DEATH PENCILS

Gisborne Times, Volume LXXII, Issue 11451, 27 February 1931, Page 6

DEATH PENCILS

EXPLOSION WHEN END WAS BROKEN.

Claimants against the German Government for £8.000,000 damages as the result of German sabotage in the United States' during the war have decided to appeal against the decision of- the Hague Mixed Commission rejecting the claim (states the “Sunday Despatch”). This appeal lies under the Ger-man-American Peace Treaty of Berlin to the United States President. Mr. Hoover. The claims concerned the damage done by fires in 1910 at the Black Tom terminal yard of the Lehigh Valley Rairoad Company in New York Harbor, and in 1917 to the Kingsland plant of tlie Canadian Car and Foundry Company in New Jersey, where explosives assembled. It was established in evidence that Germany sent over secret agents to destroy ‘ plant and factories' supplying material to Great Britain in Ihe war. Tlie Berlin organisers were. Herr Nfidoluy, now a German ambassador, and Herr Mnrgnerre. Implements used included an incendiary pencil, with red and blue ends. On one end being- broken, within half an' hour it would cause an explosion that would burn down a building. ... The submarine Deutschland look over a cargo.-of bacilli lubes w ith vriiioli horses and mules from {south America for England were fatally 'inoculated. . • ■ .Lloyd’s .and British insurance companies were'deeply interested in the present claims. After years., of negotiation the. claims were heard, by •i .commission• at, tlie Hague, consisting of two Americans and a, German, Herr W. ‘ Tviessclhacli. President of the''German Court of Appeal.. 'Che. commission ,hold -that in the Kingsland ease the. five was notcaused bv any German agent, and in the Black Toni cases German agency hac) -not been proved. The chief ground ofi tlie appeal !s that the decisions were against the overwhelming weight of evidence.