TO BE STOPPED

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 20913, 13 October 1942, Page 5

TO BE STOPPED

“PEN FRIEND" LETTERS (P.A.) WELLINGTON, this dav "Pen-friend” letters are now to bo officially discouraged, in terms of a decision of the defence authorities. No penalty will be exacted from those found to he writing “pen-friend’ letters, but very few letters of that type addressed to foreign countries will be allowed to pass the censorship. The decision has been made necessary in the interests of the security of New Zealand and to further the Allied war effort. “Pen-friends” correspondence may seem a harmless enough pastime, says an official statement, but in time of war there is a grave danger that “penfriends” may be deliberately cultivated by the enemy as a valuable source of information. No loyal Now Zealander would like to feel that he was acting as an honorary agent for the enemy, and all “pen-friends” correspondence should immediately be stopped, even if it is of long standing. It is known that well before the war the Germans set up an organisation deliberately to cultivate “pen-friends in British countries. They had a good deal of success in New Zealand. They organised not only in Germany, but in many other countries, particularly Sweden, where many letters from New Zealand went. It was recently discovered that one Swede had an enormous volume of “pen-friends” correspondence with this country. There is evidence that he had a staff working for him.