Communist Civil Servants
The Prime Minister's announcement regarding the elimination of ,Communists from certain positions in the Civil Service involving national security is distasteful but necessary. On the face of it an invasion of political freedom is involved. It has been the pride of this country that any man may hold any political opinions he chooses, But that doctrine rests on one essential condition—that he shall play the political game according to the accepted rules. And the one fundamental rule is that a freely elected majority shall govern, on the understanding that the rights of the minority are fully respected. Observance of that rule has given Britain stable government through centuries when revolutions were shaking other countries all over Europe. For Communists no such rule exists. They hold them- selves free, as a minority, to seize power by force, after a period of infiltration and subterranean propaganda, in industrial even more than in political circles, as a preliminary to imposing their will ruth- lessly on all suspected of retaining any allegiance to the outworn creed of democracy. There is no moral obliquity in Communism ; a Communist can be freely elected to the House of Commons, as two Members have been. But Communism in many cases is not indeed a religion—to say that would be to dignify it far too highly—but a fanaticism, involving patently a divided loyalty capable of ranking allegiance to Moscow, the seat of Communism par excellence, above loyalty to the country of birth and domicile and employment. The Canadian spy trial and the conviction in London of a British scien- tist for imparting to the Soviet Government secret information he had sworn under the Official Secrets Act not to disclose, show how grave a situation may arise. Plainly no Communist can be allowed to hold a public position which gives him knowledge of matters affecting national security. The difficulty, and it is very serious, is that in every country there are at least as many undisclosed as avowed Communists and " fellow-travellers "—perhaps more.
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