CONSULAR BAG INCIDENT

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXXII, 22 December 1938, Page 7

CONSULAR BAG INCIDENT

TWO HUNDRED ARRESTS MADE (Received 22nd December. 9.40 a.m.) LONDON, 21st December. Apropos of the Consular bag incident the police express the opinion that a Spaniard at the British Consulate placed the plans in Mr Goodman’s bag. It is understood that they disclosed that General Franco was planning to throw half a million men into a final offensive.

Already 200 have been arrested, and they are being court-martialled. A London message from the Australian Associated Press says that the incriminating matter in the bag is understood to be military information, valuable to the Spanish Republican Government. It is also revealed that the consular bag was so used for many months.

The “Daily Telegraph” says that the frontier authorities informed Mr Goodman that they had reason to believe that an irregular packet was contained in the consular bag. Mr Goodman replied that it was most unlikely, but opened the bag for a search.

Apparently the matter was placed in the bag by a person with access to the Vice-Consulate. It is understood that it contained information of General Franco’s forthcoming offensive on the Serge sector in Catalonia. There have been many arrests in San Sebastian in connection with the incident, including, it is reported, several officers of General Franco’s General Staff.

It was reported yesterday that a package containing what is described as incriminating matter had been found by the Spanish nationalist frontier authorities at Irun in a consular bag despatched by the British Vice-Consu-late at San Sebastian to the British Embassy at St. Jean-de-Luz.

The British Vice-Consul at San Sebastian is Mr Harold Goodman. Though he himself was carrying the bag containing the package referred to, no suggestion has been made from any quarter that he was otherwise in any way personally implicated in the incident.