JAPANESE PRE-WAR PRECAUTIONS.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXV, Issue 202, 24 August 1904, Page 3

JAPANESE PRE-WAR PRECAUTIONS.

I i Ii is vow well known that for months j ! —nay" years—before the outbreak _of | itheßusso-Jap&nese war the country like- j jly to become the scene of operations j • was swf.rming with the agents of the i 'intelligence Department of the Japanese! j Army. Oflk-ers of high rank have not; idisdained to disguise themselves as cool-; i ies, and perform all kinds of menial labour, if by doing so they could only ob- ■ tain information likely to be useful ( during a campaign. | ! Such work i* best done in time of j peace; but a general commanding an ! army in the field always has an intelli- • gence department, who conduct their j secret work in the enemy's country at ; imminent risk of death. The chief of j the intelligence department is attached ]to the general's headquarter?, and is directly responsible to the chief of the staff. * In the British Army the chief intelligence officer is nominally an aide- j 'de camp, and pains are taken to prevent • ! the field force generally knowing that ihe is in control of the spies. | In all European armies there are half a dozen approved methods of obtaining ! information, all of which are practised . by a capable intelligence officer. j

' A spy who is also an operator can tap the telegraph wires with his small pocket instrument, and one such man is worth a dozen ordinary spies. He is useful in conveying false information to the enemy, or ordering hkn to concentrate on points where has has no business to be. Prisoners are often useful in giving information, and are always questioned by the chief intelligence officer separately, queries being put as to which corps, division, and regiment the prisoner belongs to, whe.re it is encamped, and how long it has been there, to begin with. The intelligence officer already has in his possession the names of the commanding officers of the various divisions, etc.: he. talks of them familiarly, and the unfortunate prisoner, bewildered by finding that his questioner already knows so much, readily yields up his remaining stock of information. i Now we come to the, most useful part; of the intelligence officer's material—l his own spies. It is a hard-and-fast rule that no spy is made known to any of the others: each is allowed to believe that he is the only one engaged on that particular work- J-arge rewards are given for really valuable, information, and a useful spy is always well treated. All bona fide spies (if such a contradiction in terms is allowable) carry about with them some secret means of proving themselves to lip really what, they represent. A Testament, with a certain leaf torn out. a coin of a certain date, are typical tokens of identity, and these are frequently changed. Some intelligence officers prefer as a token some gesture— such as touching the chin with certain fingers, and so on. In this way spies can easily make themselves known to the intelligence department, of any division of the army with which they come in contact. Special paper and ink—the latfpv of tho kind known as "sympathetic"—are used for conveying messages by means of spies, and a non-committal letter in ordinary ink written between the lines of the secret information. Letters nre sometimes written on very thin paper, ami put. into an inch-long quill, which may easily b<? concealed in the hair or beard. Sir George White sent messagtw to (general Buller from' beleaguered Ladysmith in this way.