THE FIFTH COLUMN

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 237, 5 October 1940, Page 5 (Supplement)

THE FIFTH COLUMN

(By BRITANNICUS.)

Who are the Fifth Column!

The Fifth Column are the friends of the enemy in our midst. In it there are five battalions.

First, there are the paid agent* of the enemy Government: spies, saboteurs, secret policemen, Nazi organisers. These men are few but they are the "regulars" that stiffen and sustain the whole force.

In the second battalion are people of enemy origin or associations who, though not actively or continuously engaged in helping the enemy, are always ready to turn on their hosts when the hour of opportunity strikes. They are many, and are scattered among the ranks of the refugees and of earlier immigrants. Since they do nothing to betray themselves now, they are not easy to sift from their innocent neighbours. Britain has shown a generous tolerance towards her alien guests, but the fate of Holland has shown that it is better to put the innocent to undeserved penalties than to risk leaving the guilty at large. Pro-Dictator Elements The third and fourth battalions are manned by our own people. The third consists of members of anti-democratic and pro-dictator organisations of the extreme left and extreme right, who by their agitation try to weaken the national war effort. These fanatics car<s nothing for the freedom we defend; for the countries they admire have cast it out. They care nothing for their fellow countrymen, whom they would deliver into tyranny for the sake of their own power. In peace time they can be treated as a warped and relatively harmless minority group; in time of war, they become traitors.

The fourth battalion comprises the camp followers of this group—not active soldiers in the fight against freedom, but ready helpers in that treacherous cause. Misguided pacifists, chronic grumblers, careless spillers of secrets, rumour-mongers, defeatists, people who ignore Government plans for their protection or that of their children, and then panic when the danger comes—all these swell- the rankß of the enemy's friends.

BelunA The Lines The fifth battalion is not yet commissioned. It is composed of the parachutists and others whom the enemy may be able to insert behind the lines when the moment arrives for his big effort at destruction from within. These shock troops of the Fifth Column are relatively few, and their effort is concentrated upon the chosen moment and target. If they do not succeed at once they fail altogether. They can be dealt with by military action, supported by the coolness and courage of private citizens in an emergency. It is the fourth of the five battalions that is the largest and most dangerous —most dangerous because it is the most difficult to defeat. The man who passes on rumours about enemy secret weapons, or grumbles against our Allies, or who wails that the war cannot be won, is likely to remain at large, continuing his moral sabotage, since he commits no punishable crime that can be fixed on him. But he is just as much an agent of the enemy as is the hired spy, and loyal citizens should treat him accordingly. ♦ ♦ ♦ * Onehanga R.S.A.

Friday, October 18.—Bazaar, 2 p.m.10 p.m. Saturday, October 26.—Special bazaar