A WORD FOR THE CENSORSHIP

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 193, 4 May 1918, Page 8

A WORD FOR THE CENSORSHIP

* THE BRITISH WAY DEPARTMENT THAT SAVES MILLIONS Aβ described.by Major Wood (author of ihe Note Book of an Attache"), in his latest boot, "The Note Book of an Intelligence Officer," tho British censorship consists of much more than the mere opening and blue-pencilling of letters. Began in a small way in the first days of September, 1914, in tho basement ox tlie General Post Office in London, this Department has expanded until it is now regarded as one of the most important of the means used, not only in preventing Communications with the enemy, but in helping to tighten the blockade. It costs annually about .£oOI),090, but, ac« cording to Major Wood, "it almost .")•• pays tilts turn in each average working day. As at first organised, tha censorship Department had for its sole purpose the opening of letters sent by regular mail from England to Germany and their cursory examination, with the idea of suppresing any tuat openly and frankly carried information of military value to the enemy. There was no effort to m< terpret the hidden meanings of the spy, to deteot his use of a code, or to briun oitt his invisible writings. Letters to "Holland, Denmark, Belgium, and other countries along the frontiers were deemed innocent and allowed to go through with, out examination, and at first ao organ> ised effort was made to prevent tho transmission of messages by courier, by agent, by wireless, or by carrier-pigeon. To-day the censorship is exercised over all communications tnati cross the seae, whatever their mode of carriage, Haoli month some 15,000,000 messages are minutely scrutinised. Major Wood says or this system: "A'o secret means of communication is too cleverly conceived to evade its watchfulness; no bit of information is too trivial to escape its interested inspection. It supplies tne armies and navies of the Allies with news of the enemy's military and naval plans—"intelligence," it is technically called—which far exceeds in quantity and quality anything that could be furnished by the most perfect secret service"

Some of the men who manage tl'is censorship are so expert in examination of enemy trade correspondence, according to Major Wood, that the unit-buying by the Allies is aided materially, purchases of war material being carried on largely "in accordance with the information that lias been collected, tabulated, and supplied by the censorship, which prevents unscrupulous army contractors from fattening upon exaggerated profits." In collaborating with the Navy in the blockade, the censorship sends the fleet advance information of the ultimate destination of every important cargo crossing, the seas. Of T3io cargoes already condemned, valued at millions, ''the censorship has not only furnished 90 per cent, of all convictions, but line nearly abrays discovered the existence and Tftluo of contraband cargoes in time to forewarn tho Admiralty of their approach days, and even _ weeks, before they enter tho war Iho system also detects illegal transactions by British subjects, so that home trade with the enemy has been .stopped, oven by the most roundabout routes, and no longer can an unpatriotic Briton sond securities out of England in order to avoid a possible "conscription of wealth." The censorship also halts and destroys ewm week tons of enemy propaganda. N,aturally, there arn many departments in this service. One of them is known as tho "Uncommon language Department;. There some eighty expert linguists cxamino letters written in obscure dialects and'in such unfamiliar languages as i Chinese, Ldtisli, Hindiistnm, Malay, Hungarian, Arabic, and Czech. J The Chemist on the Trail. ! In a testing department eomo of Great I Britain's best research chemists "match their wits against, those .of the wily enemy spy, to discover his secret writings and decipher his complicated codes. One example will suffice to show the results obtained. The Germans in East Africa wish to ropoTt to superiors at home. They learned that prisoners taken by the British were allowed to write home, after having been placed on parole. So an officer purposely wumlered beyond his lines and was mado a willing captive. In due course he was accorded permisison to write to his tamilv, and composed a long letter, in which he praised the treatment he had received, and said that he was happy and contented. Later his letter reached the censorship office. There the head called an assistant:— "The writer of this," he said, is up to some devilry. I deduce this from the fact that he omits to complain of not having a servant to wait on him. Such a grumble is invariably the first one that a Prussian officer makes when ho reaches prison-that is, unless he is up to some crookedness and is trying to sugar tho pill. Take the letter and examine it carefully; and don't bring it back to me until you find what is wronn with it. Within an hour the assistant was back, letter in hand, and with secret writing developed on the inside of the envelope. The officer, before poing out to be arrested, had filled a tooth-paste bottle with invisible ink. Later, after ho had written Sis dummy letter, he unsoaled the flaps of the envelope, wrote his message in tho secret ink. restored the envelope to its original condition, and sealed his letter therein. What discovery of this message meant to Great Britain, may be inferred from the following translation:— ' ~ . ''The commandant expects a ship from America to South-West Africa next montTu . . . The commandant intends ... to hold up the British army of 60,000 men by a slow retreat, and thus tcep it away from more important theatres of war. ;. . The atate of health of our army is satisfactory, thore being only twenty-five cases of typhus at V.'s hospital in Monibo. . . . Medicamente, how-ever,-are very short, but wehave begun to produce quinine at Amanij and along the Control Railway. All other stores for Europeans are available, even cigarettes, chocolate, and schnapps are being miinnfacturnil, ami also leather toots. . . . Until the end of March rainfall wns eo slight that thoro was insufficient wafer for our native troops, . . . Tho traitor Von Maidoll is at Now Moschi. with Hie British. This vre know from Petarholz, who stayed liohinrl in liia professional capacity, at thn capture of New Moschi, and has sinco been returned to us."