ARMS PLAN

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LXV, Issue 12304, 19 April 1937, Page 2

ARMS PLAN

ALLEGED DISCOVERY IX LONDON London, April IS. The Marquess of Donegal!, writing in the Sunday Dispatch, discloses an alleged plan to run nearly £3, 000,000 worth of arms and munitions to Spain. He asserts that Victor Hervey, aged 21, son of L’ord Herbert Hervey, formerly British Minister to Peru, and John Christopher Lonsdale, of Wimborn, known in the West End of London as a man about town, hope to make £ 50,000 each out of the venture. Lord Donegall says he picked up l the trail at a West End reception and followed it to Finland. Eventually he discovered a gigantic arms ring with headquarters in London, Paris, Oslo and Helsingfors, and the tangled threads of a plot with spying, counter-spying and bribery. It is asserted by Lord Donegall that Hervey, after an introduction by a Londoner in Florida, received from the Spanish Government’s agent in Paris a letter of credit up to £ 378,000. Thereupon he went to Finland and arranged with Captain Jusu, a Finnish arms dealer, who made £ 500,000 in six months at his business, for a vast supply of arms. However, as the Finns were violently anti-Communist, the certificate to enable the arms to be shipped to the Spanish Government cost £ 5000. Lord Donegall also alleges that Lonsdale told him he had arranged to let General Franco know how he could capture the ship carrying the arms to Spain, for which he and Hervey were to receive £ 30,000 each. If a ship is found to take the arms, which has not yet been done, and if the Spanish Government extends the credit, the deal may yet be completed.