not one.
VISCOUNT ASTOR: Has any change been made in that now?
THE MARQUESS OF READING: No. May I come to the question which agitated the noble Lord, Lord Conesford—namely, the circumstances of their departure. The noble Lord asked whether it was realised that Maclean might attempt to leave the country and why a watch was not kept on the ports. I do not think it was realised that Maclean might attempt to leave the country. There was nothing to indicate that Maclean had the least intention of doing so or, at that period, that he was in any way alive to the fact that he was under watch. The answer to the question, "Why was watch not kept on the ports?" is that the desire was to get by interrogation the fullest possible information out of Maclean upon which a prosecution could be founded. The whole object of that interrogation was that it should be a surprise move and that he should not have in advance any warning of it. Therefore, it was extremely necessary that the circle of persons who knew him and who knew that an interrogation was under contemplation should be kept as narrow as possible, and if it had been necessary to alert all the ports in this country to prevent him from embarking at any of them, the chances that that secrecy could have been maintained were certainly more remote, to put it mildly, than if the knowledge of what was contemplated was kept in the hands of the restricted small group in the Foreign Office who up to that moment

741
were the only people who knew about it. I think that is the explanation. The passport question is, of course, a complex one. I believe it would have been possible to have asked for their passports when they got to the port but, as I say, that would have meant alerting all the staffs to the fact that these people were under suspicion and the disappearance thereby of all opportunity of confronting Maclean.
The other thing that was said was that we had asked Governments to take steps after Maclean left; and we were asked: could we not have done the same before? There again, what I have said to some extent applies. We could not have stopped Burgess, because we were not suspecting him: we should not have given Burgess's name to the ports, in any case, even if we had advised all the ports, because we had nothing against him. But the position in regard to Maclean was that we had got at that time quite a good deal of highly suspicious information; and what was still being awaited was what I have called a surprise confrontation with this information in the hope of getting further particulars out of him. Once he had left the country that surprise element had disappeared; we could not surprise him any more: he knew what was going on. But it also had this effect: that it confirmed all the suspicion we had, and added considerable weight to the possibility of preferring an actual charge against him. Although the noble Lord, Lord Conesford, rather dismissed it as not a very relevant or weighty argument, that at the time was the argument which was taken into account, and which prevailed. That was the reason why these various things were not done which noble Lords may think, in the light of subsequent experience and the knowledge of all that has happened since, ought to have been done at the time.
The work of the security authorities is never easy in these matters. They have to balance possibilities of one thing happening against possibilities of another thing happening, and they have inevitably, in a good many of these things, to take a chance on which is the right one to support. In all the aspects of this case they did consider carefully which was the right way to go about it, and they came to the conclusion, whatever may have been shown by subsequent proceedings, that they must choose one of those
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alternatives and, having chosen one, must pursue it.
Those, I believe, are the main points which were raised by your Lordships in the course of this discussion. I only want to add one or two words. The noble Lord, Lord Teviot, said two things upon which I should like to make some comment. He dealt with both of these people by saying that they ought not to have been retained because they were persons of low character and well-known reputation. So far as Maclean is concerned, it is not true that he was a person of low character and well-known reputation; if "well-known reputation" in that context is meant to be equivalent to "shady reputation," he was not known to be that. As regards Burgess, as I have said, whatever his habits may have been, they were not well-known to the authorities in the Foreign Office.
LORD TEVIOT: Perhaps I may interrupt the noble Marquess. Surely, in the light of the knowledge which we now have of these two men, he would not dispute that they are of low reputation?
THE MARQUESS OF READING: But that was not the point. The argument of the noble Lord was directed to the fact that we had quite wrongly kept on the strength of the Foreign Office persons known to be of low character and of well-known evil reputation.
LORD TEVIOT: I am sorry to interrupt again, but does not the White Paper set out quite clearly that that was done?
THE MARQUESS OF READING: It sets out only that what was done was to keep in the Foreign Service people who were subsequently discovered to be of an undesirable character as public servants. That is exactly what happened. The other thing the noble Lord, Lord Teviot, said to which I want to take exception is this. He said—and these are his words: "From what have heard, Ministers were not given the information they should have had." I can only speak on this particular point for myself, though I am sure it is true of my colleagues. As I have said to this House: before, I have had nothing withheld from me from the beginning to end by officials of the Foreign Office—perhaps the noble Lord, will allow me to finish—
LORD TEVIOT: Certainly.
THE MARQUESS OF READING: —that I feel now I ought to have known at an earlier stage. I was fully informed from the beginning, and if there is a responsibility for not telling your Lordships the whole story at an earlier stage, that responsibility is mine and not that of anybody who may be thought to have withheld information.
LORD TEVIOT: The question I want to ask the noble Marquess is this. He made a statement to this House (I did not want to raise this, but the noble Marquess has brought me into it in this way) on October 28, 1952. If the noble Marquess had had the White Paper in front of him before then, would he have made that statement?
THE MARQUESS OF READING: Yes, certainly I should. The White Paper has not made any difference to the statement I made, except that the White Paper adds certain material which at that moment I was not in a position to add. I should have made the statement that I did make, but I might, if there had not been security interests involved at that time, have made a fuller statement. I know there has been some feeling in your Lordships' House that perhaps I might have given more information on that occasion. The first time that I addressed your Lordships from this Bench, I said that if I did not give your Lordships the fullest information I hoped you would attribute it not to discourtesy but to discretion. That expression of hope still holds good. But there does come a moment, particularly in a case like this, when anybody with the responsibilities that one carries in speaking from this Box has to consider whether it is possible to tell the complete story. Whatever it might have been possible to release as time went on, my view at that moment was that it would not have been in the public interest to say that Maclean, in the period shortly before his disappearance, was under suspicion and investigation; and it would not have been in the public interest to say that, because in October, 1952, inquiries were still going on as to the circumstances in which they disappeared.
LORD TEVIOT: My Lords, I hope the noble Marquess will accept my apology for interrupting him. I accept his
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explanation and realise the difficult situation he was in, and that he did what he did for purely security and public good.
THE MARQUESS OF READING: My Lords, I am obliged to the noble Lord for that tribute. I would add only this comment: I do not think any Minister welcomes having to plead public interest. I do not think any Minister merely takes the ipse dixit of some official that a thing is against the public interest; he has the responsibility, and must discharge the responsibility, before he comes down to this House, of satisfying himself not only that it is said to be against the public interest by those who are instructing him but that, in his own objective judgment, it is in fact against the public interest that a statement of that kind should be made. If I may, I will now leave that matter.
The noble Viscount, Lord Astor, in opening this debate, made some reference which, I think, was repeated by the noble Lord, Lord Killearn—who has apologised for having to depart early—as to whether the report of this Privy Counsellors' Committee, which was proposed by my right honourable friend the Prime Minister, would be published and would be the subject of a debate. The answer to that, of course, is, "No," because the whole object of this report is to concentrate upon the present state and possible future improvement of our security arrangements, and anything less suitable for publication and debate in either House of Parliament it would be difficult to imagine. So I can give no hope of any kind that there will be an opportunity to debate that matter. I think I have covered all the questions which have been asked. The noble Lord, Lord Salter, towards the end of his interesting and authoritative speech, made some remarks about the position of ministerial responsibility in regard to security, and also in regard to certain recommendations in the nature of security itself. But, as I think he expected, I should hesitate to deal with those at this stage, since this Committee is, I imagine, in process of being set up, and it seems to me a matter for them to consider rather than for me to pontificate upon now.
The noble Viscount, Lord Astor, in moving this Motion, made some observations about the Foreign Office's publicity on its own behalf, and seemed to intimate

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that business men and others who called upon the Foreign Office were not accustomed to receive a very friendly welcome.
VISCOUNT ASTOR: No.
THE MARQUESS OF READING: Then I am afraid the observation seemed to be bereft of any point. Was that not the argument?
VISCOUNT ASTOR: I was not criticising that sort of thing. I was saying that positive good public relations are as necessary for a Government Department and the Foreign Office as anyone else so as to re-establish that high prestige which should never have been lost.
THE MARQUESS OF READING: I am obliged to the noble Viscount. He did make reference to business men and one or two other categories of persons calling upon the members of the Foreign Office and I thought, apparently wrongly, that his complaint was that they were not very well received. I am glad to know that that is not his complaint, and I should be much surprised if it were.
I want to add only this. The noble Viscount, Lord Astor, as he has just reminded your Lordships, advised the Foreign Office to look to their public relations; and, indeed, it may well be good advice. But absence of public relations on the part of the Foreign Office, however desirable they may be, does not explain some of the attacks which have been made on the Foreign Service in the last few weeks. This happily unique and horrifying affair of Burgess and Maclean has inevitably caused deep distress to the members of the Foreign Service. But it has been made the occasion over a wide field, not of any expression of sympathy with them in the blow to their pride in the Service which this matter has obviously inflicted, but in many cases of quite reckless attacks, not merely upon those who might be thought to have some connection, however remote, with the actual matter of Burgess and Maclean, but upon the member of the Foreign Service as a whole, without any discrimination of any kind. From some of the articles one has read, anybody from outside might have concluded that the Foreign Office was entirely staffed by drunkards and homosexuals. That is not an exaggeration. I remember seeing a great, deep headline "The squalid truth" in a Sun-
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day newspaper, which went on to elaborate on homosexuality as permeating the whole of the Foreign Office.
All I can say is that I have now worked —and it has been a privilege to work—for the past four years with these men, and I wonder how many of the people who write these articles have ever been inside the Foreign Office and know anything of what goes on there. Perhaps when I went there first—until I had acclimatised myself—it may be that I was myself somewhat disposed to take the view, not that it was a nest of vice, but that the members of the Foreign Service were possibly inclined to take their duties in a more light-hearted spirit than others and, shall we say, had more interests or, anyhow, as many interests, outside the office as inside. As I say, I can now speak after an interval of close association with them for four years, and I do feel that I have been, throughout that period, most deeply impressed by, my personal experience of the industry, the knowledge and the sense of public duty of the Foreign Service as a whole. Because these two men have erred in the manner that we know they have, it surely is grossly unjust to attempt, in the way that has been done in all too many quarters, to tarnish the whole name of the Foreign Service.
I read in a weekly the other day—I think about a fortnight ago—a statement that the name of the Foreign Office now means very little, either here or abroad. That perfectly general promiscuous allegation is based solely, so far as I can see, upon the Burgess and Maclean case. I wonder whether the authors of that kind of statement ever pause, before they give it publicity, to think of the effect that allegations of that kind, even though supported by no evidence, are likely to have both upon the morale of British missions abroad and also upon their standing and reputation in the eyes of the Governments to which they are accredited and the people amongst whom, for the time being, they live and work. The whole of this attempt to argue from the particular of Burgess and Maclean to the general of the Foreign Service as a whole seems to me to be founded not upon justice but upon prejudice, and I can well understand how much the Foreign Service have resented the type of attack which has been made. As I say, I have been so closely associated with them, as have

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many others of your Lordships, in these past years, that I did not feel it would be right to let this debate conclude without paying my tribute to them for all that they have given me during the last years when I have leaned upon them for advice and support.
LORD SALTER: I hope the noble Marquess will say that nothing that has been said to-day in this House is open to the criticisms of the latter part of his speech or can in any way have confirmed those articles and speeches from outside of which he so justly complains.
THE MARQUESS OF READING: I am much obliged to the noble Lord. I did not for one moment suggest that. But I thought it right to take this opportunity, as it is the only opportunity I may have, to pay what I believe to be a right and deserved tribute to the Foreign Service. I did not for a moment suggest that any aspersions had been cast upon them in the course of to-day's debate.
EARL JOWITT: My Lords, I have not been able to listen to much of this debate but I rise to say how cordially I should like to associate noble Lords on this side of the House with the concluding observations in the speech of the noble Marquess. However shocking was the conduct of these two men, the servants that we are fortunate to possess in the Foreign Office continue to hold that high regard and position in the minds of all who knew them, as I knew them, and know them to-day. I believe that is the general view throughout the whole country. I cordially agree with what the noble Marquess has said.
THE MARQUESS OF READING: I am grateful to the noble and learned Earl for having taken that opportunity. Not only am I grateful to him but I am quite sure that what he has said will be profoundly appreciated by the Foreign Office and the Foreign Service.
6.43 p.m.
VISCOUNT ASTOR: My Lords, I was a Member of another place for eleven years and have been a Member of your Lordships' House for three years. I have never heard a winding-up speech more chivalrous and gallant in effort to defend some very indefensible things than the one we have just heard. I must congratulate the noble Marquess, above all,
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on his chivalry in defending so well events for which he and his Government were in no way responsible. I am rather surprised that the Front Bench opposite, whose Party were in power at the time, have made no effort to take part in this debate or to take any share in the responsibility for certain conduct that happened during their period of office. It is indeed remarkable that they should have left it to this side of the House to defend what happened when they were in office.
The noble Marquess who has answered is not the only person in this House who knows perhaps a good deal more than he chooses to say. Most of us know a good deal more of what happened, but we did not want particularly to air more dirty linen in public than was necessary. The vast majority of the Foreign Service disliked the type of conduct which these two officers indulged in and were shocked that such a long rope was given by their superiors to these two individuals.
THE MARQUESS OF READING: What does the noble Viscount mean by "disliked the type of conduct which these two officers indulged in"?
VISCOUNT ASTOR: I refer to the constant series of incidents in Egypt, more than the one mentioned, if any noble Lord cared to investigate. I do not propose to air any more dirty linen than has been aired already because there is no point in doing so, but everybody knows that there was not just one incident, there were a good many. I say only this. A member of the women's Services happened to find herself in an aeroplane in Egypt with Maclean, and his behaviour towards her in various ways was extremely rude and unpleasant. She mentioned it to some other member of the staff who said: "Oh yes; that is Maclean, of course. He is notorious for that type of bad behaviour." That is just one incident. I could quote more, but there is no point in doing so.
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: Hear, hear!
VISCOUNT ASTOR: I was going to say that the Foreign Service as a whole thoroughly disliked and repudiated this type of conduct and were very glad to see the end of this affair. I think no more need be said on that.
As regards the future, I am surprised—indeed, I am rather shocked—by what the noble Marquess said, that we are

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going to hear no more of what the Privy Counsellors are considering. When the question arose as to whether or not this debate should proceed it was suggested by various noble Lords that the proper time for this debate was after the Privy Counsellors had reported, when it would he possible for this House not so much to investigate the past as to see what it could contribute to the future. On that understanding, more than one noble Lord told me that he was not going to take part in this debate today. All I can say is that I must reserve our right to raise the question of security of recruitment and conduct to a suitable occasion in the future. I beg leave to withdraw the Motion.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLS-BOROUGH: My Lords, before the noble Viscount withdraws his Motion in reply to the debate, much of which my noble Leader and myself have had to miss because of Committee business, may I say that he has seen fit to bring a Party issue into the discussion which we carefully abstained from doing because we knew perfectly well that there had been a full debate in another place and that there was general agreement upon the
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arrangement come to on the suggestion of the Prime Minister himself that there should be an inquiry into our security procedure. We thought, and I think we thought rightly, that, in all those circumstances it was not right for us to intervene in the private intervention of the Back Bench Peer opposite. I can assure him sincerely that if any noble Lord wants to raise the question of the conduct of the Labour Government, in these or any other matters, he will never on any future occasion or in respect of any past conduct of the Labour Government find any lack of a right and proper defence from these Benches. But it was not considered appropriate to take that course to-day.
VISCOUNT ASTOR: My Lords, I fully accept what, the noble Viscount has said but, as the noble 'Viscount's Party were the Government at the time and as the action of the Ministers at the time was in question. I should have thought this would have been an occasion for them to take part in this debate.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.
House adjourned at twelve minutes before seven o'clock.