§ LORD WEDGWOODasked His Majesty's Government whether they can give the names of the internment camps where refugees from Nazi oppression and aliens who are pro-Nazi are confined together, and what steps they propose to take to separate such refugees from their enemies, more particularly in view of the fact that as refugees are released the majority tends to become Fascist in such camps.
§ THE PARLIAMENTARY UNDERSECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA AND BURMA (THE DUKE OF DEVONSHIRE)The camps to which the noble Lord refers are no doubt the villages of Port Erin and Port St. Mary in the Isle of Man where women and married couples are interned. The persons interned in these villages are billeted in different houses, and if the suggestion in the question 691WA is that Germans who are opposed to the Nazi régime are compelled to live in the same houses as supporters of that régime, this suggestion is mistaken. The internees are, however, free to move about within the villages, and it would be impossible to prevent contact between the different groups except by depriving them all of this measure of freedom and penning each group into some closely limited compound. It would be very regrettable to have to abandon the present system, which greatly mitigates the irksomencss of internment, and experience of the working of this system does not give ground for the apprehensions which have prompted the noble Lord's question.