Campaign Against “fifth Column” Mapped in Britain

A determined campaign to crush “fifth column” activities in Britain was foreshadowed by Home Secretary Sir John Anderson’s statement in Commons that action was being considered against extremist groups hindering the war effort.

It is believed that action will be taken in the nearest future against leaders of groups whose followers have been responsible for the chalking of walls with anti-Government slogans. In this Sir Oswald Mosley’s Fascists have been the worst offenders, disfiguring thousands of walls with indelible stamps blaming Jews for the war.

Scotland Yard special branch officers have made a complete collection of all literature issued by pro-German anti-war organizations for submission to the Home Office.

The campaign against such groups was given new impetus by the discovery in Brighton of widely-distributed mimeographed leaflets assailing the Jews and urging readers to listen to “Loch Lomond,” a short-wave transmitter describing itself as a new British station, but which is actually in Germany. The leaflets, signed “Brighton Workers Defense League,” were left in mail boxes in workers’ districts.

Two men connected with Mosley’s British Union were bound over in Thames Court today in the sum of £50 on charges of writing the words “Jew war” on the wall of a power plant office.

The two defendants were identified as Henry Hudge, 37, and Henry William Eaton, 34, both of Stephney. They were followed from the office of the Fascist Union by a policeman who arrested them when they defaced the wall. They were charged with causing wilful damage. They used waterproof crayons which could not be washed off.

The accused were ordered by the court to find sureties of £25 each or else go to jail for six weeks.

It is “contemptible” to try to link the “fifth column” discussion with the refugees in England, a columnist in the Evening Star declared today.