Evening star., 1941-01-19

Dublin. Dark-eyed Anna, a White
Russian, said she was convinced
1t was England's fault that Czarist
Russia collapsed.
If Kent had been arrested three
days later, he would have been SUBJ
ject to the death penalty under a
new defense act passed last spring
by Parliament. He got off with a
seven-year prison sentence. Anna
was sentenced to 10 years.
Spies and traitors, however, do not
come within the term fifth column.
A spy is paid by a foreign govern
ment to get military information.
A traitor usually operates alone and
is not identified with any organiza-
tion set upon overthrowing the gov
ernment.
Politically Minded.
But fifth columnists are politically
minded, sometimes very sincere, if
fanatical, people. Theoretically, they
prefer the enemy's form Of govern
ment to their own. Some of them
oIO W SO ~ 1dA d<S w pei
NIT the enemy to help set up new
regime in their own country.
1t amounts to civil war going on
at the same time as external war.
In fact, the European war devel-
oped spots of civil war as Hitler's
mechanical divisions and airplanes
subdued one country after another.
Fifth column activity in conquered
countries was blamed by the Defend
ers to some extent for the sWiftness
of the drives.
Military intelligence officers de-
scribe fifth column activity as in
cluding the counting of important
people, such as officials, and work
among disgruntled people. Fifth
columnists are supposed to foster
paciflsm and revolutionary forces
such as Communism and Fascism.
In France they found fertile
ground in which to SOW seeds OF
dissension because of long political
unrest and constant controversy
In England known Communists
and FaSCistS were numerically small.
British labor is fundamentally
conservative. The Labor party. for
instance, expelled Sir Stafford
Cripps, the brilliant leftist who be-
came British Ambassador to Moscow,
because he was non-conformist and
advocated a popular front against
conservatives.
Needed More Time.
Many people ask: Wouldn't the
Germans have won the war if they
had tried invasion of England i'm
mediately after the fall Of France?"
One answer is this: German
agents undoubtedly reported to their
chiefs that the fifth column in
England was not yet sufficiently
strong and that they needed little
more time for the SLOW thinking
British to grasp what had happened.
Before the war, it was not in
frequent to hear young Britisher
ask. "Is the empire worth fighting
for?' or wouldn't England be
better off il it became a third-class
power and lived happily like Den
mark, Sweden and Norway and not
have to pay taxes. to police virtually
the whole world?"
That same young Britisher prob
ably is in an army training camp
now. preparing to resist an invader
of England and also for promised
British invasion of the continent.
Perhaps as important as any other
factor in making England a poor
field for fifth column activity is her
free press. Even in wartime the
press had voluntary, rather than
compulsory, censorship.
The newspapers, of course. are
subject to penalties if they publish
something which might give in
formation to the enemy For that
reason. they generally submit ar
ticles to the censor just to play safe.
But there is no censorship on edi-
torial opinion and a newspaper is
free to criticize the government in
as sharp terms as it chooses-and
frequently it does so.
Dor, octipootac fhot ifs uoy,oop