Axis Agents in tire Real Menace to Invasion

Manawatu Times, Volume 69, Issue 60, 14 March 1944, Page 5

Axis Agents in tire Real Menace to Invasion

Eisenhswer Urged Necessity of Action (By Telegraph— Press Assn.— Copyright.) Received Monday, 11.15 p.m. LONDON, March 13. The Government has decided, subject to certain exceptions, that all travel between Britain and Northern Ireland and Eire must be suspended forthwith for military reasons. From March 13 until further notice no more permits or visas for travel between the two islands will be granted, except for business or work of urgent national importance, or on compassionate grounds of a most urgent and compelling character. No further leave certificates for Irish workers to return to Ireland from Britain will be granted while the restrictions continue. The restrictions will be removed as soon as military considerations permit. “The banning of travel between Ireland and Britain is only one of the steps with which the Allied commanders plan to prevent leakage of second front information,” says the Daily Mail’s diplomatic correspondent. “They are taking and will take in future other and more secret measures to ensure the highest degree of military security.” The correspondent adds that he understands that General Eisenhower possessed information which caused him to believe that Axis freedom throughout Eire was a real menace to the Allied cause and urged the necessity of immediate action. Eire will be completely isolated as far as this can be achieved. Such a policy must have repercussions on Government relations in London, Washington and Dublin. Mr. Churchill is expected to make a full statement at the next sitting of the Commons. The Daily Herald’s diplomatic correspondent says: “There is no question of anything in the nature of economic sanctions. The Dublin Government has a right to decide its own policy unchallenged and any attempt to coerce a Dominion because its decisions are disliked by the United Kingdom would be deeply resented throughout the Bri/isb Commonwealth. Any stoppage of trade with Eire would also be disadvantageous to Britain.” The Press Association, discussing the travel ban to Ireland, recalls that Professor D. L. Savory, M.P. for Belfast University, last November said it was estimated that there were 100,000 to 300,000 Eire nationals in Britain. Another estimate is between 30,000 and 40,000 workers from the South of Ireland, and 30,000 from the North ol Ireland at present in Britain. About 4000 persons travel to and from Ireland daily. The Press Association’s diplomatic correspondent says that while transit remained open it was always possible for information to be conveyed from Britain to Eire for transmission to Berlin and Tokio. The news restrictions will assist in stopping one channel through which Axis agents could receive information, but the channel whereby information is passed to the Axis —the German Legation in Dublin —remains open. The possibility always existed that some of the thousands of Irishmen, possibly including members of the Irish Republican Army who migrated to Britain to share the high wartime wages, have conveyed information to enemy agents in Eire. Not only will no more Irishmen now be permitted to enter Britain but, more important, none will be permitted to return to Ireland. The Eire Minister to Washington (Mr. Robert Brennan) has expressed the opinion that the United States will not use military or economic pressure to induce Eire to abandon her neutrality. He added: “The State Department has been most friendly despite Eire’s rejection of the American request.” The Associated Press says: “The announcement yesterday of the United States’ refusal to sell merchantmen is interpreted as a strong indication that a stiffer economic policy towards Eire is already in operation. Mr. Brennan told an interviewer that the Irish are anxious to preserve their neutrality as an outward sign of the country’s independence. Eire would like a place at the peace table “since partition is a very sore spot with us.” However, the subject has not been advanced officially.