DLA165-0008  Transcription

Horatio Bottomley, ‘The Woman of Downing Street. Cherchez La Femme—A Home Office Outrage—Lock Them All Up!’, John Bull, 12 January 1918, pp. 8-9

THIS is no catch-penny title. The Woman of Downing Street—although I shall identify her—is but a type of the woman—and of the possible enemy—to be found in every branch of our national life. Cherchez la femme has a new meaning to-day. We are in the fourth year of the cruellest war in human history; we are fighting a foe devilish in his cunning and craft. There is nothing to which he will not stoop to gain his end. No deed is too base for his sordid mind—no scheme too mean and contemptible for his soul. And yet to-day there are 13,000 Germans at large in our midst! The Government exhorts the nation by speech and writing, by advertisement on every hoarding, by appeal in every public place, to steel its heart, to make iron its nerve for the winning of the war. Its cynical reply to the demands of the People that it, too, should give proof, positive of its hatred of the German—that it on its part should prove its stern determination to leave no loophole for the advantage of the enemy, no possible chance of aiding the horrible plans of the unspeakable Hun—is to allow thousands of possible spies and potential enemies to be at large. Half the whisper which breeds discontent, the innuendo that makes for war weariness—the muttered opinion that the German is unbeatable, and we had better make the best peace we can while there is time and the Prussian is in the mood to bargain is the product of these swine among us—these remorseless, artful sons and daughters of Germany. Yet in spite of protests since war began, in the face of the country's demand that every person of German birth should be suspect in our own interests, nothing will induce the Government to take the patriotic, the safe and only course of interning them all. If ever there was a war not of Governments, not of Kings, but of Peoples, this is such a war. We do not hate the foe as we should hate him; our national failing is overtolerance—an insane disposition to believe the worst. But the country has long since come to the conclusion that the Germans among us are a peril to the State, an ever-threatening danger. Still the Government remains unconvinced. God knows they have had warning enough!

The Woman at Downing Street.

To illustrate the danger in which the present disgraceful laxity places us as a nation, let me tell you that a German woman who was not naturalised until two months after we had come to grips with the Hun, was actually allowed to reside at 30, Downing Street—the residence of the Prime Minister, the arcanum of the secrets of an Empire at war— in September, 1916. There were rumours about at the time—they were vague, as no decent person believed them. It was true we had all been startled by the statements, which on investigation proved to be only too true, that there was more than one member of the Government who thought it decent to continue to employ German chauffeurs after war had broken out—one actually allowed his servant to go for a holiday trip to Switzerland! But a German woman at the Prime Minister's house in Downing Street—that was unthinkable; who could or would believe it ? Well, I have all the facts and documents at my disposal, and they prove incontestably that such a woman was permitted to reside at No. 10. And I say unhesitatingly that that it is a shame and a scandal that such an outrage should have been committed, I might have held my peace about this disgraceful proceeding if I had any evidence to show that the present Home Secretary and the rest of the Government were more alive than their predecessors to the lurking danger of this wanton folly.

The woman who was allowed to take up residence in Downing Street was Caroline Hanemann, maid to a Mrs. Graham Smith, a relative by marriage of Mr. Asquith.^[1] I have in my possession letters she wrote on 10, Downing Street notepaper. I have the date of her naturalisation—October 13th, 1914. Now it matters nothing to me that this woman who has spent half her lifetime in this country, may be the most honourable soul alive. Her motives, her attitude towards the enemies of the land of her birth, may be as pure as the driven snow.  Be that so, it has nothing to do with my argument.

A Home Office Outrage.

What, I repeat, is disgraceful is that this nation, in the throes of a life-and-death struggle with an unscrupulous foe, should be subject to the danger—I ignore the indignity—of a German-born living in the official residence of the Prime Minister. Nothing can excuse the enormity of the offence. If Mr. Asquith did not know what I have exposed, he should have known. Certainly his sister-in-law knew. And this is the pertinent question: Who stood guarantee for her bona fides—who dared, in the face of war emergencies, with the words “one a German always a German” ringing in their ears to go bail for Miss Caroline Hanemann? The Home Office can be practical enough when it pleases. Why has it studiously refused to give the names of those who stood sponsor for Laszlo, and why in the name of national safety should it refuse to publish broadcast the signatures of those who secretly go bail for Germans naturalised since the outbreak of war? Consider again the case of the infamous Laszlo. Here was a Hungarian who came to this country and found fame and fortune as a painter: The petted of Society, the favourite of the Court—persona grata in the houses of the great—he still continued true to the land of his birth; although he enjoyed the priceless liberties of free England, he remained a Hungarian. It was not until after the Germans had mobilised that—not for reasons of attachment to Britain, but for his convenience, and as he declared “with pain and heartburning”—he decided to go through what for him was the callous and hollow mockery of naturalisation. He took the oath of allegiance to King George V. merely that he might have liberty to work for the enemy; he professed to be an Englishman that he could the more easily play the Hun. He perjured his oath; he worked against the land of his professed adoption; he succoured the enemy and, it is said, contrived that escaping prisoners might get back to the land of their birth. Such was he whose honour and integrity men of high position

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members of the House of Commons, men of unquestioned reputation—had offered themselves as guarantors. And yet we now know, although the Home Office has tried to spread the cloak of mystery and of silence over his misdeeds, that this Laszlo—artist and gentleman—was a dirty traitor, mean hound who bit the hand that fed him. To-day he is safely behind the barbed wire of a London internment camp, and every one of those who were deceived into vouching for his decency and honour should be hanging his head in shame and humiliation. I have waited in vain for a single expression of regret from a single one of this dirty traitor’s guarantors. Laszlo deceived the King he promised to honour and respect; he betrayed the friends who stood sponsor for his good faith—he acted like a mean and despicable cad. Why has no man who knew him and trusted him sufficient English blood and pride in his veins to denounce and disown him? Well, what Laszlo heard, what he did with the information which came to his ears as he moved in Mayfair and Park Lane, God only knows. Once a German, always a German—and, as we know, the Hungarian is no better. But knowing all this, how is it possible for the Government—the Government which was to “do” and not “wait”—to delay a day longer in putting every person of German birth in safe keeping? And surely those who waited until after the war—as Laszlo did—before running to the safe harbourage of Naturalisation, should be the first to be suspected and the last to be trusted. I do not want to see a blood-hunt like that which started in the East End after the Luisitania murders. But I do urge, with all the power my pen can command, that we should here and now overhaul the whole of these 13,000 suspects. And I would begin with those who became naturalised only when war made their German nationality an encumbrance and an inconvenience.

Those Guarantors!

Humble subjects of the despicable Kaiser^[2] were refused naturalisation—and rightly so—after the dogs of war were unleashed in August, 1914. Certain notorious exceptions were made, and those who are behind the scenes know with what result. Is no penalty to attach to Britons who guaranteed the honour and loyalty of traitors, and are we to continue to permit to remain at large those persons moving in political circles, with terrible opportunities for doing harm if evil is in their hearts, while the miserable waiter and his like are quite properly put out of harm's way? It is no answer to say that nothing unfavourable is known about them—when we know that men whose patent honesty has been loudly protested by officialdom have finally been proved dangerous and put behind barbed wire. I repeat it is an infamy that we should be asked to take risks because this friend of a Minister, or that relation of some Permanent Secretary, brings wicked and unpatriotic pressure to bear. Would it be believed that, as late as last September, the Home Office was protesting in strong terms against the idea that a certain German subject named Muller was “in any way hostile to this country”? The police had no “reason to suspect him.” He had been granted a special Permit by the War Office to work on ammunitions and “it would not be in the national interest to remove him from his present employment.” What do you think of that as a certificate of good conduct? Could anything be more completely reassuring? Yet within the last moral the Home Office has removed Miller! What did they find out about this Simon Pure—this German who was in no way “hostile to this country”? Once more the veil of secrecy drawn—thank God, they have found out this Hun working on munitions. Wherever there is danger—there the unspeakable German is allowed to roam. Only recently the Home Secretary had the audacity to say that the time to intern all alien enemies and spies was when a German invasion actually occurred! That was merely repeating the insane remark of Mr. McKenna^[3] two years ago. And we were also told just lately that a careful watch was kept on all employees of German nationality in the Post Office. In the name of patriotism, if not of common sense, let the country rise in its wrath and demand the immediate internment of this scum of Europe! It is an outrage that we should be subjected to such danger and that the Home Office, and the Cabinet, should be deaf to our demands. Do you think for one moment that a woman of British origin is to be found in the house of Hindenburg or Kuhlmann? Do you imagine that the Hun is allowing Englishmen to tap the secrets of the post?—do you believe that anyone outside a lunatic asylum would argue for an instant that there is anything but sheer madness in the criminal laxity which still characterises the Government's treatment of this grave question?

The Moral Of It.

All the accumulated proofs of the last three years point to the obvious danger of allowing these creatures of the Kaiser to remain at large. True that at last the Home Secretary has agreed to bring in legislation so that a naturalised alien who has shown himself disloyal may have his Certificate “reviewed.” But in my opinion that is trifling with the question—it is playing with the danger. The Home Office—if it chose to reveal what the public have a right to know—could give abundant evidence of naturalised enemy treachery. Surely, if a man who has sought and obtained the privileges of British citizenship plays traitor to his oath, it is a burlesque of justice merely to put that man in a Concentration Camp. In Heaven's name, let the Government begin the New Year by doing some good, wholesome, courageous act! Intern every Hun—naturalised or unnaturalised. We cannot afford to take any risks. The recent mysterious sinking of our ships will some day afford a sorry and a terrible revelation. Don't wait until the supreme hour of peril is upon us before we rid the land of these prowling skunks. Remember the Woman of Downing Street, and call as a nation, with a united yoke, for wholesale and complete internment of every enemy-born man and woman in the land.  

StdeL

28/08/2023