Internment and Inertia
It was highly probable, said the Home Secretary in the debate on the internment of aliens in the .House of Commons on Tuesday, that among the people interned were many genuine friends of this country ; be wanted to sort them out and get them released as quickly as he could. It is not merely probable, it is certain. Dr. A. V. Hill, later in the debate, spoke of the personal knowledge of one class of internees possessed by such a body as the Society for the Protection of Science and Learn- ing—though the society was never consulted when men and women it could vouch for were haled off to internment camps. Mr. Morrison's speech showed that his intentions are good, but the process of " sorting them out and getting them released " is appallingly protracted. There were, for example, some 200 applications for release by internees who claim that they can be proved to be anti-Nazi and friendly to the Allied cause. One hundred of these .cases, said the Home Secretary, had been dealt with by the Committee dealing with this class of case. But that Committee was appointed just three months ago ; does a fraction under eight cases a week represent the limit of its capacity? Mr. Morrison is entitled to protest that at any rate he is not standing still, but no tribute can be paid him for the pace at which his machinery is moving.
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