HOW FOREIGN SPIES WORK IN ENGLAND.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXIII, Issue XXII, 25 November 1899, Page 968

HOW FOREIGN SPIES WORK IN ENGLAND.

It will probably be news to most people that this country is literally over-run with foreign secret service

spies, recently said a prominent Foreign Office official to the writer. Indeed, continued he. at no period in the world’s history have the machinations of t'he secret service agent been more universally employed and more highly rewarded than at the present tune. Truth to say, the rapid progress of military and naval inventions. and the equally speedy changes in political situations which the electric telegraph have rendered possible, have made it imperative that every first-class Power should avail itself to the utmost of this underhand traffic The eagerness with which it is prosecuted, and the rigorous measures w'lnch are adopted in order to defeat its machinations, are best illustrated perhaps by the recent expulsion from Canada of the supposed Spanish spies. Lieutenant Carranza and Senor Dubose; the arrest, and protracted deten* thru, only a few months since, of a high Italian officer, who had quite innocently wandered too near a French Alpine fortress; and last, but by no means least, that, nightmarelike tragedy, t'he Dreyfus case. Perhaps one of the most glaring anomalies of our own defensive organisation is tlie system under which we permit the regular inspection of our dockyards. arsenals. and military forces by foreign naval and military attaches. Why, for instance, are French, Russian, and German naval and military officers personally conducted round our Government dockyards by competent officials, Who will explain everything in reason that their charges choose to ask. when a similar request from a law-abiding and taxpaying British journalist would be rejected with the most, withering scorn of which t'he authorities are capable? In addition to a vast army of acknowledged agents, each foreign Power maintains a large number of secret emissaries, whose mission it is to acquire the more detailed knowledge which would be impossible to the properly accredited spy. These men are literally everywhere. Possessed of a remarkably sound knowledge of the English langtKige, and enlisting, of course, under an assumed name, jour representative of title . Fatherland or of “La Belle" may be found in almost every regiment and ship of the Queen's service. Personally, just the sort of fellows that an officer takes to, they are quiet, diligent, and observant; the very men, in fact, that one would choose to employ upon the more confidential work of a regimental orderly room, or the inner defences of a fortified town. Indeed, the colonel of one crack artillery regiment discovered to 'his horror, only the other day, that- the man to whom he had for years intrusted the more confidential work of the regiment, by whom all the secret reports upon mobilization, gunnery trials, and even t'he abilities of the various subordinate officers had been written, and whose memory could always be relied upon to furnish the details of every War Office order and defensive and offensive plan in the regimental records, was nothing more or less thlfu the clever spy of a foreign Govern meat. So well, however, had the alien concealed his identify, t'tiaf it was only by the merest chance be was laid by the heels. An illegibly-addressed envelope from his Continental employers was opened in error bj’ a loyal colour-ser-geant, who promptly communicated its contents to his superior. For upwards of an hour the colonel was closeted with t'he informant; but. when, at the expiration of that period, the latter emerged with the object of arresting the spy. the latter had already disappeared. Needless to say, lie has not been heard of since; although it is well known that a thorough search of a certain foreign Embassy would speedily reveal his whereabouts. But the Embassies of foreign Powers are. under a certain International law, secure from such inquisitions. Consequently this worthy "ex-soldier of the Queen" has only to lie hidden until a favourable opportunity arises for making his escape to the land he has served so long and so well. A very similar system of espionage is carried on in the ships of our navy and royal dockyards. In most of our men-of-war. and notably in our Mediterranean and Channel fleets, the majority of the ships’ servants are foreigners—Frenchmen, Italians, Span-

lards, and Maltese Ireing especially prominent. As these men are continually going from ship to ship, the information they pick up is often of a most important nature, and is regularly forwarded to their respective Governments from each port they touch at. In this way, the minutest details ot structure, armaments. and future proceedings are frequently gleaned in the ward-rooms and gun-rooms of 11. M ships by I lie deft-handed servants who wait upon the officers. In the dockyards and arsenals the case is somewhat different. Here, iu order to gain admittance as a workman. it is necessary that the spy should be an efficient craftsman. This condition, however, is all in favour of t'be spy; since, by very reason of liis mechanical training, lie is best qualified to transmit accurate details of the technical matters upon which he lias to report. Practically all our great, arsenals and dockyards are over-run in this manner, the natural consequence being that any prolonged secrecy as to new inventions is rendered absolutelj’ impossible. Althoug'h we are only too ready to shower contempt, upon these methods of spying out our national defences, we must not lose sight of our own peccadillos in this respect. Take, for example. Wellington’s marvellous Peninsular Campaign. At the present day —such is the reward of the spy —n >t one man in a hundred is accustomed to connect the name of Grant wit’ii Wellington’s famous victories. Nevertheless, Wellington himself was one of the first to admit that, without the vital information constantly supplied him by his spy. Colqulioun Grant, he could not. possibly have achieved a fraction of the success which brought him with such eclat through that marvellous campaign. It was our fortunate neglect to keep up this system of espionage t'liat lost us so much blood and treasure in the Crimea. Had but Lord Raglan been property equipped in this particular, he would never have settled down to the disastrous siege of Sebastopol. A single Grant would have shown him where t'he supposed impregnable town could 'have been stormed at the outset by a few hundred determined men. But. Raglan had no Grant, an omission which cost England many millions and many a broken heart. Since those days, however, we have learnt better. Thanks to the efforts of capable reformers, such as Lord Charles Beresford and many others, our naval, military and diplomatic authorities are possessed of a particularly efficient secret service. Needless to say. the members of this body are only known to the powers that, be; but the fact of its existence maj' readily be proved by anybody who cares to turn up the Parliamentary estimates, in winch he. will find the snug little sum of £30,000 annually set aside for the. benefit of the British “Secret Service.’’