BOMBS IN SHIPS.

Marlborough Express, Volume LI, Issue 230, 28 September 1917, Page 6

BOMBS IN SHIPS.

HOW DO THEY GET THERE?

When a disaster to a steamer is reported as the result oi: an internal explosion, the general feeling among all sections of the community is that the explosion has been caused by n time-bomb having boon placed secretly on board. There is, too, a kind of helpless mental grouping amongst the people as to the means which can be adopted to discover assassins who are responsible For this desperate type of destruction. Tho Government has decided that the wharves where overseas boats aro to be berthed shall be barricaded, and passes given only to tlio.se who have business on the wharf. Jt has now brought in a further drastic protection prohibiting the employment of foreigners on tho wharves. Though this control will doubtless be of value 'in the direction desired, the opinion amongst seamen and waterside workers at I'ort Chalmers is, states the Otago Daily Tit 1104, that it would be. a very difficult task for a man to convey a time-bomb direct to a steamer ami not be detected. They say that these bombs aiv put in the cargo befoi-e it reaches the vessels; that, even if a man could got n timebomb on board a ship, ho would have a difficulty in putting it hi position without being observed, hut that there is svarc^y anything to prevent a mrm j'vom o'.-ldruiig a-vc^ to cargo

which is to be shipped and secreting his diabolical machine in it. It is suggested, in fact, that it is the wealthy pro-German, who never goes near the wharf, that is to bo feared, not the humble laborer. It was reported some time ago that an attempt had been made in New York to discover by means of X-rays whether any bomb 7 machines had been placed in cargo awaiting shipment, but the examination failed to give the expected results, and entailed such an enormous task that it had to be abandoned. It. is absolutely necessary for shippers of cargo to exercise the strictest supervision. At the Dunedin wharves—and at other wharvos, too—there are waterside workers, who are on the lookout for any suspicious conduct on the part of fellow-workers who may in the slightest degree be suspected. But they cannot watch the cargo, where they maintain the greatest danger has its