LUSITANIA PLOT.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 11594, 12 January 1916, Page 7

LUSITANIA PLOT.

DEVISED BY GERMAN-AMERICANS

INTERESTING REVELATiOKS.

NEW YORK. November !29

German born citizens of the United States, men well known, conceived the sinking of the Lu>itauia. Their proposal was that a great passenger and cargo steamship of. the traus-atlantic trade should be sunk by German submarines. They ;proposesd it (to official* of the fxerman Government in the United States. It was forwarded to Berlin for consideration. Berlin approved, and the Lusitania was selected for destruction. Every detail was prepared before the imsitauia left New York on her last voyage. To strike terror to the hearts of the ocean travelling public, as well as to paralyse the trahs-atlantie commerce, upon which Germany's enemies depended for ilieir munitions supplies, were the chief ends of the scheme. The advertisement .sent to American newspapers by the Kaiser's representatives "in this country for a week before the Lusitania 'left New York, warning all against taking passage by that vessel, was a nart of the arrangements. Three of the "hyphen" Americans who participated in that plot-Jiave admitted their part to officers of the United States Government. The chief in the plot war, a German official with plenary" powers than in the. United: States and now in an alien detention camp of tho Allies. THE RINGLEADER. According to • a Federal official description of his identity, Captain Lieutenant Franz Rintelen, of the Imperial German Navy, who held anextraordinary commission from the Kaiser, was in the United' States from last March until early: last August. He took passage for Holland under a Swiss passport issued to a man named Gasche. He was stopped at Falmouth by the British, identified, and now is in a British detention camp.' Then! is a scaled indictment among those recently returned against proGerman agents for illegal activities here. The Federal District Attorney has admitted this. That indictment may charge conspiracy to commit murder on the high seas against the person accused, by witnesses before the Federal Grand' Jury with having directed in Mie United States the plot to sink the Lusitania.

President Wilson insisted that the Kaiser disavow the sinking of tii|e Lusitania. This meant that Beilin should declare officially that the actual destruction of that vessel, accompanied, as it was, by the ruthless slaughter of hundreds of women and children and other neutrals and nonbelligerents, who had no chance to escape, was an incident of activities of German war vessels, hut was not specifically directed or endorsed by the German Gcu'ermiient,

DISAVOWAL INVOLVES PERJURY

Ifcrjury is likely to be added to the other German crimes involved in the sinking of the Lusitania 'if Berlin should make such a disavowal. The agoni« of this government'have known for many weeks that Berlin approved of the plot to sink the Lusitania and officially gave the orders "or it and for every act done by Germany's repre■sentatives in' connection therewith.

This evidence' will become public, probably within three or four days. It is almost certain to appear in the evidence of the witnesses in the trial of Karl Buems and other officials of tho Hamburg-American Steamship Company.

All the proofs needed to show tne whole conspiracy in the United States and approved by Uerlin to sink the Lusitania were in tho hands of United States agents before Franz Rintelen hurried out of this country, u-ing the first fake passport he could get. Government .agents were looking then for, the man accused by the evidence (hoy had of the Lusitania plot. KATSEK'S HIGH COMMISSIONER. This was a- High Commissioner of the. Kaiser bore. It seems almost unbelievable, hut it is true beyond question, that tlii.s man was known nero most widely by a name not his own. His authority was vouched for by the highest: ciii.eial revH-oKeritativos of Germany, who let it be known that tho name under which he was operating for Germany here was one assumed. They lot- it he known that his own. name was Loo high in the court and tho councils of the Kaiser to- he used with safety.

There i:s no discipline liko that of the Germans. Tho Germans hero oeptcd_ that si tun i:ion and dealt with tho High Commissioner without incjT'.i; in<ic his real name. Those who wovo caught and confessed to their part in the Lusitania plot did not know the right nnnic of the man they and accused. They said they did not. and'seme of them are believed by (he Government agents to have tokl the truth. That is"why the identity of thh Commissioner was nut known to the Gorp.rtinient agents until livn days after he had started for Fu.'opo early in August, using a J'ahe passport. The vessel whieh hove him was then beyond reach of recall hv the American Government. \i was not out of roach of tho .British Government, however.

The British, authorities here knew that it bore the accused High Commissioner days before it was stopped at a British port and he was taken off as an alien enemy of Great Britain. Great Britain will be asked to return Lieutenant Bintcleu to the United States.