OUR FIFTH COLUMN.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 216, 11 September 1940, Page 6

OUR FIFTH COLUMN.

CONTINENTAL ARMY. AWAIT DAY OF RECKONING. LONDON, August 15. "There's a legion that never was listed.'" And it is in this war. It is an Allied army: an army many millions strong. It wears no uniform. It carries no arms. It fights no spectacular battles. But it is there all the time. It is Britain's Fifth Column on the Continent. A great, voluntary, spontaneous Fifth Column, operating in every country that Germany has over-run—and in Germany itself, says the diplomatic correspondent of the "Daily Herald." "The peoples that Hitler has beaten down," said Lord Halifax the other night, "pray for the day when we shall sally forth and return blow for blow. We shall assuredly not disappoint them." When that day comes we shall find a thousand ready helpers for every one that helped the Germans in their advance. ' But even now they are helping us. They are doing more than pray. Just by existing, they help. The conquered lands are not, as the conquerors hoped, an asset in the struggle, but a liability.

These millions of sullen, bitter, angry men and women have to be held in subjection. They cannot revolt openly. But the Germans know quite well that they would revolt if they had half a chance. They have to be overawed by continual display of military force. They have to 'be dealt with constantly by the Gestapo. Hitler, while he wages war with Britain, has to hold down half a continent. That means a heavy drain on his resources. Every man in the Gestapo (and there are many thousands) is a man withdrawn from the army and the war effort. Every Gestapo machine gun is a machine gun the less for the army. It is not only the Gestapo. The army itself must provide garrisons for Poland, garrisons for Czechoslovakia, garrisons for Denmark and Norway and Holland and Belgium and France. Garrisons with guns and tanks and munitions that cannot be usM against us. The German armies in Poland and Czechoslovakia cannot be brought westward. For the moment they marched to the Rhine the Poles and the Czechs would rise. They are held, immobilised, "contained" by the menace of the Fifth Column almost as effectively as by actual fighting. So in the Western countries, too. Everywhere there must be German troops; everywhere there must be German police. It is a silent war.

Cannot Relax. So even in Germany. War or no war, Hitler dare not relax for a moment his grip on his own people. There are still, at a very conservative estimate, a quarter of a million Germans in the Nazi camps and concentration camps. How many "enemies of the regime" outside who have been more careful or more fortunate? Even Himmler does not know. But he dare take no chances. That is the first contribution of the Fifth Column. The second is sabotage in the wildest sense. Hitler's hope, if he cannot bring us to our knees by blitzkrieg methods in the next month or two, is to beat us in a long war by organising all Europe against us. For that he needs the co-operation of the French, the Dutch, the Danes, and the rest. Well, he is not going to get it. The Fifth Column is not going to do his job. No "Go To It." Work will go on: for life must go on. The Nazi taskmasters will try to squeeze the uttermost out of their new subjects. But already they are getting worried. These sullen millions are not working with a will. "Economic reorganisation of Europe" is going badly: because Europe quietly but stubbornly resists reorganisation on a slave basis. The Nazis begin to learn that slave labour is bad labour. Stubborn, quiet resistance. And other forms of sabotage, too. To say too much would be unwise. But there is evidence coming in of curious things that have been happening in factories and elsewhere. This great Fifth Column is at work already, sometimes passively, sometimes actively, from the Loire to the Vistula. As the first shock of the sweeping invasions passes, and stunned men sense reality again, it will develop. But even now it is worrying the German high-ups. Devil of a Job. They are beginning to see that between a military victory and the "conquest of a continent there is a very big difference: and that to complete the conquest of a continent with a big war still on their hands is the very devil of a job. What—comes the inevitable question —are we doing about this Fifth Column of ours? What are we doing to help it, to cheer it, to encourage it! An obvious question. And the answer is equally obvious: "Sh!" There is a lot of nonsense being talked by Ministers and others these days about the need for silence. It is a stunt that is being foolishly, perhaps dangerously, overdone. But this business of Fifth Column work in enemy-occupied territory is one in which secrecy is a first condition. So I am telling nothing and suggesting nothing and saving nothing. Except that I would like to ask the Prime Minister if he is quite satisfied that what we are doing is all that we can and ought to do. Because I have a feeling that in the end it is this Fifth Column of ours that may turn the scale.