Chain of Spies Across the World

Manawatu Times, Volume 62, Issue 77, 2 April 1937, Page 8

Chain of Spies Across the World

NATIONS’ SECRETS STOLEN. The revelation that important AngloFrench air plans have fallen into '‘enemy hands" is another link in the chain of evidence that is being piled up against the international gang of spies now operating in Britain and abroad. That these gangs exist there is no doubt whatever. All over the world these have been mysterious cases of espionage and the stalling of valuable State secrets. No nutlon is immune from the spy racketeers. They will steal miliciry plans from France aud sell theoi to Germany, while at the same time they are trying to get the highest price from the French for secret German information they *.ave secured. There are three of these gang 3 in existence and they have their agents everywhere. Agents in Britain. It is only a matter of weeks since one of these organisations got hold of the secret plans of the German general staff, while within a few days the German military authorities were eagerly studying documents which had been stolen from a secret dossier in France. The numbers of international spies in Britain have gone up by leaps and bounds since the beginning of our rearmament plans. When last year Italian papers published the text of a highly confidential British Government ‘ * Report on Abyssinia," it became known that a copy of this had been stolen by an agent of one of the gangs, even though, as in the case of all State documents, the most minute care is taken to account for every copy printed. The extent of the care taken may be gauged from the fast that in every British Government office there is a responsible official who has tho duty of seeing that the contents of every wastepaper basket are burnt during the night in special furnaces. The spy scare is now at iu height, and the precautions taken are such a.* to make it seemingly impossible for military and naval secrets to be stolen. Yet the fact remains that invaluable information is being constantly hawked round the capitals of Europe, where it is sold to the highest bidder on a cashdown basis. M.P.’s Alarm. These facts aro not exaggerated. The British Secret Service knows all &b.»ut the existence of these groups. If proof of the fact is needed, it ca:i easily be seen in the alarm shown by certain M.P.'s at the great increase of activity

in the special "letter-opening" It part - ment of the post office. Never since the great rour.d-up at the beginning of the war have so many letters been opened and examined at postal sorting offices.

There it. however, conso'at’on in the knowl«j;:e that these gangs are not directing their energies at any particular country. Germany’s gain to-day may be turned into a loss to-morrow.