DLA165-0004  Transcription

Charles Palmer, ‘The Case of Caroline Hanemann. Together with the Scandals of Laszlo, Baron Bruno Schroder and Others’, John Bull, 17 May 1919, p. 6

WITH an experience of the House of Commons which few writers can claim, extending over more than thirty years, I can honestly say that I have rarely listened to a more dishonest and discreditable speech than that delivered in the case of Caroline Hanemann by the Home Secretary. Mr. Shortt^[1] is of the worst type of lawyer-politician. Having a rankly bad case, he, by unscrupulous argument and the most odious form of special pleading, tried to shatter the case put forward with reasoned seriousness by Mr. Bottomley.^[2] What is that case? In brief, it is this: That it was a danger to the State, and in principle and practice wrong, that a German woman, naturalised after the outbreak of war, should be allowed to reside, even for a single day, at 10, Downing Street, the house of the Prime Minister, at a time when (September, 1916) we were at grips with our foul enemy and Mr. Asquith’s^[3] official residence was the repository of all the most sacred and momentous State secrets.

“DOPE” FOR SECRETARIES.

There is some mephitic atmosphere about the Home Office which seems to “dope” every Home Secretary. It was Mr. McKenna,^[4] now relegated by the electors to a well-earned obscurity, who was responsible, among other outrageous acts, for the naturalisation of Baron Bruno Schroder^[5] after the outbreak of war. It was Sir George Cave,^[6] who has gained well-deserved nonentity of a peerage, who tried to justify the special privileges accorded to Mrs. Leverton Harris to visit her “half- English boy,” von Plessen. And now it has been reserved for the time-serving Mr. Shortt to pretend righteous indignation over the case of Caroline Hanemann, and incidentally to work himself into well-simulated passion at the very idea of any aspersion on the honour of that other ex-member, Mr. Asquith. I need hardly say that, to those who know their lawyer-politician—whose habit of mind is by profession dishonest, and whose capacity to defend a criminal equally with an .innocent is his stock-in-trade—Mr. Shortt might just as well grin through a horse-collar as seek to convince any patriotic man that the case of Caroline is one unworthy the attention of Parliament. He had the temerity to give the lie direct to the statement that Caroline (he persisted in calling her Katherine, so badly had he “mugged up” his case) ever resided at Downing Street; he declined to give the names of those who vouched her loyalty, and with bureaucratic insolence he refused to say on what grounds she had since been denaturalised. What is more, the Home Secretary, the guardian of law and order, the paid protector of the British citizen, pretended that it was not his business to ask the reason, and, gaining courage as he proceeded, he valiantly declared his refusal to inquire.

WHY WAS CAROLINE DENATURALISED?

Now let us see whither the Home Secretary’s arrogance leads us. First of all, Carline Hanemann—of whom he pretended to know nothing, although he played to the “gallery” of the little bunch of Asquithians by affirming, with a well-affected sob, that she was for twenty years the “faithful attendant” of an invalid—was naturalised after the outbreak of war. That gave her all the protection claimed by a British citizen, and it saved her from internment—it gave her complete liberty of action. She swore an oath of allegiance to the King. Why then, now that the war is over, has it been found necessary to withdraw from her the priceless possession of British citizenship, to strip her of all the attendant privileges and to leave her once more with the brand of the Hun and presumably fit only for deportation to the country of her birth? Mr. Shortt refused to tell the House of Commons and the country why. In doing so he took up a wholly indefensible position. Are we to assume that the police are as ignorant as the Home Secretary; and is this woman, who it has been found is not fit to be naturalised, to be allowed to remain in this country? Surely not. There is something wrong somewhere. You may dislike the term as much as you choose, but I ask—whose is the Hidden Hand which shuts out the light and prevents us from knowing the truth? The names of those who sponsored Caroline were refused, and refused on the preposterous ground that if publicity were given to those who went bail for Hun loyalty, it would be equally necessary to publish the names of those who opposed. This is sheer dishonesty. It treats the prevention of naturalising a Hun as the same thing, from the point of view of public interest, as the securing of naturalisation.

THAT TRAITOR LASZLO.

And let me pause to say this: Laszlo the traitor was vouched by Mr. Balfour, then Foreign Secretary,^[7] Lord Devonport,^[8] Sir Arthur Lee, now Lord Lee (both ex-ministers),^[9] and by Mr. Howard Guinness.^[10] They went bail for his “loyalty”; yet he was afterwards found in traitorous communication with the enemy—this “British” citizen who should have been court-martialled and shot. But he is a friend of the exalted and the rich; he has painted half the Cabinet and nine-tenths of Society; he was a welcome guest in the houses of the great; he used his position to worm out our military secrets and convey them by letter—nearly fifty of them—to the enemy. He was not shot, the Hidden Hand shielded him. He was interned like any decent unfortunate German, and very soon he was released on the grounds of “ill-health,” and he is still, I believe, in a nursing home. What is to be done with him? I know that influences are at work to prevent his deportation. Moreover, are we to continue a system of dangerous secrecy by which any man can vouch for a traitorous blackguard, knowing that the Home Office will protect his name from publicity, and that he can escape all responsibility for his acts? Mr. Shortt, the Home Secretary, may pretend that it is not his business to inquire why a person is denaturalised. But it is the business of the nation to put an end to this sorry and dangerous farce. And it should be the business of Parliament to insist upon such an amendment of the naturalisation laws as will ensure that in future any person claiming the inestimable privilege of British citizenship shall be compelled to make public notification of the fact; and if and when the certificate is granted, not only should the sponsors' names be recorded upon it, but they should be held responsible for the loyalty of the person naturalised.

A DANGEROUS ATTITUDE.

Mr. Shortt has the courage to declare, after all we have learned of German agents in this country—the Lord Chancellor has declared that the majority of the enemy aliens in our midst were spies—that “it does not matter,” in considering the question of naturalisation, whether a person was naturalised “after the war or before.” To me the attitude of the present Home Secretary and the spirit in which he has sought to meet fair and patriotic criticism is as deplorable as it is dangerous. And to think that the House of Commons has given the Home Office a further period of two years in which to deal with the enemy alien as and how it pleases! When I reflect that Gustav Jarmay—an enemy alien, a director of Brunner, Mond & Co., a company with which Sir Alfred Mond,^[11] a member of the present Government, is intimately associated—was not only naturalised after the outbreak of war, but has been since given the honour of knighthood, I am naturally surprised at nothing. And I shall not be astonished if Baron Schroder, whose naturalisation was at the best a war emergency act—“if his firm were allowed to go down,” Mr. Bonar Law^[12] assured us, “it would affect our general credit”—such was the German hold on our finances—is still permitted to enjoy his British citizenship. We were told nine months ago that the naturalisation of this German, notorious as a hoarder of coal for costly orchids when decent citizens were shivering, would “shortly come up for examination.” Has anyone heard the result of that examination? I am afraid it is a case of “now or never.” And unless the House of Commons shows itself worthy of its trust, all such cases, including that of the “devoted nurse” and denaturalised Hun, Fraulein Caroline Hanemann, will be covered up with that pernicious cloak of secrecy which seems to envelop all the actions of the Home Office.

StdeL

28/08/2023