ESPIONAGE.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1360, 10 February 1912, Page 4

ESPIONAGE.

i Although the father of Bertrand Stewart, who has been sentenced by the German Supreme Court to three and a half years' imprisonment on a charge of espionage, has written to The Times deprecating any tendency to foment anti-German animosity over his son's trial, there can be no doubt that a decision which leading English newspapers have denounced as "outrageous and vindictive," and as "a judicial outrage" upon a British subject, will increase the difficulties of the situation as between the two countries. Even if the evidence at Stewart's trial' had not been utterly inadequate, and if the judgment could have been accepted as reasonable, it could not bo denied that trials for espionage are apt to have au irritating effect upon the nations concerned. And the trial of Stewakt is only the latest of a series. A few weeks ago Max Sciin.rz, a British subject, was sentenced at Leipzig to seven years' hard labour for transmitting naval designs, and others who were convicted of acting with him were sentenced to twelve, three, three, and two years' imprisonment. German agents have been tried and convicted on similar charges by English Courts, and it is impossible to doubt that each country has availed itself of secret service to obtain details of the naval and military plans of Ihe other. It, is useless to condemn such methods on moral grounds. Solong as espionage nnd breach of confidence can secure in formation of surpassing value, there will be spies and secret agents. Nobody will approve of (heir work, but it, will be i done. The only way t.o prpyrnt, it. jh to tin jr.rn.y \v\[]\ l.h'p conditions wbicb bxiae it mLf bciag^

land that, so Jong as there is compeliliuu in iiniiaini'iils, ('annul, 1)l' <milifi'ly ace(ini]ilisln'tl. hjuiin , minor iiujii'ov'i'iiioiil; limy, jnmTVi.T, lie possilili l . I Thi? frequency with which charges of espionage have recently been made suggests (hat (lie practice ilself has been exleuded of late years. "C'ivis, , " whose letters lo the Sprrliilni' are always read with rested, has been urging that the present, situation has been aggravated by unwise action taken by Britain when tho Dreadnought type of battleship was introduced. i-Je poinls out, not for the first rime, that before, that, date the regular practice was to make public the principal particulars of intended British' warships in connection with the submission to Parliament of the annual Navy Estimates.

lirili-h procedure in this respect was followed generally up in l«» r '. ""d Germany was no exception to the rule. Particulars of dimensions armaments, armour, speed, and coal endurance of 71-HV German warships were published frrclv and as a matter of course, just jui was'done for British ships. With tl>' advent of the Dreadnought and under the unwise- guidance of individuals who were chiefly responsible for the introduction of that type, an absolutely new departure was made. It wn* (hen declared that "in the public interest particulars of new types ought not to be "ivcii to Parliament or the miti»ii. Simultaneously Ilia world was informed (hat individual ships of the Dreadnought and Invincible d.v-cs were immeasurably superior in lighting power lo flicir prein all the navioi of tliu world. Cimld any step have been taken more likelv to'provoke curiosity and the endp'iv'our to piere? the veil of secrecy, which rcsii'r (wuld only be obtained by encouraging espionngo and breach of confidence?

"C'ivis" advocates a reversion to the earlier and more candid practice, which, he says, is still followed by France, Italy, Austria, tho United States, and usually by Japan. He believes that it did not, and would not now, involve any disadvantage to Britain, because her shipbuilding resources were, and still are, immensely superior to those of all other nations. Sik Edward GrtEY.can be quoted in favour of this view, for he said in the House of Commons last March that ho had always held that frank exchange of information between the British and German Navies, through the Naval Attaches, would convince each nation that neither was trying to steal a march on the other, and would have a pacific effect. Perhaps the intense feeling aroused !>/ the sentence on Berteaxd Stewart will bear fruit in the abandonment of a secrecy in naval construction policy which neither Power can bo sure of maintaining inviolate, and which as a set-off to its doubtful advantages is a sure cause of mutual irritation. It can be easily abandoned without the least detriment to the larger principles of national policy.