Orders of the Day — Defence Regulation 18B.

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at on 21 July 1942.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of Mr Denis Pritt Mr Denis Pritt , Hammersmith North

I have been a little puzzled as to why Regulation 18B has been made the topic of a Debate, not because it is not of considerable importance, but because on the whole the matter has been so well discussed in the past that practically no argument has been put up—I have heard nearly every speech—whether about appeals, or about making the Advisory Committee's decision binding upon the Home Secretary or any other topical matter, which has not been put up before, answered by the Home Secretary with a very fair measure of success and left at that. Perhaps it is a good thing that it should be discussed now, but I am, nevertheless, rather puzzled as to why a number of gentlemen, none of whom have been very fond of civil liberty, should desire to say again everything that they had said before. There is a considerable measure of common ground. It is common ground with practically the whole of the Committee that you must have this type of power in war-time in someone. I think it is common ground that it must be in someone in a position substantially that of the Home Secretary, and I think there is a very large measure of agreement that the last word must rest with the Home Secretary. In those circumstances the problems, while they are anxious, are really relatively in a small field. Public confidence is important, and I think it can best be obtained and maintained if the public feel that right principles are being followed and also that mistakes are not being made or, this being an imperfect world, that every precaution is taken against mistakes and that as few as possible are made.

With regard to the principles which are followed, it has been said that there is a good deal of uneasiness. Some say that there is not much, but that there ought to be, and some say that there is a good deal, and in particular the hon. and learned Member for the Welsh University (Mr. E. Evans) said that what one really needs for confidence is a real public conviction that we are fighting something evil. I think for myself that the public uneasiness is mainly, not that there are too many, but, if anything, not enough people interned, and that some who are interned are being treated a great deal too well, and the suspicion is created—it is not diminished by the general orientation of the bulk of the people who are complaining of the Home Secretary—that there really is a great deal too much pro-Fascism in the country at present, and that it unfortunately synchronises with a period of time which is pretty anxious from the military point of view. The most important thing from the military point of view is the situation in which five, six or seven million available American and British troops are standing about idly and not taking part in any actual fighting, and the people who are intriguing up and down the country to try and prevent the early development of the promised second front are not wholly dissimilar from the people who are raising this agitation or from some of the people who are interned. I think public opinion would be very greatly reinforced if it were discovered that the Home Secretary was sternly putting an end to any mollycoddling of the people who are interned and seeing whether, not in any sense of panic but with the proper exercise of his own responsibilities, some more people were interned to keep them company.

When one hears people solemnly suggesting that the Home Secretary should let all these people out, I suppose including Sir Oswald Mosley and the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Southern Peebles (Captain Ramsay), if they will promise to be good, one is indeed astonished. Since when has the word of a Fascist been such a sacred thing? Whether the Home Secretary keeps people in or lets them out, everyone pays him the tribute that he gives a good deal of consideration before he does either. When it is seriously suggested that if they promise to be good, the Home Secretary should say, "Out you go; I will keep one as an exhibit," if it is only a joke, I would not mind, but there are better things to joke about. If it is a serious proposition, it shows where some people's minds are going, and it is calculated to excite public indignation. We want confidence in the administration of this Regulation, and, as far as I can judge, I should think the Home Secretary has it, if anything rather more than he ought to have.

Mistakes can be made. There have been made public two or three cases where the mistakes were really grotesque, but I think that they have probably been cleared up. There have, however, been other mistakes. The best thing to do would be for the Home Secretary to make a statement—it cannot be very detailed, but a statement as specific as he can make it—about every case he interns and, if possible, about every case he holds interned. That would, I believe, greatly increase public confidence. I will give an illustration. The Home Secretary in one of the last Debates gave a case in his own favour. I am doing him the credit of assuming that he picked one of the best. He said that people were angry with him for interning a respectable married woman who was a British subject, but he asked to be allowed to state the true facts. He said that she was an English married woman because she married an Englishman, but that she was in fact a Nazi. She and her sister were in exactly the same boat and doing the same kind of work. The sister was a spinster and, as a German, was interned, but everybody was kicking up a row about this woman because she was English. If something of that sort could be said about every internee and the general public knew what was going on, it would give them a much greater feeling of confidence. In general I support the policy that has been applied by the Home Secretary, except that I hope it will be a little firmer, and if the matter is pressed to a Division, I shall vote for it.