On the 14th of January 1929, some two months before the arrest of the Meerut prisoners, three minor arrests took place in Belgium; though certainly nothing like as important as those ruthless arrests that were to follow in India, they none-the-less attracted quite alot of press coverage and general interest here at home.
The League Against Imperialism (that constantly irksome prodder of the conscience of Britannic Imperial Bumbledom), was to hold a meeting in Cologne. Mr Maxton M.P. was President and Mr Saklatvala, M.P. and Mr Reginald Bridgeman, were both members of the Executive Committee of the League. On their way to Cologne, they were arrested immediately upon their arrival in Ostend and held overnight; they were told that they must return forthwith to England on the following morning. Reginald Bridgeman sent a telegram to the Reuters correspondent and the incident received wide coverage in the national and regional press. Mr Bridgeman, in a telephone conversation, described what had happened. "We started at 2 o'clock yesterday from Victoria Station for Cologne to attend a meeting of the League Against Imperialism, of which Mr Maxton is President.
"On our arrival at Ostend at 8 o'clock last night Mr Maxton, Mr Saklatvala and myself were detained at the passport barrier, in full view of other passengers." [They were kept standing in the cold of a January night for more than half an hour]. Bridgeman continued: "We were subsequently informed by the Maritime Commissioner that on instructions from the Belgian Minister of Justice, Mr Jansen, we were not to be allowed to enter Belgian territory. We were forcibly detained and told to catch the first boat back to England this morning. No reason was given for our detention. We were told that in the meanwhile we must give our parole not to leave the hotel; otherwise we would have to be locked up in a police cell. We were deprived of our passports, tickets and luggage, and we are on parole.
We were taken under an armed police escort from the station to the hotel. Although we were treated with courtesy we were told that the orders were definite. We have communicated with the British Ambassador at Brussels, and Mr Maxton has telegraphed to the British Prime Minister in London, requesting the intervention of the Foreign Office. It seems an extraordinary thing for the Belgian Government to detain British M.P.'s without any explanation whatever, and I am afraid I am at a loss to explain the mystery. We were told to leave by the 10 a.m. boat today but we hope that the British Foreign Office will intervene in time."
It appears that it had originally been intended to hold the League's meeting in Brussels where such conferences had been held previously; but the Belgian authorities had refused visas to the delegates from the Soviet Union and so the venue had been changed to Cologne.
In a long-distance telephone call, Mr Saklatvala informed the press of his views: "Sir Austen Chamberlain is to blame for this," he declared. "The British Foreign Office must have influenced the Belgian Foreign Office. Any schoolboy could see that. They don't do things themselves; they allow others to do things for them. ... No visa is required for France, Belgium or Germany and we had bona fide passports. These passports, our railway tickets and baggage were forcibly taken away from us by the Maritime Commissioner at the Ostend Customs and Passport Office. It was stated that this was done on the intructions of the Belgian Minister of Justice."
Mr Saklatvala was asked if he and Mr Maxton had been taken away by an armed police escort and he replied: "We were given the option of spending the night on the quayside at Ostend, in the police lock-up room, or going to a hotel. We elected to go to the hotel, and I suppose you might describe the officials who accompanied us as 'armed' We protested strongly against the unconstitutional method of forcibly taking our passports from us. Every customs officer has the right to look at one's passport, but they have no right to take possession of it. We communicated with Lord Granville, the British Ambassador at Brussels by telegram and we also sent a telegram to Stanley Baldwin."
Since two out of the three detainees were members of the British Parliament, - (according to the obviously confused and bemused Belgian authorities they were all three Communist M.P.s!) - their arrest naturally aroused a deal of interest in the British press - many of the papers would no doubt have been quite delighted to see left-wing politicians get what might be considered to be their 'come-uppence' but, on the other hand, an insult from a foreign power to representatives of the British Parliament was an insult to the nation, so feelings were confused on the issue. Also Mr Bridgeman, a prospective Labour candidate for Uxbridge, was a cousin of Viscount Lascelles and of Mr W.C.Bridgeman, First Lord of the Admiralty - not only an Englishman you see, but a well-connected English gentleman. The Evening Standard printed a romantically colourful description of Mr Bridgeman. Under a headline "A Socialist Dandy" the paper hazarded a guess that it was probably the prospective Labour candidate for Uxbridge who made the telephonic appeal to the British Embassy in Brussels. "For Mr 'Reggie' Bridgeman until a few years ago was himself one of the shining lights of diplomacy. The man who for years was the greatest dandy in Europe should be a welcome sartorial embellishment to the Labour benches. Who can forget the splendour of those lace-frilled evening shirts, when their wearer stood beside Lord Derby at British Embassy receptions in Paris? Lovely Spaniards have cried in vain over the cold, ascetic beauty of that impassive face (with side-whiskers!) and tall, immaculate figure, and beautiful Viennese have flocked to hear him read the lessons in the Embassy chapel. ...."
Happily the confusion in readers' minds was dispelled the very next day, for all the papers were able to report that the three had been allowed to resume their journey to Cologne. Describing events leading to their release, Saklatvala told the conference, "We made a fight for it all night and when in the morning a commissar came and told us to go and see his chief I told him in good Battersea English to tell his chief to come and see us. He then returned and said that they had just received a telegram from Brussels that we were, after all, gentlemen and that we could do what we liked."
The Communist Party in London received a telegram from their itinerant comrade which read: "Indomitable Parsee and Scotsman triumph. Leaving Ostend this morning. Arriving Cologne tonight." As usual, Father's ability to poke fun at the ridiculous did not desert him, even when it had resulted in his own considerable discomfort, anger and indignation.
Needless to say, when the trio finally arrived in Cologne, at the opening session of the conference of the League Against Imperialism, a resolution was passed condemning the action of the Belgian Minister of Justice in arresting the three delegates.
When they returned from the conference to Dover, papers belonging to Saklatvala, Maxton and Bridgeman were seized by the British customs officials. In describing this incident later to a press reporter Mr Saklatvala said: "I had only my usual experience. The British conception of liberty is the lowest in the world. Maxton and Bridgeman and the others had to suffer with me yesterday. I was standing with my bag before a Customs official and he was about to mark it with chalk when a detective told the Customs man he had special instructions that our bags must be thoroughly searched. Maxton was made to empty his pockets and our bags were closely examined. Miss Budden (the Secretary) had a valise with the papers of the conference reports and notes in it. The detective got hold of a manuscript and turned his eyes up to the ceiling as if he had made a wonderful discovery. As a matter of fact it was an article by Page Arnott that had been in print for the last 10 days. When Miss Budden told us that he had taken possession of the papers Maxton and I spoke to him about it. I doubt whether he had the power to take away a person's ordinary property. The ordinary representations will be made to secure their return. Maxton, who is President of the League, and Bridgeman, the Secretary, will write to the Prime Minister and the Home Office and ask whether this is a British process, whether it is even strictly legal, and whether the responsible Ministers are not acting in a frivolous manner. This frivolity is harmful to British administration. I am sure when they see the papers they will see how they are wasting public money. The conference was no more secret than the Conservative Party conference. I really don't mind. I have a large store of humour in my nature, and these things don't worry me at all."
Incidentally, some years later, in 1933, when I was about 14, I attended a summer school in Paris with a mixed group of English and French girls, all of whom were 18 or 19. Being the baby of the group I was naturally somewhat shy of the older students and wanted above all things to conform and avoid being noticed. When we set out on our journey home we were each given a baker's cardboard box containing a picnic lunch; the meat was unfamiliar to all of us and the word went round, as it will among giggling schoolgirls, that it was, in fact, camel meat. When we arrived in Dover, all the schoolgirls went freely through Customs (we were all wearing school uniform of course). But, as with my Father, the Customs official singled me out, while a man I presume was a detective stood by and watched the proceedings. He undid my suitcase and went through it minutely, much to my teenage embarrassment. He even asked me what was in the cake-box. By this time, indignation had overcome shyness and I replied, somewhat insolently, I'm afraid, "Camel meat!" Whereupon the Customs official even asked me to undo the string and show him what was left of my picnic lunch. All this took time and the whole contingent of schoolgirls had to be lined up to wait for my blushing, late arrival. For all my insolence, the episode upset and hurt me greatly and I cried when I got home and said woefully, "O, I wish my name was plain Mary Brown!" Even now, I think it was excessive and cruel to subject a 14-year-old girl to that kind of idiocy. But it seems that even a 14-year-old could be suspected of being a danger to the State and to capitalism if she were a daughter of a Communist. I remain convinced that no one looked upon Father or any one in the family as being a real danger and all these petty incidents were just carried out to make things arkward and unpleasant.