The forms have gone out. Magistrates, probation officers, judges and all those who make up the English and Welsh judiciary are being asked to record their response to the question: Are you a Freemason? The list will be available to the public in October. The right to privacy has been violated; Free and Accepted Masonry is less free than it was a year ago: a black month for liberty in these islands. The message is clear: anti-masonic propaganda pays off. Already the effects begin. I have this week seen an East African news report (see The Eye) whose barrage of propaganda against Masonry includes the information that the British Government takes such a dim view of the Craft that it has enforced a registration policy against the will of the United Grand Lodge. Who can tell what the practical effects of such measures will be?
    One of the most extraordinarily difficult things to do in this world is to govern a state; governments are deserving of our prayers. All governments make mistakes, some consciously, others inadvertently. But there is one thing which undermines the integrity of good government, and that is when governments choose not to tell the plain truth. If, as the Lord Chancellor maintains, the issue of Masonry in the judiciary is the cause of ‘public concern’, then it is the government’s duty to allay that perceived concern by acquainting the public with the facts as it knows them. For this purpose (we presume) a Commons Select Committee was formed to investigate the Craft. Its findings, as the Lord Chancellor and the Lord Chief Justice know, exonerated the Craft of any charge that it threatened the pursuance of justice or that it was in any way bad for the nation’s moral, economic or spiritual health. Whose interests then are served by the publication of such an extraordinary list?
    The Lord Chancellor makes it clear that he believes that it is in the state’s interest, lest the public lose confidence in the judicial system. In the circumstances, this view is quite wrong. Were there a genuine problem, then it would be in the interests of the judiciary itself to allay any such loss of confidence. The judiciary as well as the Commons has heard the evidence and knows that there is no cause for alarm. Rather, it is the list that is alarming. So then, we must conclude that the hard source of ‘concern’ lies in the political realm. The list is the result of a political decision, brought over the heads of the judiciary by a political interest. The truth is simply that there are members of the House of Commons who are anti-masonic, and possessing influence, have exercised that divisive prejudice.
    Let us look at the case of Ireland. Here we find a contrasting set of political matrices. As we learn from our interview with Michael Walker, Grand Secretary of the Grand Lodge of Ireland (see Behind the Green Door), when the question of the re-organisation of the Royal Ulster Constabulary was raised with him by Mo Mowlam, Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, she wrote to the Grand Secretary asking his opinion of the advisability of operating a similar list with respect to the RUC in Northern Ireland. Naturally, he replied that such a listing, separating a body of citizens from the rest, was arbitrary, unjust and could only contribute to further social divisiveness. An interesting case. The political configuration is different: masons in Northern Ireland belong to a body which has always been administered from Dublin. Gentle methods are required: genuine consultation, sensitivity to others’ interests, courtesies, decency. While back here in England and Wales, it is deemed correct and good to impose socially divisive instructions upon those very people whose declared duty is to maintain the law. The government banks on the perception that most people will fail to see this issue as one involving their own liberties. The government effectively acquiesces in negative propaganda. If its claim on truth is so shaky, its integrity is diminished and its capacity for good governance is rendered open to question. Who will be next on the List?
    Write to your MP. What is at stake is our image of ourselves. What is at stake is Freemasonry.
    Tobias Churton