The Press THURSDAY, DECEMBER 28, 1961. Immigration Bill In The Commons

Press, Volume C, Issue 29707, 28 December 1961, Page 8

The Press THURSDAY, DECEMBER 28, 1961. Immigration Bill In The Commons

“It would be best if the “bill could be thrown out “ altogether ". This sen tence, from a leading article in “ The Times ” summarises probably the commonest view of the British Government’s Commonwealth Immigrants Bill. The Government’s decision to guillotine discussion on the bill in the House of Commons after the Christmas recess is an endeavour to be done with a vexatious cumbersome, and perhaps inoperable measure. About 150 amendments have been tabled; and voting on the clauses already disposed of has shown that many Conservatives as well as Labour supporters are dissatisfied. Among the most notable apologists for the bill is the Home Secretary (Mr Butler) himself. Mr Butler’s personal unwillingness to restrict, in response to party pressure, the free entry to Britain of Commonwealth citizens, white or coloured, led him to introduce a clumsily-drafted and complicated bill, which, through being designed to please everybody (except many Commonwealth immigrants, of course) ended by pleasing nobody. Few of the changes in the original <’raft will simplify the Government’s task of preserving Britain against a possible flood of migrants—most of them coloured—with whom neither the economy nor Britain’s social organism could cope successfully. One satisfactory concession advanced the expiry of the present bill to 1963, and thus facilitated an annual review of policy

The Government has also appeared responsive to suggestions for safeguards against undue harshness or injustice in the working of controls. Official Conservative opinion regards restraint of immigration as a painful necessity, dictated oy the respective areas and population totals of Britain and the Commonwealth. Mr Butler and his colleagues have been maladroit, however, in trying to rebut charges of racial prejudice, particularly since i ' was made clear that the bill would not affect travellers from the Repub lie of Ireland, provided the Irish Government cooperated in preventing abuses. By their thorough scrutiny of this difficult legislation. the Laboui members of the House of Commons have demonstrated how effective an Opposition can be in exposing weaknesses and flaws in enactments about which there is real public concern. Nobody denies that the Government has been impelled to legislate on immigration by the recent astonishing influx of coloured Commonwealth citizens, notably from the West Indies and Pakistan, and by the communal tensions (sometimes exaggerated) that this new pool of largely unskilled labour has created. The passage of all the clauses that the Government still wants appears inevitable; but the vigorous controversy aroused should suffice to warn the Home Office against too doctrinaire an interpretation of its new powers.