GERMANY'S DIPLOMATIC WAYS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 13355, 8 December 1906, Page 7

GERMANY'S DIPLOMATIC WAYS.

SENSATIONAL DISCLOSURE.

PLOT TO GET AN ISLAND.

SHAM RISING, THEN WAR. By Telegraph.— Press Association.—Copyrisht.

(Received December 11, 11.5 p.m.) Berlin, December 11. A sensation has been created in Germany by the disclosure by Herr Mathias Erzberger, Catholic deputy for Wurteraburg, of a diplomatic plot.

Herr Erzberger said in the Reichstag yesterday that in 1904 before a secret meeting of the Reichstag's Budget Committee Herr Johannes Sender, National Liberal deputy for Hanover, suggested to Herr Gome, a Hamburg merchant, that he should setjtle on the island of Fernando Po and commence irrigation works and the Deutsche Bank -would advance him £10,000.. He. then would make a quarrel with the Spanish Government and also arrange for a sham rising. Herr Sender promised in that event the possibility of warlike measures over the incident. Herr Gome, however, declined to undertake the mission.

Herr Sender said he admitted conversing with Herr Gorne, but did not remember the details.

Heir Von Dernberg. Acting-Direc-tor of the Colonial Department of the German Foreign Office, ridiculed the story.

Great efforts, however, were made to prevent its publication, bub the Catholic journals insisted on printing a report of the discussion.

Fernando Po is an island in the Bight of Uiafra, on the west- coast of Africa. It is a volcanic island of 739 square miles, lias luxuriant vegetation, and a moderate climate. II; lias belonged to Spain sinoo 1841. Its importance to Germany lies in tho fact that, it, is near the coast of the German colony of the Cameroon*. The inhabitants, about 25,000, are mostly Ba iritis.