A Continued Scandal
A report on the condition of aliens interned at Huyton Camp forwarded to the Home Secretary by Sir Waldron Smithers, Conservative M.P. for Chislehurst, affords further evidence that even the obligation which the Government admits—that of creating satisfactory living conditions in the camps—has not been fulfilled. The author of the report in question refers to the deterioration in health of persons he visited at Huyton, the absence of beds, the poor diet, the lack of hot water, the pro- longed enforced idleness, and the holding up of correspond- ence for an average period of ten days. The very least that can be done is to ensure that those who are condemned to remain in confinement should live under healthy and com- fortable conditions. But that is only part of the indictment which the great majority of people in this country, humiliated by the injustice which is being done in its name, is bringing against the policy which the War Office initiated and handed ever as a damnosa hereditas to Sir John Anderson. The demand is that the policy of general internment of friendly aliens of Category C should be revised—that internment, and not release, should be the exception. In his most unsatisfac- tory statement last week, in which, while defining new cate- gories of persons whom he was prepared to set free, Sir John Anderson adhered obstinately to the general policy, re- iterated that it was still necessary and " must for the time being in all essentials be maintained." Public opinion, in other words, is to continue to be ignored ; our prestige abroad, par- ticularly in the United States, is to be lowered ; passionate anti- Nazis are still to be detained because the Home Office is Incapable of distinguishing them from Nazi agents.
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