MECCA OF SPIES

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume VI, Issue 166, 27 June 1916, Page 2

MECCA OF SPIES

HOLLAND OVERRUN

GERMAN AGENTS PREDOMINATE.

MONEY SPENT LIKE XVATER.

[■•'Holland is full of spies of all nations, but an overwheming majority of them are in the service of the Central Empires. They are on your trail from the moment you touch land at Flushing, and then continue their assiduous but offensive attentions until you leave this little king*dom which is devoted to the cultivation of florins and flowers.”—Thds the Hague correspondent of the New York “Herald.”] In Rotterdam the German spy is everywhere —in the hotels, concert halls, theatres, and cafes. He, in turn, is spied upon by the paid agents of the opposing Powers, and all of these spies unite in looking into the affairs and, when, circumstances permit, the private papers and correspondence of new arrivals. Not even the American Minister at the Hague is immune, as only a few weeks ago he foiled a scheme which had for its object the placing of a spy of one of the belligerent Powers on his pay roll as a domestic servant. AX’hen I reached Rotterdam 1 went to the ever-crowded cafe attached

to the Grand Hotel Couymans, and while I sat there, bewildered by the sound of tongues that out-Babeled Babel, a dapper, clean-shaven man, who might have passed for 25, but really was about 40, years of age, took a chair next to mine and opened the ball by asking, “Are you an American?” During the next 10 minutes he mentioned the names of a score of New York business men, who were — I let him tell it—intimate frinds, and then sought to discover why I was in Holland. As a reward for frankness which - rivalled his own, and therefore revealed nothing, he warned me to guard my papers carefully and never to leave them in my hotel, as there were hundreds of German spies about who would not stop at anything to gain information for the Fatherland. As he left the cafe a London acquaintance dropped into his vacant chair and whispered “Do you know the man with whom you were talking?” . “No,” I replied, “but I like his brand of cigars. “XVell,” said my Englishman, beware of him; he is a German secret agent who poses as an American.

ALSO GERMAN AGENT. “I thanked him for his warning, accepted a cigar from him, too, and was told next morning that he, also is a German agent. “This is no place for another ’lnnocent Abroad,’ ” was my thought, and I quickly left for The Hague, only to find that I had stepped from the frying pan into the fire, for, outside diplomatists, business men, and the legal inhabitants, all the rest of the residents of this tov-like, . but fascinating city seem to be entitled to the family name of Pry! Here I have obtained first-hand knowledge of the wonderful German intelligence sendee, ,’which, though directed from Berlin, is in close touch with, and aided, by'Barons von Kuhlmann and Stumm at the Embassy and all Germany’s Consular agents throughout Holland, has succeeded, after nearly two years’ persistent, unremitting labour, in converting a section of the population—whose pockets have been hit by the blockade —to anti-British, though not pro-German, views. It is this organisation, in which German diplomatists and spies are working hand-in-hand, that is responsible for the widespread belief among Dutchman that military Germany is invincible —a declaration that was dinned into my ears in places as wide apart as Flushing, Maastricht, and Groningen, and which was repeated, with embellishment. in all the larger cities—and it is this organisation, too, which was responsible for the widespread circulation of the sensational false report that the general mobilisation of the Dutch army was due to an impending invasion of Holland by the British and French armies. The origin of the rumour, in fact, has been traced to the office of the German Consul General in Amsterdam.

“GOTT STRAFE ENGLAND.” It must be said, however, that as a general rule these propagandists are shrewder than the agents who were directed by Dr. Dornburg, in the United States, and they have concentrated their energies in the promotion of a “Gott Strafe England” sentiment among the Dutch. If they have not succeeded to the extent hoped for by the Berlin, it is due. not to lack of zeal or effort, but to the common sense of the* Dutch Government and people, who, when the German agents charge that the English blockade is forcing the workers of the country into idleness and compelling the inhabitants to eat “war bread,” reply that, while England is undoubtedly partly to blame for the deplorable stated of affairs, Germany, which has torpedoed and mined many Dutch vessels, is from this same Dutch point of view quite as culpable.

I Moreover, members of ths Govern-1 ment and leading business Diep throughout Holland freely admit that th- mugglers who have been selling foodstuffs to the Germans and, I whose activities have been closely ! watched bv English spies, are also ■ in no small degree to blame for the increased severity of the measures resorted to by the British AdI mirality. | There is only one thing attractive about these spies in Holland —their money, which they spend freely, and this makes for their entree into all the leading hotels, restaurants, and ‘places of amusement, in which, as is the rule throughout Europe to-day, American “ragtime music,” American drama and American “movies are the rage of the hour. Perhaps when the war is over there will be a change in this respect, but for the present I pass my evenings in the Hotel Centrale here, rubbing elbows with poor men, rich man, beggarman —and spy, the while the orchestra, screened by palms, and Hungarian in name though Dutch in nationality, gallops through “XVhen the Alidnight Choochoo Leaves for Alabam,” and the street urchins, passing by, whistle stringently that old time favourite, “I want*to go, I want to go. I want to go down south in Dixie.” CRAZE FOR THINGS AMERICAN This fondness here for things American applies to all classes. American shfes are driving out the wooden shoon of “XVynken, Blynken, and No”; American clothes are rapidly replacing the baggy monstrosities that once reached here from London ; the girls look like American girls—and therefore they look good to me—and your Dutchman is very happy when you tell him that he speaks* English like an American. The only foreign touch in public gatherings is supplied by the spies—and not by all of these either. In fact, the hotel section of The Hague looks at night like a slice of the Broadway white light district, and the modern Dutchman looks like and IS the American of Europe. Once in a while one sees here an aged man or/oman who might have stepped out of a Franz Hals or a Rembrandt, but 90 per cent, of the inhabitants, including the smartly set up soldiers, look typically American. So there is reason to be thankful for the little bit of foreign flavour imported by the spies, who give an additional spice to life by manufacturing rumouys like the one that was set afloat when general mobilisation was ordered by the Government, but which has lost its savour, now that the world knows that that sensational move was purely precautionary, and that the outcome has been merely confirmation of a report that has been current for many years—- “ The Dutch have taken Holland I”