Head of the Fifth Column
No infallible technique for fighting. a Fifth Column has yet been devised. When the Minister of Labour can announce, as he did last week, that a particular group of men who are working to disrupt essential services are known and are being watched, then clearly part of the problem is solved. If these men break laws they will be caught and-punished. But a large part of the problem remains, for the chief trouble with Communists is a will to find a way through and behind laws, and this will cannot be broken by Act of Parlia- ment. When Mr. Arthur Deakin argues, as he did last week- end, that the Communist Party should be banned he has certainly not found the answer. It should be clear that there would be little practical gain from an official ban on Communism and that there is a great deal to be lost by a breach of the principle of freedom of political opinion. Such reply as is possible to the Fifth Column is surely a matter of prompt and determined action, and it should be easier to make that reply as time goes on. The number of Com- munists in this country is pretty certainly not growing. The last General Election showed that. The remnant consists to a greater and greater extent of marked men who, like any other potential lawbreakers, can be given special attention by the police. There is little point in fulminating against them. Argument and persuasion had better be reserved for those who hesitate on the brink of Com- munism rather than for those who are already- in it up to their necks. The law is already strong -enough to deal with the really desperate Communists, and the best supplement to it is vigilance— not more laws.
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