HUM SPY CHIEF.

Clutha Leader, Volume XLII, Issue 63, 11 February 1916, Page 3

HUM SPY CHIEF.

HIS £7,000,000 FUNDS. The stiffened attitude of the American Government towards the campaign of alien lawlessness and violence in the United States bore fruit lately in the form of an official "disavowal" from the German Government of the activities of Captain Franz voir UinteIru. The Ambassador ■declares that von liinteleu ''had no instructions to commit acts which were in violation of the laws of the United States.'' Von 11 inti'lctt, before his capture at Falmouth and imprisonment in England, was the head of the German .spy system in the United States. It ha.s even been said that hi.s authority was superior to that of Captains Bov-F.d and von Papon. He had £7,000.000 at his dosposal, and he spent enormous sums in promoting the cause of General Huerta iir Mexico and in organising trouble in that country with the design of forcing America to intervene, and in bribing men prominent iir labor circles to provoke strikes in ammunition factories.

■ Tin* Secretary of State's Note to Austria on the torpedoing of the Italian liner Ancona. meets with the unanimous approval of the American press, which characterises is as "virtually .in ultimatum." This characterisation emanates from the State Department.

Only the German-American newspapers suggest that the question l is susceptible to arbitration. The rest of the press, writing after consultation at official headquarters, declares that Aus-tria-Hungary must satisfy the demands of the American Government within a week, otherwice displomatic erlations will he severed. The Austrian excuse fur procrastination, that the commander of the submarine cannot be readied is rejected. The excuse, if it means anything, means that either the submarine lias been sunk or that jt was a t'ermarj and not an Austrian submarine.

In any ca.se nothing the submarine commander could tsay would alter Hie facts ~l' the ease n r release the Austnaii Cm-crimicnl from the necessity "f coinnvling with the American ultimatum or facing a breach.