ALIEN PROBLEM

Evening Post, Volume CXXIX, Issue 72, 26 March 1940, Page 4

ALIEN PROBLEM

BRITISH APPROACH

SWIFT WORK BY TRIBUNALS

END OE SPY SCARES

JI Britain —whether at peace or in war —has her Aliens Question, writes J. i Wentworth Day in the London "Daily Telegraph." It is a question which 5 springs from our own humane and charitable attitude towards the wretched refugees from other lands who have j fled here from that dark brutalism , which has covered half Europe with ■ the shroud of death. \ But the plain fact is that whereas . there was most assuredly an Aliens Question and a Spy Scare bound up with it in the last war. the question » today of the alien in our midst presents nothing like the same thorny problem and could raise nothing like i the alarms of 1914. Today, Britain at war finds that the ' matter has been sedulously and ; systematically sifted. In 1914 practically any alien could ■ | enter this country without let or I j hindrance. There was no passport L system. There was no checking up of , the antecedents of the alien. There was ! I practically no finger-print system as we know it today. England was open ;to all and free to all. The result was • that at the beginning of the Great i. War this country was full of Germans and Austrians. Its ports, dockyards, camps, garrison towns, munition works, and scientific , laboratories lay at the mercy of persons who had unrivalled opportunities for spying. As the war developed spy fever swept the country. REPORTS OF "SPIES." Every motor-car headlight was suspect. The woman who waved the curtains of her window to scare away the bats on an August evening was promptly reported as a "spy." She was lucky if her windows were not smashed. Harmless alien bakers and butchers,! who had lived here most of their lives, had to board up their shop windows, lock their doors, and retire to the tops j of their houses from the fury of hooligans. If you were Schmidt, your windows were smashed. If you were Braun, your bakery was attacked. Even the wretched dachshund could not take his morning walk,at the heels of his mistress without the risk of obloquy and stones from small boys. Lack of proper organisation at the beginning of the last war for dealing with the alien in our midst was not only a serious source of danger to national f security, but it led to innumerable cases of hardship and persecution. This Government, wiser in its generation than certain of its facile critics would lead us to believe, foresaw and forestalled a repetition of the spy fever and aliens mania which swept this country in 1914 when 30,000 aliens were interned—many in the Isle of Man—almost at one swoop. What is the position today? We have something like 74,000 Germans and Austrians in this country. Every one is technically an enemy alien. Every one is liable to internment. Call them potential enemies, if you like, but about 80 per cent, are refugees from Nazi persecution. Ex hypothesi, they are therefore anti-Nazi. They fall into three classes—racial refugees, the Jews; political refugees (those who have intrigued or fought against the Nazi regime) and religious refugees (Catholics, Protestants, and others), who are spiritually and bitterly opposed to the calculated paganism, the definite anti-God doctrine which is the underlying basis of both Communism and Nazism. REFUGEES THANKFUL. It is to be assumed with fair safety that the racial refugees are only too glad to be here, where their* lives and what remains of their property are safe. The Jews, alone among all peoples, have the quality of remaining a nation within a nation wherever they may dwell. Not everyone may welcome this intractable stand against absorption into the national life and thought—but it has its points. Many Jews have done great and most excellent service to this country and, by marriage and interbreeding, have eventually wedded the spark of their racial genius to the ..steady flame of British thought and culture. Now as to the political refugees. If they are convinced anti-Nazis, it would be ludicrous to suppose that they would spy for that regime of desperate evil which has strangled murderously the" best that was in Germany. Thirdly, there are the religious refugees. True, they may be anti-Nazi because Nazism has stamped on and insulted their religion, but they may still very easily be good Germans at heart —as are the political anti-Nazis. They must therefore be watched, and watched they are. Now let us consider the present condition of the 74,000 Germans and Austrians still in Britain, but, before we examine their status, remember that just before war broke out on September 3, several thousand Germans, including a large number who would have been interned had they remained, left the country hurriedly. Some 300, regarded by the authorities as dangerous enemies, were locked up and are still locked up. There they will remain unless in any particular case the alien can satisfy the authorities that he can safely be set at liberty. 112 TRIBUNALS SET UP. . In October 112 tribunals were set up all over the country, to examine the antecedents, activities, and status of the remaining aliens at large. The tribunals were composed of County Court Judges, Metropolitan Magistrates, eminent K.C.S, and other persons of legal experience, men to whom the law is their daybook. They were not set up as courts of law; their function was to sift evidence, to examine allegations and suspicions, to receive reports, to question and cross-question—finally, to recommend that So-and-so and Such-and-such should.be interned or not mii terned. Every alien who appeared before them had to give good reasons why he should not be interned. It is important to remember that the tribunals were not bound by those laws of evidence which govern the courts of justice. In other words they were free and open to consider and examine every sort of report, allegation, or suspicion which might be made against any of the persons brought before them.

Since October, up to the end of last we^ek, 72,500 aliens have been examined by the tribunals. Among them were some 55,000 refugees. Of this total 137 people were ordered to be interned at once. A further 5730 were put in category B, which means that they are subject to specially severe restrictions on their movements, and are forbidden to possess certain specified articles. The remainder were put in category C, which means that they are treated &i

"friendly aliens" subject only to the same regulations as apply to French, Swiss, or Americans.

In addition to the 55,000 odd i*efugees, the tribunals examined 15,850 non-refugees, of whom 403 were interned, 2844 were kept subject to the special restrictions applicable to enemy aliens, and 12,610 were treated as "friendly aliens"—most of them in the last category people who had been here for a long time and, in many cases, had married British wives. Actually more than 7000 of them were women, of whom some 2000 were British-born women who had married aliens and had therefore lost their nationality.

An alien can appeal against internment, and. unless he decides to deal with the appeal himself, the Home Secretary can refer the case to one of the two Advisory . Committees for England and Scotland, which have been appointed to deal with appeals. Sir Norman Birkett presides over the Advisory Committee for England, and Lord Alness over that for Scotland, both men of the highest legal eminence

The principle of the whole system has been first, the. recognition that the interests of the State are, as always, paramount over those of the individual, and, secondly, an earnest j and humane desire to avoid a i repetition of the mistakes and in-^i justices which may have been committed in the early days of the last war. Some idea of the speed with which the tribunals have done their work can be gathered from the fact that today, of the original 112 set up in October, not more than four or five are still sitting. : REFUGEES IN BUSINESS.' It is claimed that there has been no displacement of British labour by refugees. With certain exceptions— notably nurses and domestic servants —no refugee up to the beginning of the war was allowed to take a job in Britain. Since the war a« change has been made to the extent of allowing Germans arid Austrians who have been classified as category C —"friendly aliens"—to register with employment exchanges and take work, provided the Ministry of Labour is satisfied that no British labour is available for that particular job. In that event the alien is given a permit for that job and that job only. He cannot walk out of it and take another. If he loses the job at any time he goes back to zero, and every inquiry is made as to why he lost it. There have been a few hundred cases only of refugee Germans and Austrians who, having" succeeded in getting some of their money out of their country, have been allowed to establish businesses here. But permission has been given only where the alien's case has been closely investigated by: i (a) The Ministry of Labour, who satisfy themselves as to the conditions of employees and the standard rates of pay(b) The Board of Trade, who satisfy themselves . that the establishment of his business is in the interests of British trade. (c) The Home Office, who make searching inquiries into the character of the person, his antecedents, his associations, and, above all, the possibility of the business being used as a means of communication with the enemy. It will be seen therefore that the aliens question in Britain has been treated methodically, carefully, and humanely. There is no ground for exaggerated rumours, and false analogies with 1914 dp not bear examination. . TYPES TO BE WATCHED. Consider the effect on American opinion of a .ruthless, senseless, and wholesale-internment of aliens without due and proper inquiry into the circumstances of each case. America has had the world's biggest experiment with aliens. Her population is an amalgam of nations. Germany has alienated American sympathy by her brutally medieval methods, her bludgeonings and massacres of the bodies and spirits of her minorities. Great Britain cannot tread that evil path.

But there are two types of aliens in this country whom I should like to see watched most strictly—Communists and Fascists.