CIVIL LIBERTIES IN WARTIME

New Zealand Listener, Volume 4, Issue 96, 24 April 1941, Page 10

CIVIL LIBERTIES IN WARTIME

Britain ' Bemarkable Becord *

— A talk in the series "Calling New Zealand,"

a by Protessor

HAROLD

LASKI

broadcast by the BBC on April 7, 1941.

HAVE recently been investigating with some care the use made by the Government of the enormous powers conferred upon it since the War began, in so far as these affect the civil liberty we are fighting to preserve. Sometimes discussion of these powers gives a completely wrong impression of their operation. I have read, for instance, articles in American magazines by British Communists which implied that we'd become a completely Fascist State, and in some of the more extreme periodicals in this country an endeavour is made constantly to convey a similar view. The Facts What are the facts? In what realm and to what extent have there been suppressions? I take the position as it was on March 31 of this year, and the figures I shall give you are those given to me by the Home Secretary, Mr. Herbert

Morrison. One Communist daily and one Communist weekly have been suppressed. Under the regulations which permit prosecution of persons creating alarm or despondency, 105 persons have been tried. Of these, 20 have been sentenced to terms of imprisonment varying from one day to three months, In 51 cases fines have been imposed, though the Home Secretary has reduced the fine in 14 of these. The charges in 29 cases have been dismissed. Four persons have been charged with action intended to hamper the prosecution of the war. Two of them were sentenced to three months’ imprisonment, and two have been fined. The Home Secretary has the power to ban processions and public meetings. Under this power he has prohibited three meetings in the whole country and the only processions banned have been those in London, a situation which dates back to the Fascist riot of 1936 and 1937. The Home Secretary has the power to detain people of whose hostilities to the national cause he is confident. Under this power, at one time or another, 1,600 persons have been detained. At present 929, of whom 790 are men and 139 are women, are in detention. Who are they? Five hundred of them, of whom about 200 have since been released, were persons of British nationality but of Italian origin, whose previous habits suggested that they were active sympathisers with Fascist Italy. About 700 persons, of whom some 400 have since been released, were active members of the British Union of Fascists whose active support of Hitler and Mussolini was well known. Another 400 persons, of whom 130 have since been released, were detained because either their hostile origins or association gave ground for the view that. they were in sympathy with the enemy. All.these detained persogs have had an appeal to a strong Advisory Tribunal, over which the eminent Liberal Lawyer, Mr. Norman Birkett, K.C., who is well known for his defence of civil liberties, has presided. In practically every case the Home Secretary has acted on the advice of this Tribunal. Some Blunders Perhaps to these cases I should add a considerable number of searches of private houses by the police in different localities. Most of these cases are purely formal, but there have undoubtedly been some in which the police have acted with great stupidity -- one, for example, in which the dangerous documents seized turned out to be some notes on the "Tribal Organisation of the Eskimo," made by a university lecturer on the essay of one of his W.E.A. students, Recently, further, the BBC banned some actors and musicians who came out in support of. the Communist inspired ‘People’s Convention. This issue was raised in the House of Commons. The Prime Minister remarked that any penal-

isation of concerts: was odious to the people of this country, and the BBC immediately removed the ban, The Censorship There is also the censorship, It prohibits, of course, the publication of any news-the movement of ships, for in-stance-which might be of use to the enemy, but it does not interfere with comment on the news. On the censorship, there are two simple things to say. First, it has never interferéd with the transmission, both by letter and by cable, of passionate anti-war articles by Communists and Pacifists to American journals. Second, Mr. Kingsley Martin, the distinguished editor of the left-wing New Statesman, not seldom a _ stern critic of the Government, remarked to me with emphasis only the other day that he had nothing but praise for the common sense and discretion .of the Censors Department. He had no difficulties with it. Well, there’s the whole record. Here is a country fighting for its life with the knowledge before it of what the "Quislings’ have done in the occupied countries. You have two papers banned, you have 22 people imprisoned for brief periods, mostly for petty malicious gossip, often deliberately invented, about parachutists or air raid casualties. You have some 1,500 people at one time or another detained, of whom 600 have been released, and all those remaining in detention are people whom an authoritative and independent Tribunal has on appeal quite rightly detained on grounds of national security. Pacifist propaganda goes on; Communist propaganda by meeting, by leaflet, by periodical is unceasing. Anti-war candidates stand at by-elections and conduct their campaigns wholly undisturbed. Save for the electoral truce between the major political parties, the normal intellectual activities of the nation are unchanged by the war. Granted the gravity of the position, I suggest that anyone with a sense of proportion would be bound to conclude that this is a remarkable, record. There are, I think, one or two things in it to regret. I still believe that Mr. Morrison would have (Continued on next page)

CIVIL LIBERTIES IN WARTIME! (Continued from previous page) been wiser to adopt a procedure through the Courts rather than through Departmental action in the case of the Communist Daily Worker and I think the original banning of artists by the BBC was a foolish blunder. But compare this record, not merely with any country now at war, but even with any country still neutral, and I suggest to you that it stands out as a remarkable tribute to

the depths of the belief in Britain, both in the Government and in the people, in the ordered processes of constitutional freedom, Comparison with Dictatorships Above all, the comparison with ‘the Dictator countries, with their mass concentration camps, with the agents of the Gestapo in every street, with all political parties coerced, with the Trade Unions and the Co-operative Movement destroyed, gives Britain a supremacy in deVotion to freedom which is unchallengable. I want especially to draw your attention to the way in which Parliament functions in war time. The BBC decision about the People’s Convention is in one sense a pretty trifling matter, and in another sense it is of the utmost significance, A member of the House of ;Commons is dissatisfied with the decision. He protests on. the floor of the House. Dissatisfied with the Minister’s reply, he appeals beyond him to the Prime Minister and the Prime Minister remedies his grievance. "Easy," some of you may say, but think what a different Germany or Italy it would be if Goebbels or Goering or Hitler could be cross-examined across the floor of the Reichstag by a private member. Méasure the implication of the fact that every week hundreds of private citizens write to their M.P.’s to complain of this and that; that the whole of the vast machinery of the State is moved into action to investigate their complaint; that the ability of Ministers to satisfy the House that justice is being done is one of the two or three supreme facts by which their reputation stands or falls. In a sense the greatness of the Parliamentary system seems to me more evident in its handling of the grievances of the ordinary citizen than in its passage of some great measure in dramatic circumstances. Freedom has Not been Lost When we embarked upontthis grave conflict there were many who predicted that total war would prove incompatible with the essentials of civil freedom. They viewed with alarm and indignation the extensive powers the Government assumed. They warned us that we were in danger of losing our liberty. Well, I have put before you the facts of the situation as they stand to-day. I think they prove that the invasion of all essenial freedoms has been very small indeed, That is the case for two main reasons. First, because it is the traditional habit of a British Government to respect the great lessons of our Constitutional history, and second, because it is the happy characteristic of public opinion here to watch the Government carefully to see that this respect is maintained. We went into this war a free people. With victory, we shall emerge from it in no degree less free. To conduct the war in that spirit will, I hope, give the principles of freedom a new status among the nations.