FEARS IN SYDNEY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 21 October 1938, Page 5

FEARS IN SYDNEY

GERMAN INFLUENCES AT WORK. Two significant pieces of information have come through to Sydney on which the Intelligence Department of the Defence Force should get busy and act accordingly, says the Sydney correspondent of the “Melbourne Age.” Two Queenslanders on holiday in Germany were heard over a German shortwave broadcast speaking to someone at Monto, permission having been given for them to say a few words, and at the completion of the message they were made to say, “Auf Wiedersehen” and “Heil Hitler.” In view of a statement by an officer of a German shin which visited Sydney recently, that it might be “Australia’s turn next” the department should inouire whether this is the beginning of the pronaganda to introduce Hitler and his “Good Heil” to Australia and whether people with the “Heil Can” should not be watched. According to some authorities, they are here already.

An Australian woman who lived for some vears in Germany and returned to Sydney last June, declares that she is frightened to give her name to any statement she makes concerning the conditions of life in Germany because her relatives would suffer, and she says, “I know there are hundreds of Nazi spies in Sydney.” If this is true —and it comes from several sources —the sooner we get busy the better it will be for ourselves and the country generally. We do know that long before the Great War if there was not an organised system of espionage at least nobodv could make any remarks without being watched, and every statement in a newspaper was scrutinised and acted upon. This kind of thing should be nipped before it gets too far. No foreigners should be allowed to stay in the country unless they are prepared Io be naturalised within a reasonable time, and they acquire a working knowledge of the English language. European methods of life are not suitable- to Sydney.