War and Internationa Situation

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at on 22 February 1944.

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Photo of Sir Edward Campbell Sir Edward Campbell , Bromley

During the Debate on the Reinstatement in Civil Employment Bill, an hon. Member put a question to the Minister of Labour. The hon. Member said that when the war with Germany is over as many as possible of our men would want to come home: they would have had enough of it. He supposed that then volunteers would be asked for in order to deal with Japan. The Minister of Labour, promptly and, I think, very rightly and correctly, said, in reply, that he thought he ought to correct a faulty impression. There would not be volunteers for Japan. It was one war, and the National Service Acts would operate until the whole thing was finished. As I happen to have spent a number of years in the Far East, I think it is high time that we should all appreciate that, to a large extent, the Japanese are our worst enemies. They have attacked and temporarily occupied a number of British positions, and to-day would be occupying Australia and New Zealand had they not been stopped just in time. Let us not forget, too, that many men, women and even infants, Britons like ourselves, and some of them a great deal better than ourselves, have been brutally murdered by the Japs. Many more are prisoners in the hands of the Japanese, and we know what that means.