GERMAN SPY SYSTEM

Evening Post, Volume XCIII, Issue 85, 10 April 1917, Page 6

GERMAN SPY SYSTEM

AUSTRALIA'S EXPERIENCE

(FROM OCR OTVH CORRESPONDENT.)

SYDNEY, 4th April.

The Australian- authorities ■- recently allowed the publication of some details of the German spy system, insofar as it relates to Australia. The present tense is used, because, although most of the German agents and sympathisers in. Australia have been rouiided up and placed behind barbed wire, ithere are stOl undiscovered and active pro-Germans in. the Commonwealth, ■ and the German authorities are making continuous efforts to communicate with their friends in Australia.

The Australian Postal censors are conj&tanily 'on the alert," and flatter themselves that,there are few ways of sending secret messages that they are not now acquainted with. The German, press organisations are most active in distributing to. itheir countrymen abroad news favourable to their cause. Leaflets, printed in English, and -containing, under cover of neutrality, pro-German news and views, are almost constantly arriving from Holland, {Switzerland, and America. These are easily dealt with, A packet of cigarettes addressed to a prisoner, was examined. Nine were of tobacco, but the tenth was of newspaper clippings, tightly rolled. A large package from the Philippines contained many excellent Manila, cigars; but ia one box the. cigare were all of paper. A box of walnuts came from Java addressed to an interned merchant. A suspicious censor Tound most of the shells full of paper. These devices, too, do -not unduly disturb a careful censor. The most difficult trick to cope with is that of writing messages in an invisible medium on what appear to he perfectly innocent letters and newspapers. The censors -were probably deceived frequently at first, but they are confident that they do not miss much now. '■;■•■'•

Documents which have been seized show how completely the German spy system was in operation in Australia before the war. Nearly every German business was collecting information and sanding it home to the Government bureaux. A great steamship company was, for intelligence purposes, nothing leas than a branch of the German Ad-- : miralty. Some of the German schools were used by the German War Office to grant certain men exemption from service in the German'army. In some cases, the German pastors were the official representatives of the German ConsulGeneral in Sydney, and received portion of their stipends from. Germany. One pastor, who had been bom in Australia of German parents, when arrested by the military, was" found to have many treasonable documents in his possession. The British intercepted in the post, from another pastor, a "strictly confidential" report,, giving & great amount of information; about the northwest coast of West Australia.

Finally, here is a translation of a document sent confidentially in January, 1914, by the German Minister for the Interior to all secret-service agents, including certain industrious, retiring gentlemen in Australia and New Zealand : "Our agents at fixed posts must not content themselves with, holding salaried positions; they might lose such positions at any moment. Each one must be obliged to 'keep some kind of office, whatever the nature of the establishment, whether it'is a disputed claims office, or land and property agency ■, grocery establishment or cafe, restaurant, hotel, insurance office, or the like. In all cases, the business must be soundly established and possess a substantial goodwill. It must, in fact, be ever borne in mind that it is.-necessary for 6ur~ agents to inspire confidence in circles where they'have their centre of action, and to create that confidence by the outward signs of an ordinary middleclass existence. Indeed, by a well-placed munificence, and by taking part in all kinds of societies, associations, and communities, they must acquire such a strong social position that, as far as their locality is concerned, each may be well received everywhere .and highly thought of in all quarters, arid may thus always be in. a position to give useful information on all points."