The Daily News. SATURDAY, DECEMBER 15, 1917. GERMANY'S FOUL AND BASE METHODS.

Taranaki Daily News, 15 December 1917, Page 4

The Daily News. SATURDAY, DECEMBER 15, 1917. GERMANY'S FOUL AND BASE METHODS.

Mr. Lansing has been giving America full details of the plots carried out by the German and Austrian diplomats in America since the beginning of the war {or the destruction of life and property. They show that lying and deceit are for them the commonplaces of diplomacy. The Kaiser assured the Pope of his conviction that "the sick body of human Bociety can only be healed by the fortifying moral strength of right." One way in which his agents in America sought to apply this "fortifying strength" was to suborn criminals to place bombs ehaped like lumps of coal in merchant vessels leaving the port of New York, to that they might be blown up on thu voyage across the Atlantic. Papers to prore this were seized by American detectives m \ German office in New York in April, 1916, at the moment when 'he agent, Herr von Igel, was preparing to transfer his documents from » safe marked with the German Imperial arms to the greater security of the German Embassy at Washington. The police have traced a cheque signed by Captain von Papen, the German Attache, and, pay able to the New York manager of the Hamburg-America Steamship Company, to the account of one of the miscreants who placed the bombs in ships during the year 1915, At the end of that year the German Government expressly denied that they had ever "knowingly accepted the support of any person, group of persons, society, or organisation seeking to promote the cause of Germany in the United States by illegal acts, by counsel of violence, by contravention of the law, or by any means whatever that could offend the American people in the pride of their own authority.'' But they had, nevertheless, been paying men to put infernal machines in ships leaving American ports—one of the most dastardly crimes that can be conceived by the evil wit of man. With the co-operation of the Austrian Ambassador, who explained the scheme in a letter to his Government, the German Embassy sought "to disorganise and hold up for months, if not entirely prevent, the manufacture or munitions in Bethlehem and the Middle West," by promoting strikes and other means. This was contrived through a German Labor Bureau, which the Aus> trian Minister, Dr. Dumba, publicly declared to be an innocent agency, but which he knew, to be a dangerous rest of plotters against the peace and seurity of America. Through Herr von Igel, the Germans were in touch with the Irish revolutionaries, such as Mr. John Devoy, editor of the Gaelic American of New York, whose connection with the Casement plot is made plain by Mr. Lansing. Mr. Cohalan, an Irish-American, who is a Judge of the New York Supreme Court, is revealed as inviting Count Bernstorff to arrange for a German landing in Ireland to support the extreme Sinn Fein Party. The German Embassy was also busy in fomenting plots in Canada and India, in stirring up Mexico against America, and in buying the services of a iew American journalists and lecturers to promote German interests. Count Bernstorff himself flew at still higher game. On January 22nd, 1917, nine days before Germany declared her intention to destroy all merchantmen at sight, and thus compelled America to break off relations with her, th» German Arabas-

eador asked his Governnlent to authorise the expenditure of £IO,OOO "in order, as on former occasions, to influence Congress through the organisation you know of, which can perhaps prevent war." He also asked for a "public official German, declaration in favor of Ireland," to gain the support of Irish influence in America. If the German Diplomatic Service dared to do such things in America, whose enmity was to he i eared, we need not be surprised to find its members resorting to 'still cruder and more foul methods in a little country like Rumania. When the American Charge (V Affaires took over the German Legation at Bucharest, he found buried in the r.iirden boxes of explosives and cases of microbes. In one of these cases, under the seal of the German Consulate at Kronstadt, there was a German note explaining how the deadly anthrax germs were to be used:— "Enclosed four small bottles for horses, four for cattle. Utilisation as formerly stipulated. Each phial suffices for 200 head. If possible to be administered directly into animals' mouths, otherwise into their fodder. We ask for small report about successes obtained there, and in case of good results the presence for one day of M.K. would be required."' The German agent who remained to help the Americans admitted "that still worse things than this box of microbes were contained in the Legation, and insinuated that they would have been found even in the cabinets of the dossiero which had been seized." The New York World has supplemented Mr. Lansing's disclosures by showing that Italy repeatedly suffered from the bad faith of her partners in the Triple Alliance She ivas not informed beforehand of Austria's intention to annex Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1908. Two months later, we are told, General Conrad von Hoetzendorff, the Chief of Staff, proposed an utterly unprovoked invasion of Northern Italy; this project had the approval of the Heir-Presumptive, the Archduke Francis Ferdinand, and was only stopped by the opposition of Baron von Aehrenthal, the Foreign Ministe: Again, Italy seized Tripoli in 1911 mainly because Germany was on the point of doing so. M. Cainbon, the Frencli Minister at Berlin, iB credited with the story of an interview at which he was present in 1912 between the Kaiser and the Turkish Minister. The Kaiser, shaking his finger in the Turk's face, cried out: ".I am ashamed of you! 1 am ashamed of Turkey! We believed you could beat the Italians. Had we not thought so, we should not have backed you. Now we see we put our money on the wrong horse." The story accords well enough with the facts, and wifh all that we now know of German diplomacy. The London Spectator recalls the authentic episode of the cases of old French rifles which the Germans consigned to the Arabs in Tripoli; it was carefully arranged that the cases should, seemingly by chance, be opened in Italy so as to cast a wholly undeserved suspicion on the Frencli. Yet all tlie while it was Germany who was en couraging the Turks to resist her own Ally. For double-dealing the Germans have no equals in history. However, they help to destroy their own deeplaid schemes by their childish boastfulness. A perfect example of German cunning, and of the German swagger which is its antidote, is afforded in Admiral Dewey's official report of the prediction made to him at Manila in 189S by Captain von Goetzen, of the German Navy, who had vainly tried to obstruct the American operations. According to this report, made public in full for ths first time in the American Senate recently, the German officer said: — "About fifteen years from now my country will start a great war. She will be in Paris in about two months after the commencement of hostilities. Her move will be but a step to her real object—the crushing of England. Some monti.s after we finish our work in Europe wo will take New York and probably Washington, and hold them for some time. We will put your country in its place with reference to Germany. We do not propose to take any of your territory, hut we do intend to take a billion or so of your dollars from New York and other places. The Monroe Doctrine will be taken oharge of by us, and we will dispose of South America as we wish. Do not forget this about fifteen years from now."

Probably Admiral Dewey thought that the Captain was crazy. But he was no more and no less crazy than the whole official hierarchy to which he belonged.