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This chapter discusses the enduring restrictions on the civil liberties of the people of Great Britain before and during the First World War. These restrictions were introduced as temporary measures under the Defence of the Realm Act. However, many of these restrictions either lasted longer than expected, surviving the reason for their original introduction, or were revived in a different form at a later date.

This chapter examines some of the “darker currents” in Virginia Woolf's 1919 novel Night and Day which reveal the conditions on the home front during World War I. In particular, it considers how Night and Day tackles aspects of the emergency legislation introduced through the “Defence of the Realm Act,” as reflected in all of the surveillance and subterfuge the characters are involved in. It focuses on the three central characters in Night and Day's ménage à cinq who are all, to some extent or other, “outsiders”: Mary Datchett, Ralph Denham and Katharine Hilbery. It suggests that the actions of these three characters are an expression of some form of oblique protest against the war.

The United States and the United Kingdom have rich histories of panic and overreaching responses to events that appear to threaten national security. Both countries have a habit of giving the executive non-reviewable extrajudicial discretion to address perceived emergencies. Historical US examples are the Alien and Sedition Acts (1798), the Palmer Raids (1919-1920), Japanese-American World War II internments, and the Alien Registration Act of 1940(Smith Act). The UK revived executive detentions in 1915 with Regulation 14b of the Defence of the Realm Act 1914, Regulation18B of the Emergency Powers Act 1939, and the Prevention of Terrorism Act 1974. Post 9/11, the US implemented the USA PATRIOT Act and the UK implemented the Anti-Terrorism Crime and Security Act 2001. Typically these responses involve preventive detention, focus on aliens, guilt by association, and use of administrative rather than criminal procedures. This chapter discusses the emergency legislation and historical court decisions including Korematzu v United States and Liversidge v Anderson.

This chapter charts the imprisonment in Ireland under the Defence of the Realm Act of radicals—largely Irish separatists who were members of the Irish Volunteers, but also pacifists—between the outbreak of World War I and the Easter Rising of 1916. These men qualify for the description ‘political prisoners’ under almost every criterion one might apply. They were imprisoned because of their political activity and for political purposes. They were imprisoned under extraordinary legislation, although the state was cautious in its use of this legislation, combining severity with flexibility. The prisoners presented the state’s actions as illegitimate, declaring themselves political prisoners and regarding themselves as a class apart. They and their supporters employed very effective propaganda tactics, but they did not, with notable exceptions, develop an effective strategy for militant action inside the prisons.

This chapter aims to detail the gathering crescendo for some form of action to be taken on the drink issue. As the war progressed, its pressures had increasing repercussions on the home front. The expenditure of shells and arms on an unprecedented scale increased pressure on Britain’s industrial infrastructure. Adjusting to this demand for military hardware was a difficult task and the type of war being fought accentuated the problem. Britain’s factories, whilst simultaneously having to deal with a large amount of its experienced workforce joining the army, could not cope with demand. Blame had to be placed somewhere, so it is unsurprising that the industrial working class bore the brunt of accusations regarding degenerate behaviour. During this period Lloyd George and King George V spoke about how important the drink issue was to the war effort. In an important speech Lloyd George criticised workers’ drinking habits and his actions suggest that he wanted a ‘national conversation’ to occur on the issue. This was the period during which the ‘severity’ of the drink problem was finally realised by society.