THE PLOT TO KILL MR LLOYD GEORGE

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 2996, 6 February 1917, Page 6

THE PLOT TO KILL MR LLOYD GEORGE

CONSPIRATORS ON TRIAL

HISTORY OF THE SCHEME

• •', London, February 4. At the hearing of the charges agaiust Mrs. Alice Wheeldon, her daughters Harriet and Mrs. Winifred Mason, and the latter's.husband, Alfred Mason, of conspiring against Mr. Lloyd George's life, the Attorney-General (Sir F. E. Smith) said that the prisoners wero dangerous and dejporato people, bitterly hostile' to Britain, and sheltered fugitives from the. Army. The man was a chemist of considerable skill, andi had specially studied poisons.-,- The Government employed an agent, who assumed the name .of Gordon, who ingratiated himself with Mrs. Wheeldon.. Another agent named Booth pretended to bo a fugitive from the Army and a member of the Independent Workers of the World. Mrs. Wheeldon told them that poison could be dropped on articles to be used, and added, "When 1 hand the poison to you I wash my hands of the 'matter, and , - will deny ever having given it." Mrs. Wheeldon also said she had' planned when Mr. Lloyd George was staying at an hotel to drive nails dipped in-poison into his boots, but his departure for France thwarted the , scheme. She also intended "doing Mr. M'Kenria in" by driving a poisoned needle into ins skull. Mason had agreed to. provide. a particularly rare poison for the purpose. Counsel stated that the. , poisou was contained in four phials, two being of stryohnine hydrochloride and one the American poison, curare, used by the natives in poisoning., arrows. Booth and Gordon called on Mrs. Wheeldon on January 1. She indulged in blasphemous language about Mr. Lloyd Gcorgo and Mr. Henderson, and. expressed the-hope that both would soon foe dead. Mr.'Lloyd George, she said, had 'been the means' of millions of innocent lives being sacrificed, while Mr. Henderson was a traitor to the people. Mr. Asquith was the brains of the party, but he was neither good enough for heaven nor bad-enough for hell. Mrs. Whceldon apparently intended to get Gordon to commit the aotual crime. Her denunciations included the King. Booth asked her how she intended to carry out the plot, aud : she replied, "Wβ had plans, when the Suffragettes spent £300 to poison them." When the phials' were received from' Southampton complete instructions how to uee the poisons accompanied them. . ■ The hearing was adjourned.—Aus..N.Z. Cable Asbu.