"SPY MANIA.”

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXIX, Issue 79, 23 May 1911, Page 5

"SPY MANIA.”

The absurdity of raising a scare about spies because the Japanese,who have returned from the rigours of the Antarctic exhibit a natural desire to rest and recruit ashore at the camping ground which has been asigried to them at Parsley Bay, must be obvious to. anyone who is capable of looking at xhe facts dispassionately, remarks the Sydney “Daily Telegraph.” Lieutenant Shirase and his men must have had a bitter experience down south at Coalman Island, and Professor David, who should be a good authority, expressed surprise that they were able to get clear of the ice at all, on account of the lateness of their departure. To iiud a sinister motive in their desire to leave the restricted quarters on their small ex-, ploring steamer in order to stretch their logs ashore after all the hardships of the voyage is surely pushing suspicion to preposterous lengths. As the subjects of a nation which is at the present time the ally of Croat Britain, the Japanese scientists have good reason to complain of a policy of pinpricks, which seeks to brand them as spies, and to insinuate the incredible supposition that their Antarctic expedition was a more blind, and that their real objective was not the South Polo, but the South Head Port. People who can believe that such astute and reticent people as the Japanese would go about the delicate business of espionage by thrusting themselves under the noses of military officials in the way that these Antarctic explorers have done, would believe anything. It is very right and proper that the military officials should guard the secrecy of the defences entrusted to their care from any unauthorised visitors. Such action is a matter of course in every country, and in no country more than in Japan. But there is something undignified in a susceptibility to “spy mania,” which sees a spy behind every rock. The Japanese scientists have experienced the hitter disappointment of being compelled to return from the Antarctic regions with their main mission not only unaccomplished, but unattempted. To raise an outcry against them on the purely imaginary ground that thev are spies is worse'than inhospitable— it is sheer nervous stupidity.