BOMBS FOUND IN SHIPS

Evening Star, Issue 15914, 21 September 1915, Page 5

BOMBS FOUND IN SHIPS

. GERMAN PLOTS . IN CANADA AND AMERICA. Recent events have made necessary redoubled precautions to protect the cargoes °* conaigned-fr.om tliis country to the allied nations, and also factories engaged jn making; war munitions or preparing food supplies for shipment to the Allies {says the San Eranciacr. correspondent of the ‘Age'). Botubs have been discovered in the holds of a number of ships that hive left New York for English ports in tlio last few months. On some of the piers now every box and package is opened on the dock and the contents examined before it goes on board ship. The gangways and hatches ore watched, to see that the packages aro not tampered with after being inspected. Electrical devices and mechanical instruments to detect suspicious contents of hales and packages aye also in use. At one pier an X-ray machine is in use to examine bales of cotton, cloth, etc., for possible concealed bombs. At the present moment the United States Government legal officials are directing an investigation into an allegation that German sympathisers ip this country ore responsible fpr the blowing up of a Government munitions factory across the Canadian border. The British Embpssy is said to have informed tho Government that it had evidence that money to carry out the dynamiting plot had been furnished by a wealthy German resident of Detroit. It is understood, however, that there is no statute under which persons alleged to have committed such an act in Canada could be proceeded against criminally in this country. But if the dynamite was transported on American soil there might be ground fpr prosecution. An attempt was recently made to destroy by fire the factory of the Californian Canneries Company, in San Francisco, a company that is supplying the Allies with lar°e quantities of tinned foods. A bundle of wood splinters and shavings, in the centre of which was a piece of phosphorus about the size of a hazel nut in ail oil-soaked handkerchief, the whole wrapped in two newspapers, was found alongside the packing house. When the package was opened it began to smoke. The lives of some 300 men and women and girls were endangered in the plot to destroy the plant. The Police have no clue to tho perpetrator of the attempted outrage.

Tho strike at the Remington small arms factory at Bridgeport, said by the manager, Major Penfield, to have been instigated by German sympathisers, in order to prevent the allied nations from obtaining the product of the factory, has been settled, and the workmen are back at their benches. They have been granted an eight-hour day. There seems to be no doubt but that the workmen, perceiving that the manufacturers of war supplies are making handsome profits, desire to share in the benefits. But there is also no doubt but that outside efforts have been made to instigate labor troubles both in this and other plants, in order to prevent France, England, and Russia from procuring supplies contracted for. Samuel Gompexs, president of the American Federation of Labor, stated in this regard:—“ Labor organisations and disputes will not be permitted to be manipulated to serve the purposes of a European belligerent. I can say that our leaders have been approached in this trouble by parties interested in preventing the shipment of munitions of war from this country. Such efforts in the future will be watchfully guarded against, ferreted out, and repudiated. I know that an effort was made to bring about a stx-ike of longshoremen, and that when that failed an effort was made to cause a strike of seamen.” Efforts have been made, Gompers further said, to corrupt men for the purposes of having these strikes inaugurated. An American concern, the Automatic Machinery Company, of Cleveland, Ohio, was unwise enough to publish an advertisement that it was able to manufacture poisonous acid-loadefi shells. The Federal Government have taken notice of the advertisement, and in a letter written by the Secretary of Commerce to the general manager of the company it is characterised as “atrocious.” The letter adds: “At a time when every instinct of patriotism calls for calm and selfrestraint, when sobriety of statement is almost a supreme duty, you, as you admit, to gain notice for an advertisement, draw a picture of human misery as a means of earning a profit through the sale of machines to produce it.” The publishers of the journal in which the advertisement appeared are also reprimanded in a separate letter from the head of the Department of Commerce.