22 DECEMBER 1939, Page 15

Let me give a practical illustration. The other evening Lord

Haw-Haw or his substitute addressed us upon the subject of concentration camps. He admitted the existence of concentration camps in Germany, and confessed that the discipline imposed was severe. He thereby conveyed to the unwary listener an impression of engaging frankness. He then added that, although the British public were ignorant of the fact, we were ourselves interning countless Arabs in concentration camps in Palestine He thereby conveyed the impression that the British authorities were behaving in exactly the same manner as the German authorities but were ashamed to say so. The effect of this information was to diminish confidence, arouse suspicion and confuse judge- ment. It would have been of value if ten minutes later, upon our own home service, the falsity of the impression conveyed by Lord Haw-Haw had been quietly exposed. The numbers of the Arabs interned could have been compared with the numbers of political opponents or Jews whom the Nazis have for years kept at Dachau, Buchenwald and the test. It could have been pointed out that, whereas the Ger- man Socialists and the Jews constituted no danger whatso- ever to the lives and properties of their fellow-citizens, the Arabs in Palestine had been conducting a campaign of terror- ism and assassination. It could have been shpwn that whereas the British Government had made no secret of the measures which their authorities had taken in Palestine, the German people had been denied all knowledge of the number of political internees or of the treatment accorded to them. And it could have been shown that Lord Haw-Haw's comparison wouid only have been valid if Mr. Chamberlain had interned without trial the whole of the Labour and the Liberal Oppo- sition, the leaders of the Trade Unions and the more prominent Jews resident in the British Empire.