Not only personalities but parties are doing a certain amount
of somersaulting just now. This is noticeable in the division of opinion about Defence Regulation 18B. Apart from a few true- blue Liberals, who, to their honour, run true to their principles,
those who show most uneasiness about the suspension of habeas corpus and our civil liberties, are, in the main, not as usual the Left, but the far Right, who have not in the past shown any marked distaste for Fascism. It is natural enough, since the sufferers under the Regulation are mostly Fascists. But it reminds one uncomfortably of the days when certain Left Wing societies confined their libertarian agitation to the cases of oppressed Communists and passed cheerfully over similar oppressions of Fascists. The fact is that we mostly hate Fascism so much that we can sustain with fortitude even the possibly .unjust incarceration of those with Fascist tendencies ; we feel, presumably, that it will lam them to be toads. Many of them are said to be mentally sub-normal, many are bitterly Irish, many others just silly, a certain proportion are presumably dangerous. Mr. Morrison put up a pretty good defence of the regulation which detains them indefinitely without trial ; and it was obviously necessary to put the British Union out of harm's way ; all the same, one is left in uneasy agreement with Flight- Lieutenant Boothby that to imprison a man for months or years without charge is a pretty grim kind of punishment, even for safety's sake. (Though I don't see that we need bother, as more than one speaker seemed to, about the stigma that will attach to the prisoner's grandchildren; I imagine that our grand- children will have other things to think about, and will not worry much about what we, their foolish ancestors, did.) Any- how, the affair made a good debate. As the enthusiastic Mr. James Macky wrote in the year 1724:
In this glorious Country of Liberty, a Gentleman may argue with Freeck.m on any Subject whatsoever, without the fear of Inquisitors or the Danger of his Person; for here your Consti- tution is willing every day to be informed, and it's mended every time your Parliament sits . . .
Well, not quite, perhaps.
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