Civil Liberties in Pawn

Parliament itself last week took up the argument recently launched by James Richard Baron Atkin, 74, in one of the most notable dissenting opinions of recent times. Last month Lord Atkin protested against the power of the Home Secretary, under defense legislation, to by-pass the traditional democratic right of habeas corpus and imprison persons at his own discretion, not subject to court interference (TIME, Nov. 17).

In a daylong session Parliament debated an amendment to Regulation 18B that would have allowed anyone held by the Home Secretary to appeal to an "independent tribunal." Defending 18B, Home Secretary Herbert Morrison said: "Unpleasant as this regulation is, obnoxious as it is to British tradition, obnoxious as it is to me (I do not like this regulation; nobody would wish to maintain it just for the fun of the thing), it is vital to the security of the country in time of war."

The big, vocal opposition pointed out that although Secretary Morrison's actions under 18B were supposedly subject to an advisory committee, he had opposed their advice 90% of the time. Laborite Samuel Sydney Silverman called the absolutism of the Home Secretary's powers equal to that of Gestapo Chief Heinrich Himmler's.

Secretary Morrison finally prevented a vote on the amendment, kept his powers, by the shrewd strategy of threatening to resign, making it appear that a negative vote could be construed as a vote against the Churchill Government.

Said London Daily Mirror Columnist Cassandra: "The rank & file of the legal profession are solid in their hostility toward 18B. Lord Atkin's historic dissent becomes more apparent in its greatness. . . . We are putting plenty in pawn . . . and I for one don't like either the pawnshop or the pawnbroker."

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