HC Deb 16 April 1934 vol 288 cc739-855

Order for Second Reading read.

4.22 p.m.

The ATTORNEY-GENERAL (Sir Thomas Inskip)

I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."

The Bill is of more limited scope than, if I may judge from some published comments, some persons think it to be. It is concerned wholly with the prevention and punishment of endeavours to seduce members of His Majesty's Forces from their duty or allegiance. More than 130 years ago, this House passed an Act of Parliament by which it was made an offence to endeavour to seduce any person serving in His Majesty's Forces from his duty and allegiance to His Majesty. If any hon. Member has a copy of the Bill, he will find that language is substantially reproduced in the first Clause.

The Act of 1797 is not a dead letter. It is the law of to-day. It was made a permanent Act of Parliament by an Act passed a good many years ago, and it has not been allowed to fall into desuetude. Prosecutions have taken place from time to time under that Act, and so recently as within the last three years. Offences under the Act are triable only by indictment, that is to say, they cannot be dealt with summarily nor can they be made the subject of proceedings before a court of quarter session. Not only does the Incitement to Mutiny Act, 1797, make it an offence to endeavour to seduce any person serving in His Majesty's Forces from his duty or allegiance to His Majesty, but a corresponding provision has been enacted for a good many years past by Parliament in the Army Act and in the Naval Discipline Act. Any hon. Member who chooses to turn to Section 13 of the Naval Discipline Act will find that even though he has only been a Member of this House for a very short time, he has been a party to making it an offence for any person, whether subject to naval discipline or not, to endeavour to seduce a member of the Navy from his duty or allegiance to His Majesty.

The date of the first Naval Discipline Act was, I think, 1866, but, as hon. Members may know, it is re-enacted in substance and with any necessary Amendments, every year. The date of the original Army Act, which as the House remembers was a comparatively late invention to make it unnecessary to continue the practice of having what were called "Articles of War," was 1881, and Section 7 of that Act makes it an offence to do what is described in the first Clause of this Bill, so far as members of His Majesty's Army are concerned. The same provisions in the Army Act were applied to the newly constituted Air Force by an Order-in-Council under a provision embodied in the Act of Parliament in 1913. I have taken the risk of wearying the House with these references to earlier legislation in order that it might be made perfectly plain that there is nothing novel or startling in Clause 1 of this Bill, which merely sets out that which is already an offence but is an offence punishable only by indictment.

The effect of the two or three prosecutions which have taken place in the last year or so has been to drive the chief offenders underground. A somewhat sly and almost skulking breed of inciter has come into existence. They are too shy or too cowardly to put their names and addresses to the literature which they are in the habit of producing. They do what I can hardly describe better than in terms which they themselves have used in one of the publications from which I am about to quote. They say, in the "Soldiers' Voice," of May, 1932: Leaflets were printed in English, French and Japanese, and careful plans were laid for their distributions. They were strewn on parade grounds, stuck on walls and fences, put in the dance halls and cabarets frequented by men of the Forces, and many soldiers and sailors alike were surprised to find leaflets in their pockets or thrust into their hands.

HON. MEMBERS

What is that from?

The ATTORNEY-GENERAL

That is a quotation from "The Soldiers' Voice," which is a pamphlet issued by certain persons who do not put their names or addresses to it, and published in May, 1932. The methods of the persons who produce these pamphlets are such as, I am sure, nobody will defend. As I say, they are published anonymously by people who prefer to employ comparatively harmless and ill-paid persons to distribute them. The persons responsible for them have taken very good care to keep well in the background since the prosecutions of two or three years ago, when some of the offenders were properly dealt with under the existing law.

Mr. ATTLEE

Would the Attorney-General give us a little more of the history of this matter? I understand that it first arose in 1797, and the right hon. and learned Gentleman has told us about "The Soldiers' Voice," but he has told us nothing about what led up to this Bill, and we are rather in the dark.

The ATTORNEY-GENERAL

If the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, I have been speaking for only about five minutes, and, if he will give me a little more time, he shall have quite as much as he desires about the activities of these people. He really is not entitled to complain if I have not given him more information than I have so far had an opportunity of giving. I have been anxious to explain to the House that this Bill, in Clause 1, merely re-enacts what is the law to-day. I will come to the later Clauses in a moment, but I am anxious that the House shall observe that the existing law is not adequate to deal with the activities of people who take very good steps to keep well in the background, while they push other persons forward who are going to distribute the leaflets and propaganda to which I will call the attention of the House in a moment. I do not believe that anybody can justify such methods. They are in themselves offences, quite apart from the incitement to mutiny or disaffection, because it is the law that everybody who produces a printed page for distribution shall append his name and address to it. These circulars offend against the law in that respect. Let me give to the House a few more illustrations of the propaganda or literature which is being distributed by those agents who, according to the proposal of this Bill, may be prosecuted summarily. I have referred to "The Soldier's Voice." It is a leaflet published from time to time, claiming to be the organ of Communist soldiers. There is a corresponding leaflet with reference to the Navy, entitled "The Red Signal," which claims to be the organ of Communist sailors. I will trouble the House with a few illustrations, in order that hon. Members may have in their minds the sort of incitements which are offered to members of His Majesty's Forces in this secret, underground fashion. "The Soldier's Voice" of October, 1931, invited its readers who were soldiers to understand that: The way to victory lies, not through voting, but through mass struggle. What is needed is a repetition of the united strike. The issue of May, 1932, contained this passage: Let us use the knowledge of arms which they give us, when the opportunity presents itself, to overthrow their rule, and, in unity with our fellow-workers, to establish a free Socialist Britain. In November, 1932, the same production said: We suggest that you, comrade reader, should make a beginning now in your unit. Get in touch with that other fellow in your lot who thinks like you. And then start in to convert the rest of your mates to your ideas. If you don't quite know how to begin, what about writing for advice to that Communist or member of the Unemployed Movement you used to know at home? These are incitements addressed to and intended for members of His Majesty's Forces. "The Red Signal," the organ of Communist Sailors, in October, 1932, said: They will put a gun in your hands. Take it, and study the art of war. This knowledge is essential for workers in order to fight against the capitalists of their own countries, in order to put an end to capitalism. In May, 1933, it said: If war does come, then it must be turned into a civil war against the capitalist warmongers and their bankrupt system. We urge our comrades of the lower deck to get into touch with this great movement wherever possible. I could multiply these quotations indefinitely, but I have given sufficient to show the House that there are persons who think it right to attempt to seduce members of His Majesty's Forces from their allegiance to His Majesty the King, by inviting them to foment and take part in mutiny, rebellion, and, indeed, a number of offences which are abhorrent to anybody, whatever view he may take of war and its necessities.

I venture to think that these pieces of propaganda are an insult to members of His Majesty's Forces. The members of His Majesty's Forces in general are in- spired by a passionate loyalty to their Service, they have a great respect for the traditions of their regiments or units, and they feel that duty is a real influence. They are gifted, as we know, with a great sense of humour; they are neither angels nor prigs; they have a great wealth of the English language with which to express their grievances. I venture to think it is an insult that literature should be produced in large quantities which suggests that these are the authentic organs of opinion in the Army or the Navy, expressing in legitimate language the grievances of those who are bound by a duty or allegiance to the Crown. Someone may ask: How much of it is there? During the year 1932, there were 17 different subversive pamphlets. I do not mean 17 issues, but 17 different pamphlets of different titles—"The Soldier's Voice" is one, and "The Red Signal" another—containing such incitements as I have mentioned; and in that year there were 20 places of distribution. In 1933 there were 11 different subversive pamphlets and 14 places of distribution. The pamphlets are distributed among members of His Majesty's Forces by methods such as I have described. They are thrown over the barrack railings, or pushed into the hands of soldiers or sailors in places of refreshment or in music halls; and it is estimated that in each of the last two years something like 50,000 copies of these subversive pamphlets have been produced and attempted to be distributed for circulation among members of His Majesty's Forces.

What is the remedy? The only offence with which those persons who can be caught can be charged is an offence punishable with penal servitude for life, and requiring all the cumbrous, slow-moving machinery of indictment in a Court of Assize. The House should understand that the Incitement to Mutiny Act is not repealed by this Bill. If ever any persons should emerge who are really the responsible authors of this sort of literature, an appropriate method of dealing with them is provided by the Incitement to Mutiny Act. This Bill, however, will provide for an easier, swifter and more suitable remedy and punishment for the comparatively humble persons who are caught distributing literature in the manner which I have described. The offence under this Bill, if it be passed, will be punishable by three months' imprisonment. If any question should arise as to whether it may be necessary or desirable to provide for enabling anybody charged under the Bill to be tried by indictment, there is no difficulty at all, if the House so desires, in increasing the sentence from three to four months in accordance with the provisions of any other Act of Parliament dealing with criminal offences. I have taken the opportunity of reading such comments as have come under my notice with reference to the Bill—

Mr. LAWSON

The Attorney-General says that the sentence provided in the Bill is three months' imprisonment, and there- will be no difficulty in making it four months. Is there any provision in the Bill to allow the Public Prosecutor to make up the matter and deal with it?

The ATTORNEY-GENERAL

I am dealing at present with the earlier part of the Bill; I will come later to the position of the Public Prosecutor, and hope I shall be able to explain it to the satisfaction of the hon. Gentleman. I was explaining, in the first place, that the punishment provided by the Bill is of a much slighter kind than the punishment prescribed by the Incitement to Mutiny Act. The maximum there is penal servitude for life; the maximum under this Bill is three months' imprisonment; and I mentioned in passing that, if anybody should make the criticism that, by reason of the fact that the punishment is not more than three months' imprisonment, it will not be possible for a person charged to exercise the option which he otherwise would have of going before a jury, I shall be quite prepared to consider making the punishment four months, so as to give any accused person that right or option.

A very eminent critic has published some criticisms of the drafting of this Bill. Professor Laski is I understand a well known jurist, and he describes the drafting of the Bill as "astonishing." He asks, what do the words "endeavours to seduce" mean? My answer to the learned professor is that the words "endeavours to seduce" mean exactly what they have meant for 136 years, and exactly what every House of Commons intended that they should mean when it passed the Army Act or the Naval Discipline Act year by year; and I fancy that neither a jury nor a judge nor a magistrate will have any difficulty in identifying the offence should it happen.

Clause 2 of the Bill provides for some particular offences. Clause 1 simply states the offence: If any person endeavours to seduce any member of His Majesty's Forces from his duty or allegiance to His Majesty he shall be guilty of an offence under this Act. Clause 2 provides, in Sub-section (1), that: If any person, without lawful excuse, has in his possession or under his control any document of such a nature that the dissemination of copies thereof among members of His Majesty's Forces would be an offence under section one of this Act, he shall be guilty of an offence under this Act. That is to say, it would be an offence under Clause 1 of the Bill if such a document were used for the purposes described in Clause 1. The Clause, of course, is intended to be deterrent. I believe, though only experience can show whether my belief is correct, that, when those persons who distribute this literature for a few shillings a day, at the request of more responsible persons who have managed to keep their identity secret, are prosecuted, and understand that they can be sent to prison for a fortnight, or a month, up to three months, they will be less willing, for a few shillings a day or week, to distribute this sort of literature. Sub-section (2) says that, if anybody is found without lawful excuse to have documents of this character in his possession, he shall be guilty of an offence under the Act. Can anybody complain of that? Can anybody who does not justify the use of such language as I have quoted, inciting persons to mutiny, complain if a person who is found in possession of such documents without lawful excuse is prosecuted for the offence and sentenced to a reasonable period of imprisonment? We shall hear what criticisms there may be on that question.

With regard to the expression "without lawful excuse," it is not a new expression. It appears in a number of Acts of Parliament with which I could trouble the House if the House so desired. It is a phrase which is well understood. Of course, if anybody has a document in his possession as part of his library, or for purposes which are manifestly not connected with seducing members of His Majesty's Forces from their allegiance, it could not be said that he had the docu- ment without lawful excuse. This expression, "without lawful excuse," is perfectly familiar to the criminal law, it is found in a number of Acts of Parliament, and it merely means that, if any person is to be charged with having one of these documents in his possession, it is open to him to satisfy the court that he has a lawful excuse for its possession.

I pass to Sub-section (2) by which If any person does or attempts to do…any act preparatory to the committing of an offence he shall be guilty of an offence under this Act. I apprehend that some people will say, as I think Professor Laski has said, that this is very novel. It is not novel. It appears in the Official Secrets Act, 1920. Section 7 of that Act contains precisely the same provision as this and makes it an offence to do something preparatory to the commission of an offence. An attempt might be made, for instance, to engage some of these unhappy distributors or to enter into a contract for the printing. Is it to be said that we are to wait until the literature is ready—until it is printed and distributed? Sub-section (2) makes it an offence to carry out preparatory acts for that purpose.

I was asked to deal with the position of the Director of Public Prosecutions in connection with these offences which are intended to be tried summarily. It is provided in Clause 3 that the consent of the Director shall be required if the matter is to be dealt with summarily. That is a very familiar provision. It is to be found in Section 24 of the Criminal Justice Act, 1925. Professor Laski has said it is a complete innovation. The second Schedule of the Act of 1925 contains some pages of offences, some serious and some less serious, which can be prosecuted summarily, subject to this, that if the Director of Public Prosecutions thinks it is not an offence which should be dealt with summarily he has the right to impose his veto. Any unprejudiced person will see how reasonable it is that, if it should transpire that a particular offence is of a more serious character, the Director of Public Prosecutions, acting under the directions of the Attorney-General, should have the right to say, "This is a case for trial by indictment, and it must be so dealt with under the law." Unless anyone is prepared to defend these publications or to say that these tools, as they are, should be dealt with under the cumbrous machinery of the Act of 1797, I think no serious criticism or objection can be taken to the first part of the Bill.

I now come to deal with the search warrant which, quite rightly, has attracted the attention of many Members with a view to seeing that we are doing nothing outrageous. Many Members will probably think at once of general warrants and a number of other irrelevant facts in history. This Clause has nothing to do with general warrants. General warrants were objectionable to the law in those days because the law made no provision for them, and the fact that they were general was an objection. The fact that they were issued by a Secretary of State only and not by a magistrate upon information was another objection. This Clause is not an illustration of the general warrant. It may be found in other Acts of Parliament, of which I have a long list. I am not exaggerating when I say that the Acts of Parliament in which provision is made for search warrants run into scores. One of the most recent is the Official Secrets Act of 1911, at the time of the Liberal supremacy, when the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Darwen (Sir H. Samuel) was a Member of His Majesty's Government. There is in that Section practically word for word the same provision for a search warrant as in this Bill.

I could give scores of other instances from other Acts of Parliament. There is the Obscene Publications Act. There is a great difference of opinion as to what is obscenity in a piece of literature, but Parliament has provided that the Director of Public Prosecutions, having the necessary powers from a magistrate, shall have the right to search to discover in anyone's premises a piece of writing which contravenes the law. I will not weary the House by mentioning other offences. I challenge anyone to name an offence of a general character—I do not mean going into details or minutiae, but any sort of offence, either against public health or against the person or against property, and I can refer him to an Act of Parliament which empowers a magistrate upon proper information to order a search warrant to be made out.

Mr. DENMAN

Will any charge be made against the accused?

The ATTORNEY-GENERAL

Yes, under the same terms as in this Clause and in Section 9 of the Official Secrets Act, 1911. Clause 3 says: If a Justice of the Peace is satisfied by information on oath that there is reasonable ground for suspecting that an offence under this Act has been committed, he may grant a search warrant. I do not say that in every single case the search warrant is in that precise form, but, to give the nearest illustration that I can, in the Official Secrets Act it is in precisely that form, almost the ipsissima verba. Someone may say this is an invasion of what we call the Englishman's castle. I share to the full the desire to protect the peace and privacy of an Englishman's home, but it becomes a mere question as to whether or not the public right has to take a higher place even than private immunity or private privilege. The many cases in which this House has approved the search warrants Clause shows that in some cases public necessity requires a Clause to be approved by Parliament. In this case let me assume that there is a house in a naval port or in a garrison town where it is well known that there is a quantity of this literature which is going to be used in a few days' time for seducing members of His Majesty's Forces from their duty or allegiance. Is it really to be said that, upon satisfactory information being brought to the attention of the magistrate, there should not be power to seize and destroy that literature instead of waiting until it is broadcast among those for whom it has been prepared? That is the alternative. It is a power which, if abused, would quickly fall into discredit and disuse.

I have no doubt that many existing search warrant Sections in Act of Parliament could be abused, but in fact they have not been. The law and public opinion have been careful to keep the use of this power within proper limits. I hope and believe that this Clause will not be abused either by the powers responsible or by the magistrates. As long as I have the honour to hold my present position these powers will certainly not be abused, and I am certain that, if any Member of the party opposite in the present Parliament should occupy the same position, the powers will not be abused. The question is whether the House intends that masses of this literature which are well known by the authorities to be in a particular place or custody shall be allowed to be distributed to members of His Majesty's Forces or whether we shall, with proper safeguards empower the authorities to seize that literature and prevent it from poisoning and insulting the minds of the people for whom it is prepared.

I do not present the Bill to the House as a trifling Measure. It deals with matters of real importance. It is not a panic Measure. In spite of what has been said in the public Press and on some platforms, it is a method which, but for the exigencies of Parliamentary time, would have been produced many months ago. It deals with activities which have come into existence chiefly during the last two or three years and which it is almost impossible to suppress without doing a certain amount of injustice to these people who are, as I have said, only tools, and it is a Bill which provides a reasonable, up-to-date method for preventing crime rather than punishing persons who may be guilty of crime. The contest in this House on these occasions is always between what some people may regard, quite rightly, as the preservation of liberty and the preservation of public order. I yield to no one in my admiration for the free institutions of this country. We are naturally proud that this country provides, in contrast with other countries, an illustration of a free democracy which has not been supplanted by any dictatorship, and that is surely due to the fact that private opinions may be expressed, within certain limits, freely, even when offensive to the Government of the day. But it is necessary that those limits shall be maintained, and one of the limits which this House has long set to the expression of opinion is that no one shall be allowed by suggestion or by literature of this sort to attempt to seduce members of His Majesty's Forces from their allegiance to the King. When a man leaves His Majesty's Forces he may behave as he likes. When he is in His Majesty's Forces he should, and the vast majority of them do, respect the discipline and the duty which they owe. It is an insult to them that it should be possible for persons to let other people think they can be seduced from that allegiance by such literature as I have cited.

Mr. LUNN

Will the right hon. Gentleman deal with the question why these people should be handed over to courts of summary jurisdiction at all?

Miss RATH BONE

In regard to the interpretation of Clause 2, will the right hon. and learned Gentleman say whether the document found on the premises must be of such a nature that it is addressed especially to members of the Forces, or might it have reference to a document which was of such a nature that, although it did not mention His Majesty's Forces, and perhaps was not directed specially against His Majesty's Forces, yet if circulated among the Forces, it might have the effect of inducing them to neglect their duty? For example, suppose it was a document that taught the doctrine that armed resistance was morally wrong, could that be interpreted as a document of such a nature that its dissemination, or the intention to disseminate it, among His Majesty's Forces would be an offence under Clause 1?

The ATTORNEY-GENERAL

The hon. Lady knows as well as I do that it is always very difficult to deal with a hypothetical case of what is or what is not an offence. I must try to answer her question, but it is difficult always to say whether a document is an offence against a particular Section of an Act of Parliament until you have seen the document, but my answer to it in general is, No. Unless the document is one which is intended and brought into existence with a view to seducing a member of His Majesty's Forces from his duty or allegiance to His Majesty it would not be obnoxious to the Act. The other question which the hon. Gentleman opposite asked was, Why make these persons amenable to courts of summary jurisdiction at all? The reason is that, rightly or wrongly—and I think rightly—the Government have taken the view that where a man in humble circumstances, possibly out of work, receives a few shillings—sometimes unknowingly receives money—for distributing subversive pamphlets, it is not right that he should be indicted and brought before a court of Assize or brought up at the Old Bailey and tried under all the elaborate pomp and circumstance of a court of that sort. It will be open under this Bill for a man of that sort in future to be tried by summary processes, and if the Amendment which I have mentioned just now of increasing three months to four months is made, it will give him an option of electing to be tried by a jury, in which case he can have whichever method of trial he prefers. I think that nothing can be fairer than that, and that in the great majority of cases these small people will be tried summarily. I venture to think that when it is known that they are committing the offence, and can be tried summarily, this Clause will have justified its adoption by this House. This Bill will protect the freedom of the public and the freedom of the sailor and soldier from such offensive attempts to seduce him from his proper allegiance as, unhappily, too often take place at the present time.

5.3 p.m.

Mr. LAWSON

I beg to move, to leave out the word "now," and at the end of the Question to add the words, "upon this day six months."

When reference to legislation on matters of this kind appeared in the Press, at first it was assumed in the public mind that at last the Government were to do something about the gentlemen who march about the streets in a sort of military formation and wear uniform and black shirts. Questions were asked of the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary, who said that he considered this matter to be very serious, and that he was giving attention to it. These gentlemen use a kind of armoured car, and they include officers and non-commissioned officers. They have headquarters protected with barbed wire. Although the Home Secretary said that this was a serious matter to which he was giving his attention when the Bill was actually published, we found that no attention whatever was being given to people of this kind who are carrying on a sort of semi-military organisation. But the Attorney-General and the Solicitor-General, with the heads of the three armed Services—and, let the House note, not the Home Secretary—are deliberately making an attack upon long-established and jealously-guarded principles affecting the liberty of the people of this country. The right hon. and learned Gentleman has introduced a Bill of a most sweeping nature containing, as he hinted, principles which have been repudiated by eminent judges for a century or two. He introduced the Bill in a speech which, I am sorry to say, was trivial, compared with the importance of the proposals to which the Government are asking the House to agree. He told us, for instance, that there had been the dissemination of organs called "The Soldier's Voice" and "The Red Signal." It is the first time the country has heard of the existence of these journals. I venture to say that there are very few Members of this House who have ever heard of them. The right hon. and learned Gentleman gave no evidence whatever of the effect of those journals. He told us nothing of any serious or grave disturbance which had come to the knowledge of the Army, Navy and Air Force heads. He left all that to the imagination.

It is now nearly 16 years since the War. This country, like other countries, has gone through most difficult times. Organisations such as the right hon. and learned Gentleman spoke about have established themselves in this country. I have said on many occasions that if it were not for the mischievous views held by some of these people, the country would have had much more trouble from the working classes than has been the case. These organisations have made no headway. There was a. Coalition Government for four years, there was a Conservative Government for some six years, and the National Government have been in existence for 2½ years, thus accounting for 12½ years out of the 16 years. The National Government, after 2½ years. have asked for powers which no other Government ever asked for, except in one case.

It is true, as the right hon. and learned Gentleman says, that Clause 1 of the Bill does not alter in substance the position as it was under the Mutiny Act, 1797, perpetuated by an Act of 1817. I do not suppose that there is any section of the House which has any objection—this party has not anyhow—to the operation of Clause 1. I have no kindly feelings, and have always had a contempt, for a person who would try to get a soldier subject to military conditions into trouble, when the person advising him would not be present to shoulder any of the blame. I think that such conduct is contemptible.

The objection, as the right hon. and learned Gentleman indicated, is to the other Clauses. Under Clause 2 it is a crime to have possession not merely of the kind of leaflet described by the right hon. and learned Gentleman, but of any leaflet or any book winch might be thought by a magistrate to have the effect of seducing a soldier from his duty, and to encourage him to disobey orders. Surely, this is a tremendous and dangerous extension. I question whether even Members of the National Government, with its great majority, will be so docile as to agree to give the Government such great powers as that. I know that the Prime Minister will not; he is sure to object. He has always held very strong views about this matter. He may be busy to-day, but if there ever was a discussion upon a Bill during which he ought to have been present, this is the one. I am not one who usually makes a point of dealing personally with the Prime Minister, but in 1916 he was in pretty much the same trouble as some people will be under this Bill. There were then very much the same powers being asked for as the Government now desire. The Prime Minister at that time said he had 500 or 600 volumes that would get him into trouble if the Bill which was then being discussed was allowed to go through. I will mention some of them later on.

The ATTORNEY-GENERAL

What was the Bill?

Mr. LAWSON

It was the Bill introduced in respect of emergency purposes in 1916. The Prime Minister said: Five or six out of the magistrates who condemn these pamphlets are very bitter partisans,"— There will be some bitter partisans among magistrates when this Bill is operated—

Mr. LUNN

Hundreds of them.

Mr. LAWSON

yet are asked to give a decision on a political matter. He asked, Why do you send these things to magistrates? Why do you not send them to the High Court, where we can get a real legal opinion and legal decision upon constitutional questions? This is not a Small Debt Court case. This is not a pettifogging piece of civil disturbance to be settled by a person with prejudices."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 29th June, 1916; col. 1101, Vol. LXXXIII] The Prime Minister at that time went on to make a long statement about the matter in the House. In 1925 he took the same lines when he said, writing in "Forward": This week we have had to fight the most pernicious proposal that has been made in modern times for the undermining of personal liberty. This monstrous proposal was pressed on us by the Government, and the whole opposition fought it tooth and nail. Finally, we beat them, and the Clause has gone. Pretty much the same power was asked for then as the Government are asking for now.

The ATTORNEY-GENERAL

The Prime Minister cannot be here at the moment, and it is only right and fair for me to say that that was a proposal of a radically different character from the one before the House to-day. It was a proposal that a magistrate might grant a search warrant where there was reasonable ground for suspecting that an indictable offence had been or was about to be committed. It is clear that that was not the sort of power that is in the proposal in the present Bill.

Mr. LAWSON

I am astonished that the Attorney-General, with his great legal experience, should try to cover his tracks by a trick of that kind. He knows as well as I know that the principle of search is involved in this Bill, as it was in the one to which he is referring. I am sorry to use strong language, but I must say that the right hon. and learned Gentleman must know as well as anyone that the question of search is involved, and that was the principle of liberty for which the Prime Minister stood at that time. Sub-section (1) of the Bill is very serious. It says: If any person endeavours to seduce any member of His Majesty's Forces from his duty or allegiance to His Majesty he shall be guilty of an offence under this Act. The Attorney-General tried to explain that the term "without lawful excuse," was understood clearly in legal circles. I was surprised to hear him say that that phrase is a simple matter, and that it works very well within understood limits. Eminent men in the law at the present time are just as much concerned about that phrase as the average citizen. They contend that it is so vague and uncertain as to provide no kind of security. One thing is certain about this Sub-section, and that is that anyone having for any reason in his possession or under his control, even without the slightest intention of distributing them, documents which a magistrate might think would be likely to weaken the troops in their determination to obey any order, could be sent to prison.

The Attorney-General knows that the magistrate will have to judge whether such documents come within Sub-section (1), and he knows that there are magistrates, and magistrates. It would be valuable if we could, for this purpose, have had the experience of the Lord Chancellor in his appointment of magistrates. He has to insist upon certain qualities, but experience shows that he does not always get the right qualities. You may get a good old Conservative, so Conservative that nearly half the Conservatives in this House would repudiate his views. Such a magistrate in a rural area might be told that a certain man had in his possession the Communist manifesto that has been in the possession of thinking people for many years, anl has nothing to do with the present Russian situation, or with Communism as at present understood. A man might have in his possession books explanatory of the doctrine of Marx dealing with class war. I wonder if the Attorney-General knows—if he does not know, students know, students not limited to the Labour party, the Communist party, or the Liberal party, but even in the Tory party—that there are pamphlets interpreting the Marxian philosophy and that any good student will have such documents in his library at the present time. I am sure that the Prime Minister has a valuable set of them.

Mr. McGOVERN

He never understood them.

Mr. LAWSON

There are pamphlets on the Five-Year Plan. Any well-informed man to-day must know something about the Five-Year Plan. My experience is that the more I try to get to know about that plan the less I know about it. The League of Nations have issued a lot of peace pamphlets, and no doubt many Members of Parliament have them in their possession. During the War it was an offence to distribute the Sermon on the Mount. One hon. Mem- ber put a question to the Attorney-General and asked what would be the position of a person possessing a pamphlet of that kind, a pacifist pamphlet, and the Attorney-General said that he did not think that kind of thing would be considered; but he must know that when he goes to a court of law it is not what the Attorney-General thinks or says but what the law says, that counts. The possession of any of these pamphlets and books might readily be interpreted by a magistrate as something coming within the compass of Sub-section (1). In a remote rural area where you have the mildest Labour men, you may have a stiff-minded gentleman on the bench, with ancient views of life, and he would not be two minutes in interpreting these documents as likely to be used to incite a soldier to disobey, and he might think this was a great opportunity to get back upon some of the Labour men whom he did not like in his area.

It is not only a question of possessing these documents and books. There is hardly a Member of this House who does not run the risk of breaking the law under this Bill by possessing books and pamphlets which might easily be interpreted by magistrates as incitement to disaffection. In the Library of this House we have Trotsky's "History of the Russian Revolution." Under Subsection (2) a person is guilty of an offence if he .…"does or attempts to do or causes to be done or attempted, any act preparatory to the commission of an offence. The draftsmen have certainly turned a few legal somersaults in order to make sure that they draw within the net those whom it is desired to draw. Possession is a new crime, and doing or attempting to be done or causing to be done or attempted is a new crime. The Bill not only gives effect to the old law but it makes new crimes. It is very difficult to see how any intelligent man will be able to avoid coming within the four corners of the Bill. The Attorney-General made light of Clause 3 (2): Where a prosecution under this Act is being carried on by the Director of Public Prosecutions a court of summary jurisdiction shall not deal with the case summarily without the consent of the Director. It would appear that he recognises the public protest about the attempt to take away the right of trial by jury on this serious matter. Under the Mutiny Act and other Statutes it has always been necessary in any prosecution to proceed by way of indictment. The Attorney-General now recognises the protest in the country on this matter and says that it would be possible so to amend the Bill to give the accused the right to a jury, if he wished to be so tried.

The ATTORNEY-GENERAL

It would be done by the same expedient that has been adopted before, by substituting four months for three months. The position would then be that the accused person would have the right to elect to go for trial before a jury. He would then be subject to more severe penalties, which would not be three months but it might be two years or a similar penalty.

Mr. LAWSON

Most people would rather have a jury. I rather think that we are having this Bill because people have been tried by jury and the right hon. Gentleman has been disappointed with some of those cases. Under Subsection (2) a case goes before a magistrate only if the Public Prosecutor desires it to go there. If he wishes, he can keep it in his own hands. Let me read Sub-section (2): Where a prosecution under this Act is being carried on by the Director of Public Prosecutions a court of summary jurisdiction shall not deal with the case summarily without the consent of the Director. The Director of Public Prosecutions can give magistrates the power to deal summarily with the case if he wishes, or he can keep the matter in his own hands.

The SOLICITOR-GENERAL (Sir Donald Somervell)

There is possibly a slight misunderstanding as to the question of the Director keeping the case in his own hands, to use the expression of the hon. Member. The question is whether it is desirable to deal with the case summarily or to send it to Assizes. All that this Sub-section says is that where the Director of Public Prosecutions is prosecuting, that is where it is a case taken over by the Director of Public Prosecutions, it shall not be dealt with summarily if he thinks it a sufficiently serious case to be sent to the Assizes.

Major MILNER

In fact, the Director of Public Prosecutions now has the right instead of the defendant to choose the court.

The SOLICITOR-GENERAL

It gives him the right to say that he considers it a serious case; not suitable to be dealt with summarily, but should go to the Assizes.

Mr. LAWSON

If there is a case in South Wales or in Durham, where you have a bench of Labour magistrates, I suppose that the Public Prosecutor would think that it was a matter which should be dealt with by himself, by indictment. You cannot trust Labour magistrates. You may have Conservative representatives there who may pass the word that the bench is not likely to convict the man because they may think it is a trivial matter. Therefore, the case will remain in the hands of the Public Prosecutor who will decide the court. If you have a Conservative bench of magistrates in a rural area and the case is one which is not likely to be considered by a jury sufficiently serious for condemnation, then the Public Prosecutor will let the ancient relics in the rural area deal summarily with the person. In regard to the question of search, it is quite true, as the Attorney-General says, that there are particular cases where search is now possible. There is a whole list of Acts dealing with larceny and coinage, and the keeping of disorderly houses, where it is possible under special Statute to search for a particular purpose; but in this case: If a justice of the peace is satisfied by information on oath that there is reasonable ground for suspecting that an offence under this Act has been committed, he may grant a search warrant authorising any constable named therein to enter at any time, if necessary by force, any premises or place named in the warrant. I want hon. Members to pay particular attention to the wording of this Clause. There is no limit to the time or place. It means any premises or any place at any time. It may be a great building, a bank, or the Carlton Club, any person's house; and the constable can proceed: to search the premises or place and every person found therein, and to seize anything found on the premises or place or on any such person which he has reasonable ground for suspecting to be evidence of the commission of such an offence as aforesaid. A magistrate has full power to make the decision. He sends a constable to make a search. The search is not carried out in any kind of kid-glove manner; there is nothing polite about it. The constable has power to take anything that he thinks fit. He has almost judicial powers to choose what he wants. In the famous case, referred to by the Attorney-General, in the latter part of the 18th Century, the King's Messengers who went to make the search at Entick's house were puzzled as to what they should take, and sent word to Lord Halifax asking him what he really wanted and what they should bring. He said "Bring the lot." They broke doors open; that has to be done if the doors are locked, and if there is any possibility of their not being allowed entry. A constable can use force, he can dynamite the doors open if he likes. In this particular case—and all searchers are pretty much the same—they proceeded to pull down books in the library, left them lying on the floor, pulled drawers out, broke locks—the general experience in cases of this kind—there is a most vivid description as to the powers which these constables thought they had. Any hon. Member if he goes into the Library and reads this case in detail will be shocked as to what the constables or King's Messengers thought it was their duty to do. They broke down doors, broke open locks, opened drawers and read any paper they liked. They acted in a manner which is generally considered scandalous but which is apparently quite proper when breaking in on an occasion like this.

The same thing can be done under the Bill merely on the order of a magistrate who thinks it is likely that some wrongful act is being committed. It is a new departure to give men who are untrained in law, who know little about the history of search, who are not meticulous in their judgment upon matters of this kind, or upon any other matter, the power to give a warrant to a constable to enter any person's house. I can imagine the village constable or some person in the village saying that there is a certain pamphlet in the possession of a certain individual; this is told to a certain type of magistrate, and he proceeds to do this kind of thing. Let me read what Lord Camden, the Lord Chief Justice of that day, thought about the case, and, incidentally what he would think about the action of the present Government. It was a case of libelling the Government, but the same point arises, the question of search. I want to draw attention to his words, because it does not matter how trivial the offence may be, the fact remains that the Attorney-General is right up against one of the fundamental principles upon which the liberty of the subject in this country depends. Lord Camden said: If the point should be determined in favour of the validity of search the secret cabinets and bureaux of every subject in this kingdom will be thrown open to search and inspection, whenever the Secretary of State shall think fit. Under the Bill it is to be done when a magistrate thinks fit. His house is rifled; his most valuable secrets are taken out of his possession, before the paper for which he is charged is found to be criminal. If having it (a certain paper) in one's custody was the crime, no power can lawfully break into a man's house and study to search for evidence against him. This would be worse than the Spanish Inquisition, for ransacking a man's secret boxes and drawers to come at evidence against him, is like ransacking his body to come at his secret thoughts. Has a Secretary of State the right to seize a man's private letters or correspondence, family concerns, trade and business? This would be monstrous indeed. The Attorney-General is asking for the right to search, on the warrant of a magistrate, which gives a police constable absolute power to inquire and to search a house and to read any evidence or correspondence, private or otherwise. The Bill does more than that. An order under one of the Sub-sections gives power to destroy such correspondence as the Public Prosecutor may think fit, or for him to retain it in his possession if he thinks fit. That relates to anything that a constable brings to him, private correspondence or business concerns. It does not matter what it is. Once it is seized there is nothing that can get it out of their hands if this Bill is passed.

The House ought to be fully seized of what the right hon. and learned Gentleman asked for in a mild speech. The right hon. and learned Gentleman boasted about the freedom of this country. The Italians, the Germans and the Russians stand for the principle of dictatorship in varying forms. I think that they are wrong. As far as Italy and Germany are concerned, those who rule seem to have a definite contempt for the mental standard of their people, and unfortunately the people seem to have accepted that kind of thing. I am speaking of the principle of dictatorship generally. We say that we stand for freedom and liberty. Fifteen or 16 years after the War, after two and a half years of security and peace and all the benefits brought about by a National Government, we have a Bill of this kind which goes right to the fundamentals.

The Government say that they have a belief in liberty and that they trust the people, but I believe that the people of this country are still so much alive to the principles of liberty and to the meaning of it, that if the Bill is passed the effect will be such that the sentiments of the people will soon be felt in this House and by this Government. The Government would do well to deal with the real troubles, and there are real troubles. If there is any dissatisfaction in the Army, Navy or Air Force, it is because many have enlisted when unemployed, and because they have fathers and brothers in the country who have been idle for so long that they are almost rotting physically because of that unemployment. The Government would have been rendering a far better service to the country and to the Forces and to itself if it had given attention to matters of that kind instead of wasting the time of the House with Bills of this kind, which assail the old-established and jealously-guarded principle of liberty upon which the whole life of the nation has rested.

It is the truth that soldiers, airmen and naval men are of a different calibre altogether from those who let all the thinking be done for them. There is an educational system in the Army, and I believe in the Navy and Air Force, too. It makes the Service man one of the best educated adults in the country. The Government would do well to trust the intelligence of the average man, and if there is any difficulty or any grievance it would do well to get at that grievance and to dig out the cause of the evil. This Bill automatically made me, as it must have made other people, go to some of the old standard works that deal with questions of liberty. At once there sprang to my mind that wonderful book from a wonderful pen, a book with a weird and terrible name. I refer to Milton's "Areopagitica," in which I found these words: Lords and Commons of England, consider what nation it is whereof ye are, and whereof ye are the governors. A nation, not slow and dull, but of a quick ingenious and piercing spirit, acute to invent, subtle and sinewy to discourse, not beneath the reach of any point the highest that human capacity can soar to…We can grow ignorant again, brutish, formal, slavish, but you must first become oppressive, arbitrary and tyrannous. If this Bill passes that is where it will lead.

5.52 p.m.

Mt. ISAAC FOOT

I want to say right away that I am opposed to the Bill. When the learned Attorney-General brought his speech to an end with some reference to liberty, I really thought he was going to talk about A land of old and just renown, Where freedom slowly broadens down From precedent to precedent, and he might have told us that this is the last precedent for the broadening of freedom. I have no doubt that the learned Attorney-General sincerely thinks that he is safeguarding the freedom of the country, but there are some who regard this Bill as one which is full of danger for freedom. When I read the Bill I wondered what had been happening. I shared the astonishment of many men and asked what was happening to the Army, what was happening to the Navy, what undermining was going on, what fears did the Government apprehend that a Bill of this kind should have been produced I was amazed when I heard the evidence that was submitted to the House.

I do not know if it is all the evidence, but I took it down as it occurred. "In May, 1932"—that can be no justification for this Bill, for we are now in April, 1934. I am quite willing to support an emergency Bill to deal with an emergency, but it is no good telling us about some pamphlets that were circulated in May, 1932, and giving that as the justification for this Bill. We were told that in 1932 there were 17 of these subversive pamphlets found at 20 different places. I waited for evidence of the growth of this propaganda, but the evidence was that there was less of it in the following year, for then, instead of 17 subversive pamphlets, the number had fallen to 11, and instead of their being distributed at 20 places the emporia of sedition had fallen to 14. I do not know what has happened in 1934. I want something that is cogent and pressing for the present time. I remember that last week, when the Prime Minister announced the business for this week, questions were raised as to important matters that were before us at the time. I want to know what claim for priority this Bill has over the other issues now pressing upon the public. I listened further as to the number of such pamphlets that were being distributed, and I understand that in one year there were 50,000. Or was it for one year? I am not sure whether it was not for both.

The ATTORNEY-GENERAL

Each year there were about 60,000.

Mr. FOOT

Let anyone who has ever had 50,000 pamphlets printed realise what happened to them. If you distribute pamphlets at an election, you consider yourself lucky if one in a dozen is read. If they were Liberal pamphlets they would all be read by wise electors. The only reason why we Liberals have not done better is that we have not been able to get all our pamphlets fully read. But if 50,000 pamphlets are printed there is no election agent who would not recognise that there is a percentage of wastage. Pamphlets are trodden underfoot or washed away by the rain or blown away by the wind. I wonder what evidence there is that a single soldier has been influenced in his allegiance or that a single sailor has done more than deride these wonderful papers, "The Soldiers' Voice" and "The Red Signal," which to the astonishment of their authors have been given such publicity in His Majesty's House of Commons. I do not justify, and no one would justify, the attempts that are being made to disturb the allegiance and the loyalty of those who are serving in the Army or the Navy, but if that is all the evidence I say there has never been flimsier ground for any Measure.

The onus is on the Government. All the struggle for freedom is the fight between the individual and the executive. The learned Attorney-General has taken us back to the Wilkes business. All the fight for liberty has been a contest between the executive and the individual. I am always for the individual against the Executive, except when the Executive needs to protect the public interest, and the evidence for the protection of the public interest must be very strong. But really there has been no evidence as yet that the public interest has been affected to the extent of a single bluejacket or a single soldier. When we have that letter written by the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs telling us that the country is humming with prosperity and that we are enjoying all the advantages of a National Government, which is embarrassed by the size of its own majority, surely it is a very poor time to advertise to the world that we have to adopt these emergency Measures to deal with disaffection of His Majesty's Forces on land. But suppose that there were the need, is this the way? Here is a Bill that, whatever its merits, is open to such criticism as that which the "Manchester Guardian" of this morning published, and it is valid criticism. The "Manchester Guardian" said: It makes it easier to send people to prison for their opinions. It widens the scope of political offences and greatly increases the power of the police to interfere arbitrarily with the domestic liberties of the individual. That was the indictment of a great newspaper, to my mind the best newspaper in Europe. I invite the right hon. Gentleman on the Government Bench, who comes from that part of the country, to make an answer to that indictment.

The ATTORNEY-GENERAL

I do not come from Manchester.

Mr. FOOT

I was referring to his colleague next to him, who comes from that neighbourhood, I believe.

The SOLICITOR-GENERAL

indicated dissent.

Mr. FOOT

I was thinking of the Rusholme Division of Manchester, which was represented by the Solicitor-General's predecessor. But I think the Attorney-General said that he had acquainted himself with what had been said upon this subject, and I have no doubt that he has acquainted himself with the leading article in the "Manchester Guardian" to-day. However, the indictment is there, and I would invite the Solicitor-General to deal with it. Let us consider the offences under the Bill. I do not mind the offence which is referred to in, Clause 1 but I find some difficulty as to the passage about a man attempting or causing to be attempted, any act preparatory to the commission of an offence. It may be that these words appear in some earlier Statute. I should like to know where they are to be found and how they have been interpreted. The Solicitor-General will follow me in these words, which, I submit, describe an offence under this Bill. "A man has in his possession without lawful excuse a document of such a nature that the dissemination of copies thereof among members of His Majesty's Forces would cause to be attempted an act preparatory to the commission of an offence." Bills have been introduced in the past for the purpose of clearing up difficulties. This is a Bill for the creation of difficulties. I think I have not strained the wording of the Bill. I have put the effect of two Clauses together and those words are to be taken as describing an offence which is to come under the cognisance of the law.

I was going to say something about the grave offence which has hitherto been dealt with by indictment and trial by jury, but is now under this Bill to be dealt with by the ordinary justices. I am glad that a concession has been made—the first, I think, of many concessions that will have to be made in respect of this Bill—which will enable a man who is charged to claim his right to be tried by a jury. But the very fact that you propose to leave so many of these cases to the ordinary justices presents this difficulty. When a man is charged before the magistrate he has to recognise that if he goes before a jury he will have all the expense, or, if not the expense, the trouble and the waiting involved in that procedure. Often such a man is not fully seized of his rights in this respect. Everyone who has been in a magistrates' court knows how often when a man is asked whether he will have his case tried by a jury or not he has difficulty in replying. In so far as these cases are dealt with by magistrates, then we have here a disease which is beyond their practice. When we consider the issues which are raised by questions of sedition and seduction from loyalty, it must appear to us that to leave these things to magistrates is like calling in plumbers to deal with problems of psychology.

How can magistrates deal with questions such as will be raised in these cases? Very often they will be dealing with the matter upon hearsay and upon an individual's local disrepute. What chance would a man have before some magistrates, if he is known as an awkward fellow, if he has a little disrepute in his own neighbourhood and if he is found in possession of one of these documents? How can magistrates help themselves from feeling their own predilections and the results of their ordinary training and upbringing and giving such an awkward fellow two or three months in which to cool his head? I ask the House to consider the questions that would have to be decided in these cases. The Solicitor-General probably could decide it, but look at the points which must arise before magistrates. Sedition itself is difficult to define, and it is very difficult to draw the line between propaganda and sedition. If it is difficult to define sedition it is very difficult to find a definition of the phrases "incitement to disaffection" and "endeavouring to seduce from duty or allegiance." We can deal with an overt act, but the difficulty is in dealing with the purpose.

I believe that the Bill is imposing an impossible strain on magistrates in asking them to deal with the motive, with the thought behind the act. When an overt act has been done it can be judged, but it is a different matter when we come to measure motive. There is not one of us who has not some uncertainty about his own motives, and magistrates are bound to fumble a great deal when they come to deal with the motives of others. I am against a Bill which is going to put a punishment upon opinion. It puts a punishment upon thought. I have read just now the terms of the offence which must include the thought in the mind of a man. There was a time when Mazzini was disliked by the Austrians because he was a young Italian going about with his thoughts and they wanted to know what he was thinking about. Caesar did not like Cassius because the latter thought too much. Yond" Cassius hath a lean and hungry look He thinks too much: Such men are dangerous. This is a Bill, as I say, to deal with motives and thoughts and because of that fact that it raises new and serious issues. In regard to the question of documents I recognise that under the Bill the docu- ments must be in someone's possession without lawful excuse. But those words are not, I think, capable of a very easy definition. The hon. Lady, the Member for the English Universities (Miss Rathbone), just now raised the question as to what kind of documents were intended. I could understand this Measure if it applied only to documents prepared for this specific purpose. But will the Solicitor-General answer the question which the Attorney-General seemed to find some difficulty in answering just now: "What about marked copies of the New Testament, that is, copies of the Testament in which what may be termed the pacifist passages are underlined?"

I was once called in to advise a man who was on trial before court-martial. He was a business man of some standing in this country, but he held Tolstoyan views, and he was charged with being a conscientious objector. I asked him: "How do they deal with you in this place"? and he replied: "They deal with me quite kindly." I then asked him: "Have you any books to read?" He replied: "They have taken away all my books like Tolstoy, but they have left me the New Testament, and that is the cause of all the trouble." I should not accept his view upon that, but he was an honest and a conscientious man and he found justification for his action in the New Testament. Take, if you like, the well-known passage from the Bigelow Papers: Ez fer war, I call it murder,— Ther you hey it plain and flat; I don't want to go no furder That my Testyment fer that. Ef you take a sword and draw it And go stick a fellow thru, Government can't answer fer it. God will send the bill to you. Those lines were written a great many years ago, and they represent the pacifist idea. Would the circulation of such a passage come within the terms of this Measure? I imagine that under the terms of the Bill the circulation of that passage by those anxious to spread pacifist views, would become for the first time a criminal act under the operation of our English law. There is one chapter in our history which everyone is anxious to forget. The period at the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th century is the worst chapter in our history. Then we had all the melancholy story of repression and of sedition trials when, as someone put it: Lord Eldon and the Court of Chancery sat heavy on mankind. Does the Attorney-General or the Solicitor-General look forward to being associated with a Measure that would take us back any way towards that time? I am sure both would resent that idea as much as anyone, but the arguments which have been used in favour of their Bill are the same as the arguments which were used at that time. We have the argument that inflammatory and poisonous literature is being circulated and that the only way to deal with the evil is a Measure of this kind. The Attorney-General said we might be sure that he would not abuse the privilege given him in this Measure. I should be satisfied with this Bill if he and the Solicitor-General continued in their present offices. But we are passing a Bill which, for all we know, may be a long time on the Statute Book. It is the Measure not of this Executive but of any Executive. It is a Measure not merely for this time but for any time and it is the reactionary time of which I am afraid. It is in the time of fear that we get the worst of all tyrannies, as a great Frenchman has said—when you have the tyranny of fear and when the country is in a panic and is looking round for means to defend itself. That is when you get fear which the greatest political thinker in English history has spoken of as the most unjust, unwise and cruel of all councillors.

It is when you have a reactionary Government in a time of fear and apprehension that this Measure may be used for the destruction of our liberties. I only suggest that if we have to deal with difficult people we should remember that it is the obnoxious and the unpopular and the suspected who need the protection of the law. That great thinker of whom I have already spoken has also said that tyranny never chastises its own instruments. I think that we are going the wrong way about this business. Even if the case were much stronger than the case which has been put before us, it would not justify this Measure and upon the flimsy grounds submitted to us I say that it is not a Measure with which the Government ought to proceed. When dealing with problem of soldiers and sailors we must accept the fact that soldiers and sailors are not machines. Take the chapter in Carlyle's "French Revolution" which refers the "whiff of grapeshot." What, says Carlyle, if those who were going to fire the grapeshot were those with mothers and sisters and brothers living upon boiled grass? The trouble in France was that there came a time when there was sympathy between the soldiers and the sufferings of the people.

The best way to meet disaffection is to deal with social grievances. If a time comes when the soldiers and sailors feel that the Executive is tyrannical and is behaving wrongly and the people are suffering, they will not wait to look up a section of a Statute as to what action they should take. I suggest that this Bill will not achieve its purpose; that we are on the wrong lines in introducing it; that it is an unnecessary advertisement to the world of any small difficulties that may exist and that we have the highest possible authority for resisting it. The Prime Minister has given us that authority in the past. He has given his authority in the speeches to which reference has been made as to the difficulty of search and the rest. Although the right hon. Gentleman might have been dealing at that time with a Measure which differed from this in some of its proposals, it cannot be refuted that he was dealing with the main contention which has been put before the House to-day, and that upon the question of search his argument of 1916 is applicable to this Bill.

The Prime Minister must take his responsibility for this Bill, and I hope he will take the responsibility for its withdrawal. There is no one who has taken a great part upon the question of liberty and spoken such swelling sentiments upon liberty as the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. I hope that he will be associated with the withdrawal of this Bill. I do not know whether the right hon. and learned Gentleman has read the Bill. He has been very busy writing a letter of support to a candidate down at Basingstoke, who is opposed to the White Paper and who stands, as he has declared, for isolation in international affairs. [HON. MEMBERS: "No!"] I am able to prove both those statements. But the right hon. and learned Gentleman was so busy upon that matter that perhaps he has not had time to read this Bill. He is a great champion of liberty, and he said the other day, within a few yards of this place, that although he was in the Government, he was there to defend the great principles of liberty. Very well, let him look at this Bill and tell us what he would have said about it under ordinary conditions, if he had not been a Member of the Government. This Bill is one that we are glad to challenge, and one which I am not inclined to say should be read in six months' time. I think we should just forget all about it, and if the two Law Officers of the Crown will consent to the withdrawal of the Bill, we shall not bring it up against them and we shall not dwell upon the fact too much. I think the whole House and the country will be relieved if this Bill, which should never have been introduced and which holds great potentialities of restriction and arbitrary power in days to come, is just taken away from Parliament altogether.

6.16 p.m.

Mr. OSWALD LEWIS

Members of the Socialist party often tell us that they desire to extend the operations and the authority of the Government. They want to see the Government of this country taking over a more varied and extended share of our ordinary life. One would have thought that their spokesman in this House would therefore have been among the very first to support any Measure which was designed to prevent attack upon the loyalty and integrity of public servants, and indeed, from that point of view, it is very hard to understand the opposition to this Measure from the Labour party in this House. The weakness of their case against the Bill appears to be illustrated by the weakness of the arguments that were brought forward in support of that case by the hon. Member who was entrusted to move the Amendment. The hon. Member for Chester-le-Street (Mr. Lawson) read to the House the offence described under Clause 1: to seduce any member of His Majesty's forces from his duty or allegiance to His Majesty. He described that offence as being, in his opinion, contemptible, and he thought that any man guilty of such conduct as that described in Clause 1 was a contemptible man, but he proceeded to de- vote the rest of his speech to an opposition to the only reasonable way to prevent the offence being committed. According to the hon. Member for Chester-le-Street, it is a proper and reasonable thing to punish some poor, needy, out-of-work fellow who, for a few coppers, has thrown pamphlets, which possibly he has never read, over a wall or pushed them under a door, but it is an improper thing to take powers to strike at the man who holds a stock of those pamphlets and arranges for their distribution. It is as though someone were to come down to this House and argue that it is a fair and proper thing to punish a man for theft, but grossly unreasonable to proceed against the receiver of stolen goods.

I cannot help feeling sorry at the attitude of the hon. Member for Chester-le-Street and, apparently, the attitude of those sitting around him, to judge from their applause, because it seems to me most unfortunate that they should, by that attitude, lend colour to the suggestion that the hot-heads are gaining control and influence in their party and are pushing them on a course which they themselves would otherwise be reluctant to follow. I have recently had my attention called to two pronouncements by prominent Members of the Labour party, which seem to me to have some significance in connection with our Debate this afternoon. The first is contained in a pamphlet called "Can Socialism come by constitutional methods?" It is from the pen of the hon. and learned Member for East Bristol (Sir S. Cripps), and the passage is as follows: However carefully laid the plans of the Socialists may be, it will be impossible to guarantee the peacefulness of the change. The other pronouncement was made in a pamphlet called, "The challenge to capitalism" and was from the pen of the right hon. Sir Charles Trevelyan, Baronet, who was, as hon. Members will recollect, President of the Board of Education in the last Labour Government. He said: It will be much better to use the word 'revolutionary' freely and frankly to adopt that adjective for Labour party policies, disregarding any fear that it may create. Obviously, if a certain group of people in a party get it into their minds that the electors in the country are too sensible ever to return that party with a majority in this House, and that their only opportunity of getting power is, in some time of disturbance or trouble, to seize that power by force, one can quite understand that to such people disloyalty in the Forces of the Crown would have its value, and I say again for that reason that I regret that hon. Members opposite should lend colour to the idea that it is such notions as these that are gaining force and authority in their party.

The hon. Member for Chester-le-Street spoke of the black shirt movement. Fascism in Italy owed its origin to, and could never probably have come about at all had it not been for, the previous excesses of the Labour movement in Italy. Nazi-ism in Germany owed its growth to the awful example of the excesses of Labour in Russia, and nothing is more calculated to bring a flow of recruits to the black shirt movement in this country than passages such as I have read out this afternoon and conduct such as that of hon. Members opposite in opposing this Bill. I dislike advocates of violence equally, whether they wear a black shirt, a brown shirt, or a red shirt, and I am sure that in their secret heart there must be members representing the Labour party in this House who share my view. I only wish they could see that conduct such as root and branch opposition to a Bill of this kind must make ordinary people think that they do not hold those views.

The Bill is a short one, and it is easy to understand. It provides a simple method of procedure and penalties which I think few will regard as excessive for the offences described in the Bill. In conclusion, I would remind the Members of the House that His Majesty's Forces exist for the protection of the liberties of our people and for their protection against enemies from abroad or against violent uprisings from within. I hope very much the House will, by a large majority, carry this Bill.

6.26 p.m.

Major GWILYM LLOYD GEORGE

As one of those for whom the hon. Member for Colchester (Mr. O. Lewis) is sorry—

Mr. LEWIS

Is the hon. and gallant Member a member of the Labour party?

Major LLOYD GEORGE

No.

Mr. LEWIS

I only said I was sorry for the Members of the Labour party.

Major LLOYD GEORGE

I think the hon. Member said, referring to the hon. Member for Chester-le-Street (Mr. Law-son), "those around him who apparently support him in his speech," of whom I was one, and my hon. Friend below the Gangway, the Member for Bodmin (Mr. Isaac Foot) was another.

Mr. LEWIS

I did not mean to include the hon. and gallant Member.

Major LLOYD GEORGE

I dispute the hon. Member's contention that anybody who is opposed to this Bill ipso facto supports sedition, because I do not suppose there is a Member of this House who has riot a loathing for anybody who, as my hon. Friend here said at the beginning of his speech, attempts to seduce members of His Majesty's forces from their duty, and I certainly yield to no one in my desire to prevent that. My contention is that we have sufficient Acts of Parliament to handle that situation, and that we have handled it very successfully in the past, but this Bill does a good deal more. When I saw it at first I confess to being somewhat surprised, and I asked myself what had happened in the last few weeks, or months or years to make it necessary to produce another Bill, but I was quite content to await the explanation of the right hon. and learned Gentleman when he came to introduce the Bill. I must confess that, after hearing his explanation, I am still very much in the dark as to the reasons which prompted the Government to produce the Bill. We have heard of 50,000 pamphlets, anonymous pamphlets. It occurred to me to wonder how they would trace the gentleman or gentlemen who produced them, because there is very slight indication from the pamphlet itself as to where he or they could be found, but that is by the way, and I am as much in the dark as ever, after hearing the right hon. and learned Gentleman.

I want to consider for a short while the powers which the Government take unto themselves in this Bill. It is not the duty of the House of Commons to regard this Bill as the right hon. and learned Gentleman and his colleagues would administer it. The duty of the House of Commons is to look at a Bill of this character and to see what possibilities lie within its lines for other Governments after the right hon. and learned Gentleman's Government have passed away. On the face of it, the Bill simply seeks to prevent sedition.

The ATTORNEY-GENERAL

indicated dissent.

Major LLOYD GEORGE

I understood that the purpose of the Bill was to prevent sedition: to make better provision for the prevention and punishment of endeavours to seduce members of His Majesty's forces from their duty or allegiance. That is surely the same as preventing sedition, though I am not a lawyer. What is sedition? I am a layman, and, may I point out, so are most magistrates, to whom very extensive powers are being granted in this Bill. Being a layman, I want to look up one or two definitions, and this is one of them. I found it difficult to find the difference between "sedition" and "seducing," and I am sorry for the magistrate who has to interpret Clause 2. The definition I found was: stirring up or fomenting discontent against Government and disturbing of public tranquility as by inflammatory speeches or writings. I suggest to the right hon. Gentleman that that is a very wide interpretation. I do not say that it is the only definition, but it is one definition, and it gives very wide powers to any administration that cares to use it. It will boil down in the end to what the Government of the day consider subversion to be. Governments alter from time to time, fortunately, and different Governments have different ideas as to what subversion means. As Governments change, new interpretations will be put upon it, and action is bound to be governed, especially under Clause 2, Sub-section (3), of the Bill, by political considerations. Nothing can prevent it. It is obvious that what some people honestly think to be subversive of the Constitution, other people equally honestly believe to be in the best interests of the State.

We have heard of previous Acts of Parliament dealing with this question. I regard the Act of 1817 as providing a good example of a Measure dealing with offences which some people may claim to be subversive and which others will claim to be in the best interests of the State. That Act was passed at a time of grave discontent in this country which culminated in serious rioting. Secret societies had been formed and committees of both Lords and Commons were instructed to investigate them. It is on record that the Lords Committee decided that some of these societies were definitely subversive of the Constitution. I took the trouble to look up some of the aims of these societies. The aim of one society was that Parliament should meet annually. It then went on to demand universal suffrage and the abolition of the property qualification for Members of Parliament. It also advocated the payment of Members of Parliament and, the worst thing of all, it demanded voting by ballot. Those were aims which some people regarded at that time as subversive of the Constitution and the State. Many people are in this House to-day who would be ashamed of anybody thinking that they regarded any of these aims as not perfectly proper. They are all to-day the law of the land, but when that Act was passed they were definitely decided by a committee of Parliament to be subversive of the Constitution.

The fact of the matter is that you cannot avoid bringing politics into a Bill of this character. Under Clause 2, Subsection (3), any magistrate can issue a warrant. That is open to unlimited abuse politically. In any district where the political opinions of other people were not popular it would not be difficult to get a search warrant. I would like to ask the Government what would have happened if a Conservative Government had been in power when the events in Ulster in 1913 occurred and this Bill had been in operation? Where would they have gone to find a magistrate in Ulster to issue a search warrant for Lord Carson's house? That would be definitely political action. There may be differences of opinion as to whether the attitude of Lord Carson and his followers was right or wrong. There can be no doubt that it was sedition—it was the seducing of members of His Majesty's Forces from their duty. There can be no doubt that it was successful. Lord Carson said: The Army are with us. Then there was a gentleman called Rowland Hunt, a Member of this House, who sent out a notice with the House of Commons stamp on it to a sergeant-major in one of the Guards battalions—not an ordinary line regiment. In this notice he said: It is to be hoped that British officers will find means of letting Mr. Asquith know that they will resign if the Home Rule Bill is sent to the King for signature before it is submitted to the people. Every loyal Territorial officer will have no difficulties about resigning. I like the word "loyal." The present Prime Minister, referring to these events, said: They have got to face the consequences of their own action, and if their action had been successful it would have meant that the Army would have overridden the decisions of this House, and, so far as we are concerned, we shall never submit to such action. The "Morning Post" said: The Army has killed the Home Rule Bill, and the sooner the Government recognise the fact the better for the country. What would have happened under this Bill if it had been in operation and the Attorney-General had been then acting as Law Officer of the Crown? That particular act of sedition had the support of every Conservative Member of Parliament, and yet everybody on the other side regarded it as a definite attempt, and a successful attempt, to seduce His Majesty's Forces from their loyalty. That is a case which is bound to arise, one section of opinion thinking it in the best interests of the country that you should have sedition, and another thinking that sedition ought to be punished.

I will give another illustration from the present Prime Minister. He used long ago to belong to the Independent Labour Party. The premises of that party used to be raided frequently, and the right hon. Gentleman raised the matter in the House after a prosecution which followed one raid. The only thing they took was a speech by Lord Snowden, which I can understand might have been pretty hot, and a sheet of hymns sung at Sunday Socialist meetings mostly taken from "Hymns, Ancient and Modern." I can understand that during a war some of the words of those hymns could be very seditious. The Prime Minister, speaking of this raid in the House, said: If there is a body of people in this country that quite honestly think it their duty to put forward certain views before the people of this country they are not doing so for the purpose of weakening the country; they are not doing so from any motive with which any Member of the Government has a right to quarrel, or from any motive that is not quite as good as any that animates Members of the Cabinet itself. Those views will be put before the country—must be put before the country…. The right hon. Gentleman (Sir Herbert Samuel) may put his policeman upon us. He would be wise if he did not. He ought to put us—I talk with the greatest friendliness to the Government—upon our honour. That is far more effective to appeal to us to defend the best interests of the country than any force he can use. He can use his force. His force will fail."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 1st June, 1916; col. 2995, Vol. 82.] That is the view taken at that time by the Prime Minister. I wonder if he takes that view to-day? I looked for his name on this Bill, but I did not see it there, and I shall look with great interest in the OFFICIAL REPORT to-morrow to see whether he votes for it, because we have heard about the seditious books he had in his library. He is not liable to be raided to-day because circumstances are different, but he might have been liable in the past, and, if he is not careful, he may be liable in future. At any rate, his 600 volumes will have increased enormously in size by now. He condemned a similar provision to this in the Act of 1925, I see no difference between the two. I should have liked to ask him what the difference is between the Section in the 1925 Act, which he so roundly condemned, and the provision in this Bill for which presumably he will vote to-night. I repeat that the Bill is open to unlimited abuse. The right hon. and learned Gentleman told us that if it were abused it would fall into disuse. It seems to be based on the principle that the search will be made first in the hope that there will be found something on which a charge can be based. That is a new idea of justice in this country. A warrant can be granted by any magistrate. No one would be safe in consequence. If somebody had a copy of a speech by Lenin and it was marked as a Bible is marked, it would be a serious matter. With regard to this question of allowing magistrates to issue a warrant, I would like to point out that speaking in the Debate on the Act of 1817, Lord Erskine said: He had a great respect for the magistrates of the country which was under the highest obligation to the gentlemen who took upon them its painful and laborious duties, but it should be remem- bered that the powers he had objected to were not given to the highest of the judges nor to all of them together. His noble and learned Friend could not take upon himself to decide what was or what was not 'a bringing into contempt the constitution of the kingdom'. He could only deliver his opinion to the ordinary classes of our people composing the juries of the country, although the matters to be judged of were the deliberate acts of the mind in written and published compositions: how much less fit then was it in a manner to repeal the Libel Act and to stigmatise its principle by giving a power to the lowest magistrate to judge the quality of the most unpremeditated discourses I think that the words spoken by that great defender might very well be applied to Sub-section (3) of Clause 2 of this Bill. Another danger in the Bill is its appalling vagueness. I am not comforted by the assurance of the Attorney-General of the trial by jury. After the Act of 1797 and 1817, in very few eases where juries were conducting the trial was it possible to get a conviction against the people accused. Under this Bill the power of trial by jury is taken away to a certain extent. The vagueness of the charges possible under the Bill is perfectly amazing. It is all very well for the right hon. and learned Gentleman to say that words mean what they say. That is not my experience of the law. The