AMAZING EPISODE.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XLV, Issue 11857, 21 June 1919, Page 2

AMAZING EPISODE.

HUNS IN SWITZERLAND. MATERIALS FOR ZEPPELINS, One of the 'most picturesque hnd remarkable evidences of German commercial subterfuge that the war has revealed has just been made public by Mr Isaac F. Marcos son in an article written from France Mr Marcosson has made a study of the methods by which the Germans obtained materials for war purpose. To get at"tho setting we must go to the .little Swiss city of St Gall, which is the centre of the embroider}” industry of the world. Since St. GalTs, activity depends almost entirely upon cotton, the war interfered with the even tenor of her productive way. Export limitations added to her troubles.. One of the first restrictions prohibited the export of plain cotton cloths into Germany. The reason was that plain cotton cloth could be easily used for war work, and more especially in the manufacture of Zeppelins. The only cotton goods that could be sent into any of the Central Powers had to be embroidered. A SWISS SPECIALITY For years there had been a moderate manufacture in St. Gall of an article of [feminine underwear known as the Lorraine shirt. In that mysterious phraseology, which .is like so much Greek to most unmarried ‘men, it is technically called a “combination.” In the ordinary-course of underwear events —and because the shirt must be short —it never measures more than three feet in length. At the top of the ■ garment there is usually an embroidered design of some kind. The garment gets its name from the fact that it is made on a Lorraine machine. Just as soon as the embargo was clamped down on the export of plain cotton goods into the enemy countries, an activity in Lorraine shirts suddenly ‘.developed. During the first quarter of 1917 more than three hundred thousand pounds’ worth of these shirts went across the frontier into Germany'. This was not surprising. Everybody knew that the consumption of goods in the Empire, due to war needs, had been great. No one paid particular attention to the steady stream of boxes that went out of St. Gall, all filled.with these shirts. All goods from Switzerland into Germany are subject to a Customs «xamination. When these cases of Lorraine shirts began to come along in constantly increasing numbers the Swiss border authorities perfunctorily opened a box, saw that it contained underwear w r ith embroidery at the top—which met the wartime requirement —and passed on the whole lot without any further investigation As the flood of Lorraine shirts increased one Swiss Customs officer, more conscientious than his mates, began to smell a mouse. He said to himself: “These German -women who are complaining about the pinch of war are certainly using up a great many pieces of embroidered underwear. What is the meaning of this extraordinary demand for Lorraine shirts 7” BROBDINGNAGIAN GARMENTS. When the next batch came along he decided to make a real examination. The shirt on the top was made according to regulation size. It was neatly folded, and w r as the usual plant for the unsuspecting Customs officer. When the vigilant official dugdown into the case, he discovered that every other shirt was exactly twenty-five feet long! Even the giants that our old friend GuJ liver found in his travels could not have worn them. Every other case in this consignmeu was filled with these same fantastic garments. As a result of this amazing deception Germany got more than two™million yards of cotton cloth for her war work every month. Now, the particular reason for this performance was that Friedrichshafeu, the centre of Zeppelin manufacture, is on the shores of Lake Constance, which is only a few miles from St. Gall. A hundred thousand yards of cloth was needed for every Zeppelin. SHIRTS FOR ZEPPELINS. Thus through the device of manufacturing what purported to be Lorraine shirts the materal for twenty Zeppelins .was smuggled into Germany every thirty days. The moment the fraud was bared the German supply of cotton cloth suddenly decreased, naturally. The Swiss restricted the length of Lorraine shirts to eighty centimetres, and one picturesque system of smuggling came to an end. This extraordinary episode—and it represented merely one kind of smuggling that went on between Switzerland and Germany—was made possible, first, by the cupidity which knows neither rank nor cause; second, by the war-horn German industrial enterprise planted throughout Switzerland as the cornerstone of a mew-world trade. Here lies the crux of the whole German economic penetration, winch is to-day one of the principal assets of the defeated Empire now struggling for rehabilitation. I&fore the war, St.' Gall’s only rival, both ‘ t iu the manufacture of embroidery machines and in embroidery was the German town of Plaueu. Just as soon as the war broke out her industry ceased, because practically all the cotton stocks in Germany were commandeered for actual -war needs. Plaueu did not sit with folded hands bemoaning the loss of her principal business. She did a characteristic German thing; she moved Plauen to St. Gall. This is not a figure of speech. She actually transferred her embroidery machines over on to Swiss soil. They worked day and night to produce the Brobdingnagian Lorraine shirts.