BOER PLOT EXPOSED.

Thames Star, Volume xxx, Issue 9451, 29 September 1899, Page 2

BOER PLOT EXPOSED.

REVELATIONS OF BASE TRICKERY AND SUBORDINATION.

JOHANNESBURG, August '6,

The Star"f!ublishes sensational affidavits proving Unquestionably that the recent alleged conspiracy against the Government was manufactured by State detectives and secret service agents with the deliberate object of diverting attention from the shortcomings of the Government and gaining sympathy from the world at a critical moment in its history.

Agents provocateurs were busily at work inspiring the bogus plot, magnifying it to the dimensions of the Jameson raid, implicating capitalists on Ihe Band, the South African League and the Imperial Government, and hoping thereby to defeat the Outlander movement and strengthening the hands of the clique in power.

The story of Nicholls, the principal prisoner, of his experiences in gaol, is a pitiable tale of espionage, persecution,, and attempts on the part of some of his fellow-prisoners (really secret spies), by means of threats, cajolery, entreaty and persuasion, to extort from him evidence, true or false, of the character desired by the Government.

All the affidavits expose this miserable intrigue. The most important witness, Bundy, alleges that the detectives reproved him for not

IMPLICATING THE LEAGUE. The Public Prosecutor, Mr. De Villiersj urged him to try and show its complicity.

Taart Kruger, a son of the President; and chief of the Secret Service Department, offered him £200 and a good billet in the Government service in the event of his proving that the plot was & cale of conspiracy on the part of tthe British Government, the idea being that the revelation would strengthen the President's hands.

The disclosures, says the Daily Mail's correspondent have created an enormous sensation. The Star says:

"The squalid tale now unfolded has rarely been surpassed in any country, as a revelation of shameless imposture and unscrupulous trickery by responsible agents of a Government supposed to be civilised.

"That the President's son, a paid offical of the State, should offer a reward for the manufacture of evidence implicating a friendly State is' not an every-day matter like the ill-treat-ment of a Kaffir."