GERMAN INVESTMENTS IN CANADA.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 16888, 28 December 1916, Page 5

GERMAN INVESTMENTS IN CANADA.

THE KAISER AND THE COAL

COMBINE.

It is a well-known fact (a special correspondent of the Press writes from San Francisco) that tho Kaiser before the war invested vast sums of his German money in stocks and property in both Canada and the United States, and it is interesting to note that the British Columbian Government has just started proceedings with tho express object of bringing about forfeiture of tho extensive holdings of Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany, General von Mackensen, General von Buelow, and 50 odd other Teuton stockholders in the great properties of tho VancouverNanaimo Coal Company. Liquidation is undertaken.

Tho special aim of tho forfeiture proceedings is to destroy the alleged plan of the German Government to gain control of the British Columbia coalfields and a part : al' control of the Grand Trunk Pacific railway. Shortly after the "European war started the British Columbia authorities began a vigorous search for Count Alvon von Alvenslebcn. who left Victoria the day before war was declared. It was discovered that von had gained control of' t.he strategic claims in the Groundhog Anthracite fi"ld, and that arrangements had been made to build a railway to connect with the Grand Trunk Pacific system. Yon Alvensleben was said to be the direct financial representative of tho Kaiser. The Canadian authorities made every effort to get in touch with him. and for some time prevented his wife, who is of English birth, from leaving the Dominion of Canada. Tho count, however, remained a snfe distance from the Br't'sh Columbia boundary, and is now in tho' American state of Oklahoma. wh"re he is operating in oil. The claims owned by von Alvensleben. which British secret service agents in Victoria should hiv* saved, were purchased with Kaiser Wilhelm's money, and were immediately declared forfeited. Since that time the British authorities have been investigating the affairs of the Vaneouver-N.inpimo Canal Companv, wh'ch furnishes a large amount of fuel for cities on Purret Sound and for shins engaged in the Alaskan trad' 1 . Tho names of von IT:'ek«nson. von Buelow, and other prominent Teutons were discovered nmonrr the list of stockholders, and it. was decided to v.-ind "n the compnnv's nff.v'rs immediately. Tho .Uncle Pot, mine, owner! by the eomTianv. and which is d'sbnrsing over 20 o°o dollars a month onions- Canadian and British employees, will now h" closed. The list of stockholders was found to contain the names of F6 German and 75 Canadian AH Hi" German shareholders live in f} t o The interests, of the Canadian shareholders are fully protected and safeguarded in the proceedings instituted.

The Herman potash fields wre once sryis. Drained hv volemic aef'ritv. they were converter! into va«t stretches of dry hind covered deep \v*fi str-nded seaweed, wh ; eh nretnrmHv was in the s»!n« ratio of size to the nresnnt-drtv keln as all venrrfit'on of the nnrlv pen'rvrk \ym; fT)if n f tr>-dav. The earth's heat redneed th's to ash, and left Pfrmnny this rich na turpi resource. T?nt efforts are nmv heinq- made to colleot, seaweed from the pm nn n vast scale, and fr"t f er potash. — T""i nv'lHon r>e"nd". was (he yearlv vvn'i" derived in P'wn from the nle of nlro'io] before ifs prohibition. — Fortv-ninn thousand four Imndred and seventy-six deaths in England and Wales were assigned to tuberculosis in 1913.