GERMAN INTRIGUES IN AMERICA.

West Coast Times, 7 September 1915, Page 2

GERMAN INTRIGUES IN AMERICA.

Tiikrk would appear to lie no limit to the criminal nets which Germany is prepared, through her agents to.perpetrate with the new of furthering her cause in the war . 'I he perfection of organisation is allied to methods which know no scruples and stop .short at nothing, the menace to civilisation which is presented is sufficently obvious. Hie latest illustration, of organised German barbarism comes from America, where mysterious fires and dangerous explosions have broken out in factories that are under contract to supply munitions to the Alles. There may hr- no direct evid'enae associating Germany or her agents with these significant occurrences, but as a recent cable message from Washington says, it is unquestionable that German secret agents are organising a reign of terrorism and are engineering strikes in America. According to Gc:”’si • ideas it matters Ittle that lives are , rificed and valuable buildings : ' inery destroyed in neutral counti l. s so long as difficulties are placed in the way of the execution of contracts for munitons for their opponents. Upon this matter a side light is thrown, moreover, in the knowledge thiat the Central European Empires are threatening with penalties their subects in neutral countries who are employed in munition factories. In the month of July it was officially announced in Berlin that Germans working in factories situated in neutral countries, and especially the United States, engaged in producing

war supplies for the enemy were guilty of high treason and liable to ten years’ imprisonment. A somewhat similar announcement is now made with respect to Austro-Hungarian subjects. The announcement in tlie case of German workers in neutral countries raises anew the question of nationality. The precise effect of the Gorman law of “double subjection” is a point about which there is a good deal of controversy. Under certain condilons. a native of Germany resident in a foreign country docs not completely denationalise himself, and a leading German jurist is credited with the declaration that "if a German is -also a Brtish subject,” or a subject of any other country—" that circumstance Ims no influence on his rights and duties as a Gorman subject.” In Bridg.pntt, in the United States, as many as, 4000 of some 50,000 workers who have been emnloyed in maknig munitions for th- Allies have German names, and rf these it is estimated that

600 were born in Germany, and aro subjects of the Kaiser. If this is representative of the majority of the mnniion factories in the United States, the opportunities for “loyal ” Germans to servo their Umpire according to its accepted criminal code aro abundant. This seems relally to emphasise the importance of rigid restrictions upon all enoniv subjects resident within the Empire. ' I