ATTACK ON MR WELLS

Evening Star, Issue 23743, 26 November 1940, Page 2

ATTACK ON MR WELLS

ACTIVITIES IN U.S.A. CRITICAL COMMENT IN HOUSE Mr H, G. Wells’s lecturing and writing activities in the United States were the subject of a lively debate in the House of Commons, in the course of which ho was described as “ invisible export capable of earning dollars,” and as a “ sixth column unbeliever.”

Lord Winterton (Con.), raising the question of the grant of an exit permit to Mr Wells to carry out a lecture tour of the United States, said that he was not concerned with whether the views of Mr Wells were right or wrong and was not seeking to muzzle him, despite the fact that Mr Wells had openly suggested that the throno was a medieval, useless institution, that the Christian religion was a senseless superstition, and that the whole structure of society was rotten.

Lord Winterton said that_ he was merely concerned with the wisdom of granting an exit permit to such a man. “ An English Republican is no more popular in the United States than ah American Royalist would be there.” said Lord Winterton. “ Why allow this most unrepresentative human export to go to a country where there is no demand for him?”

Lord Winterton continued:’ “Mr Wells is reported to have referred to Lord Gort (formerly G. 0.0. of the British forces in the field, and now In-spector-General of the British forces) as ‘ Our praying general.’ Why should Mr Wells attack a man with a tremendous record of gallantry and leadership in the last war? Lord Gort’s offence, in Mr Wells’s eyes, was daring to confess himself a Christian and be,longing to an ‘out-worn’ creed which Mr Wells so detests, and to attack which he is exercising his puny efforts in his declining years. I wondered whether a man of Mr Wells’s former reputation could indulge in such silly offensive abuse if still in the full plenitude of his mental powers. “ There is another and more sinister explanation of his conduct. Franco was betrayed not only by her Lavals and other traitors of the Right or by Communists of the Left. There were sixth columnists in France who for years past had tried to shake the faith of Frenchmen in all the spiritual and material institutions of France, saying, ‘ Fancy making so-and-so a general. Why, ho is a Christian.’ ’’

GOVERNMENT’S REPLY. Mr Shinwell (Labour), deploring Lord Wintcrton’s speech, advised the Government not to take the matter tod seriously. “ It has boon said we are fighting for Christianity.” said Mr Shinwell. . “ '* e are not. We are fighting for liberty. We have to win the war, and we must let Mr 'Wells talk and talk, and let

Noel Coward coquette, and Grade Fields show her graces.” ' The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of the Home Office, Mr 0. Peake, in replying, said that he believed that all agreed about Mr Wells’s eminence, at any rate in the realm of fiction. Mr Wells’s excursions into the realms of fact had sometimes been less happy. Regarding the grant of the exit permit, Mr Peake said that it was relevent to remember that Mr Wells was aged 70. The regulations did not give authority to refuse permission to leave the country to a person who was more than 60.

Mr Peake added; “ It would be absolutely fatal if the United States gathered the idea we are only allowing those whose views are favourable to the Go-, vernment to go to that country. If it is suspected that the applicant intends deliberately to injure the war effort an exit permit will bo refused, but, while disagreeing personally with many of Mr Wells’s views, I have no douht that lie is a perfectly patriotic Englishman. It is impossible to control every word a lecturer utters, and we must leave it to the good sense of the United States public to judge the value of Mr Wells's views.”.