CONFISCATED PASSPORT Govt’s Conditional Offer Refused

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31680, 16 May 1968, Page 13

CONFISCATED PASSPORT Govt’s Conditional Offer Refused

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright) LONDON, May 15. The British Government said tonight that the former Colonial Governor, Sir Frederick Crawford, had rejected an offer for the return of his passport if he denounced the Rhodesian regime as illegal.

A tense House of Commons heard that Sir Frederick Crawford had turned down the Government’s terms for handing back the passport, which was confiscated on his arrival in London by air from Salisbury a week ago.

The offer had been made earlier today in a half-hour confrontation between Sir Frederick Crawford, now a company director living In Rhodesia, and the Commonwealth Secretary (Mr George Thomson). Mr Thomson told Parliament he had asked Sir Frederick Crawford not to accept Rhodesia’s unilateral declaration of independence as valid, and not to regard the members of the Rhodesian regime as lawfully-appointed ministers.

Amid shouts of "disgraceful” from members of his own Labour Party, Mr Thomson told the House that Sir Frederick Crawford, refusing to give these assurances, had said he wished to remain neutral on the Rhodesii issue. Sir Frederick Crawford, who listened in the gallery to the three-hour debate, later told reporters: “The point was ventilated but I thought a lot of evidence put up for withdrawing my passport was very thin.” Asked about his immediate plans, he said: “They are somewhat fluid at the moment.” In the debate, Mr Thomson accused Sir Frederick Crawford of actively supporting the regime of Mr lan Smith, and vigorously denied a Conservative Opposition charge of

“running a political vendetta against certain Rhodesian holders of-British passports.” The accusation came from the former Conservative Prime Minister, Sir Alec Douglas-Home, who moved a motion of censure on the Government for the seizure of the passport. The debate ended in an angry shouting match between the Prime Minister (Mr Harold Wilson) and the Opposition Chief Whip (Mr William Whitelaw). Mr Thomson was still speaking when Mr Whitelaw moved to close the debate. His intervention prompted the bearded actor-M.P., Mr Andrew Faulds (Labour), to shout: "Shoddy bastard.”

Mr Wilson, flushed and furious, protested strongly

and the remark was withdrawn at the demand of the Speaker (Dr Horace King). The Opposition motion condemning the Government was rejected by 322 votes to 235, a Government majority of 87. After the vote, Mr Thomson made public the unspoken part of a speech cut short by the Conservative’s procedural move. He said he Intended to concluded: “Many rebellions in history had been justified because they were for liberty. This rebellion will be condemned by history because it is for the suppression of liberty, because the Opposition in this debate has chosen to champion one man’s passport instead of four million men’s liberty. I ask the House to reject their motion.”