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WAR-TIME SMUGGLING

METHODS ON THE SWISS FRONTIER THE GERMAN AGENT AT WORK Do those grumblers among neutral nations who deplore the continuance of the war ever pause to reilect on the manner in which many of their countrymen are helping to prolong it? asks a correspondent of the London "Times." Unfortunately it is exceedingly difficult to impose a more than partial control on the traffic in contraband, for so great is the temptation held out by hungry Germans to needy neutrals that these will run "almost any risk and exercise incredible ingenuity in evading it. In spite of the good faith of the S.S.S. (Societo Suisse do Surveillance), the vigilance of the froofcier gendarmic, or military police, and the care takcu by tho Legations and Consulates of the Entente countries to keep the authorities informed of what is going on under their noses, the quantity of metals, rubber, pepper, cotton, wine, and silk that is finding its way into Germany even in this fourth winter of war is disconcerting to those whom circumstances compel to look on, helpless to arrest it. As for tiio small smugger, he, or more often she, is amusing rather than serious, marching up to the barrier with a look of childlike innocence, and at times with a smirk of sophistry, and, with luck getting through with a ".Rucksack" crammed with chocolate, tea, and tobacco, all of which will bring a profit of several hundred per cent, at the next village. Nominally these Swiss or Germans living on tho German side of the border, but earning their daily wage in Switzerland, were until recently allowed to take out as much food a,s they needed for their own consumption; but when, bettor late than never, the Swiss "douaniers" realised that they must be spending more money on each day's victuals than on a year's clothes, tho allowance was appreciably curtailed.

Cyclist and Pepper,

Among articles which, have lately fetched the highest prices in Germany are pepper (said to be employed in the manufacture of lachrymatory shells), and saccharine. Both are commonly twisted up in little paper bags and thrown across the frontier to accomplices, though one enterprising cyclist, seeking prorit on a higher scale, actually filled the frame of his machine with pepper. His ingenuity would have met with' its reward but for an unlucky jar which released some of the pepper. This found its way, as ill-luck would'have it, to the nostrils of a Customs official, and the pepper, as well as the cyclist, remained in Switzerland. All manner of accomplices, including dogs, children, and seductive young women, who distract the attention of tho sentries, are enlisted in this traffic, and it is_ said that at the village of St. Ludwig alone, where smuggling is very capably, organised by the official German Censor, 40 families live by it. Cotton and rubber are always welcome. A good deal of the rubber is shot out of catapults, and both the sender and receiver have developed surprising skill after months of practice, darkness being apparently no obstacle. For the transit of cotton feminine subtlety is available. Hundreds of young women used, until their littlo fraud was detected, to earn high wages bv merely passing the barrier, apparently without luggage of any sort; arrived at the appointed cache, they would divest their more or less shapely limbs of voluminous cotton underclothing supplied by German agents on the Swiss side, talcing in exchange such money as had been left for tho purpose. All manner of metals, particularly brass and copper, were at all times eagerly sought by tho German military authorities, as not oven the melting of all the finest church hells could keep pace with the demand. The Swiss newspapers have for months been full of advertisements for copper in small quantities; but; not satisfied with such sources of sunnly, the German agents engaged a willing band of thieves to go round more than ono Swiss frontier town at night and, wrench the brass plates from the front doors of doctors and other professional men. Even this little nlan failed, for, like some others, the thieves never knew whether the master of the house came at midnight or a-t tbe cockcrowiwr. and one of them was caught red-handed. "Wino for Stockholm." All this is smuggling on the petty scale, and, although the aggregate is jio doubt serious, it may safely be said that a single smuggler, en gros, sheltering under an established reputation or taking advantago of peculiar "connections," in able to got more contraband into Germay on a single train than all these small fry can carry over iii a, year. Success does not necessarily cast any imputation on the bona fides of the S.S.S. The officials of that organisation work early and late during the day, but unfortunately the Germans work all night as well and are thus able to hoodwink those in authority. As a. case in point, considerable quantities of wine were recently got through Switzerland into Germany —apparently with the necessary export permits, since immense casks of wino do not lend themselves to surreptitious transit. It looked rather a puzzle, but the .solution was very simple. A number of honest Swedish wino merchants, with excellent addresses at Stockholm, advertised in the Swiss newspapers for the wine, and for its export to another neutral country, the Swiss authorities, with perfect propriety, issued tho necessary licences, and in due course were shown tho receipts, all in order, from Stockholm. Yet tho wino never went near Stockholm, and never crossed the sea at all but was diverted, as soon as it was over the German frontier to addresses within, the Fatherland.

Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/DOM19180209.2.46

Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 122, 9 February 1918, Page 8

Word count
Tapeke kupu
943

WAR-TIME SMUGGLING Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 122, 9 February 1918, Page 8

WAR-TIME SMUGGLING Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 122, 9 February 1918, Page 8

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