FREEDOM WITHIN THE EMPIRE

Press, Volume LXXXVI, Issue 26187, 10 August 1950, Page 5

FREEDOM WITHIN THE EMPIRE

RECENT LEGISLATION CRITICISED COMMENT BY MR DINGLE FOOT (Special Correspondent N.Z.P.A.) LONDON, August 8. Speaking on. “freedom in the Commonwealth” at the Liberal SummerSchool, Mr Dingle Foot, the former M.P., reviewed the increasing restrictive legislation developing in India, Australia, and South Africa, and recalled that all members of the Commonwealth, except South Africa, were signatories of the United Nations Bill of Human Rights in 1948. “But by no stretch of imagination could you say ,that these rights are being observed through the Commonwealth,” he said. Under the new Indian Constitution, opponents of the Congress Party were being imprisoned without trial. Emergency powers and conditions could be used to suspend newspapers at the will of the Government. In South Africa the Suppression of Communism Act, 1950, was now law, and the Apartheid Bill had been passed, in spite of a widespread protest. Australia was still dallying with the Communist Party Dissolution Bill. “We ought to protest against the fact that so fundamentally illiberal a measure has been carried through by a party which has adopted the Liberal label,” he declared. Mr Foot said that it was not possible to destroy either the Communist Party or any similar movement by* preventing its public activities. The Communists were still there—people who could still commit acts of sabotage if they were inclined to take action of that kind. “Even if we could draft a law for the suppression of any extreme and unpopular creed, it would be wrong to-day, but it is always as well to bear in mind that it is not possible,” said Mr Foot. “Either you have to define doctrines which are unlawful, or you must take powers to proscribe the organisations or persons holding these views. And a definition of doctrines is impossible.” Mr Foot said that the Liberals must conform to the principle of free speech, and that meant free speech for Sir Oswald Mosley’ and Mr Harry Pollitt. “We cannot, at the present time, determine the policy of the Government or of the official Opposition. But we must ensure that in our own country the case for freedom must never go by default, and that throughout the world the case for freedom shall always have its defenders,” he said.