SMUGGLED RUBBER

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3091, 23 May 1917, Page 5

SMUGGLED RUBBER

CLEAR EVIDENCE OF GERMANY'SSERIOUS NEED.

The methods, of smuggling "rubber into Germany were described in the British Pri™ Court recently. The Crown asked for the condemnation as prize of rubbei -oods seized in passengers' luggage, or & tway in dfstant part, of the ship by the crew, for profitable trading on arrival to German agents The rubber had been seized oh six Dutch, Dauwn, and Norwegian vessels. • Counsel for the Crown said that ueimanv wanted rubber so hadly that there had'been a case where, apparently, otner goods were imported entirely for their rubber packing. Ten hundredweight ot robber was taken out of trunks in the Gelria, labelled with tho name ot a South American gentleman, a dealer in rubber, who was supposed to be travelling in Europe. He did not come. He appeared to have liooked his passage and stayed at home. The trunks caine unattended, and the captain pointed out their lonely state to the Onstoms officer at Kirkwall. The ship was bound for Amsterdam.

Sir Samuel Evans: "I suppose someliody was waiting in Amsterdam to give them ?. welcome. I'should like to know whether .this gentleman paid for the passage." Counsel: "Ah! that is wrapped in obscurity." He then proceeded to give the following facts:— The steamer United States was for Christiania and Copenhagen, from New York, and among the luggage of two passengers on board, bound for Germany, were 115 pairs of nibbcr gloves. The second linen-keeper of tho Nieuw Amsterdam, who had secreted fifteen packages of dental rubber, admitted candidly enough that lie hoped to make money out of it at Rotterdam. On tho ITellig Olaf were found 135 boxes of dental rubber secreted in a cabin, which a 'passenger claimed, and two stewards on ihe Rijndam produced rubber—one twenty packets' of dental and the other twenty-six P a ' rs °' rubber gloves—all destined for Rotterdam, whore they meant to do a thriving trade. On the Bergensfjord the rubber was among the refri"erafing machinery. The refrigeratin" engineer had twenty-two motor-cycle inner tubes and 120 pairs of rubber gloves and thev wore all seized. A mem. her of the ship's crow in ono of the cases *aid dismally that he had expected to make £M on h" little lot ill the rubber was condemned.