ATTEMPT BY GERMANS TO LAND ARMS IN IRELAND.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIII, Issue 16213, 26 April 1916, Page 7

ATTEMPT BY GERMANS TO LAND ARMS IN IRELAND.

* SIR ROGER CASEMENT FOUND AMONG TM PRISONERS.

DISGUISED AUXILIARY ACCOMPANIED BY A SUBMARINE.

(Received April 25. 7.80 p.m.)

London, April 24.

Tho Admiralty announces that between Thursday night and Friday morning an attempt was made to land arms and ammunition in Ireland from a vessel under the guise of a neutral merchant ship. The vessel really was a German auxiliary, and was accompanied by a German submarine.

The auxiliary was sunk. A number of prisoners were made. Amongst them was Sir Roger Casement.

Sir Roger Casement, the renegade Irish knight, made himself notorious by going to Germany shortly after the outbreak of war, and there performing many acts of disloyalty* towards the British Government. After his arrival he prepared a pamphlet which was afterwards printed and circularised by the German Foreign Office, in which ho pleaded for an alliance between Germany end Ireland. In consequence of this the pension which he was then receiving from the British Government was suspended in February; 1915. Later he sent an open letter to Sir Edward Grey, which was published by the German press, alleging documentary evidence to substantiate charges which he had mado against the British Ambassador to Norway of " participation in a criminal conspiracy to have me captured and murdered." In October, 1915, Sir Roger Casement visited a camp at Limburg, in which a number of Irish prisoners were interned, and endeavoured to persuade his countrymen to form an Irish Brigade to assist Germany. Out of 2400 men at the camp, all but 50 unhesitatingly declared their loyalty to Britain. A few days ago Casement wrote a boastful lebter to a Munich newspaper, in which ho explained his visit to Germany as one undertaken "to obtain for the benefit of the Irish an assurance of German goodwill, in order to preserve my people from participation in a great crime." Prior to the outbreak of war Sir Roger Casement, who is 52 years of age, had been for 18 years in the British diplomatic service, the last post which he held being that of Consul-Goneral at Rio de Janeiro from 1909 to 1913. It was during this time that ho took a prominent part in exposing the Putumayo rubber atrocities in Peru. He was knighted in 1911. Several of his English friends have attributed his present hostility to Britain to an unsound mental condition.