The Refugee Committees
The Home Secretary has now completed the appointment of chairmen of the advisory committees which are to recon- sider some of the cases of aliens who have been exempted conditionally from internment by the tribunals before whom they originally came. The difficulty which confronts the authorities is obvious. The existence of so large a German-speaking community in Britain makes the task of any German spies disastrously easy. If some of them at least are not capable of passing muster as respectable refugees they are certainly not worth the pay their Government gives them. The only way of disposing of that danger completely would be to intern every refugee except the few whose anti- Nazi antecedents are so notorious as to protect them against all suspicion. But the danger is not such as to call for that drastic measure. The instruction' to the new committees that the onus is on the refugee to show why he should not be interned, or subjected to other restrictions, should meet the case. Unfortunately, it will almost certainly result in some undeserved internments—which should be represented as, and given the form of, restraint not penalty.
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