SOWED TARES AT GENEVA

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 780, 28 September 1929, Page 11

SOWED TARES AT GENEVA

SHEARER AND HIS WORK BEHIND THE SCENES SCANDAL IN UNITED STATES Much news has come over the cables recently about one William B. Shearer, who is suing some big American shipbuilding corporations for payment for his services iu sowing seeds of discord at the 1927 Geneva Naval Disarmament Conference, and working against any possible agreement. The American paper “Time” gives a piquant sketch of the man himself, and the influences behind his work. It says:— Whenever in the last five years the Navy was up in Congress for debate and action, a big, thick-shouldered man in a tweed suit, a red necktie and yellow shoes, could generally be found striding up and down the Capitol’s corridors, button-holing Congressmen and Senators, passionately urging them to vote for the biggest kind of United States fleet, hoarsely warning them against the Imperialism of Great Britain. His name was William B. Shearer. He was in bis early forties. His voice was the voice of a lOin. gun. booming arguments and demands for more ships. Well-heeled, he was a generous entertainer. Quick of temper, he once threatened to “knock hell” out of a Washington correspondent (Ray Tucker), who dared dispute his word. Quickly he was recognised as the most potent Big-Navv lobbi'ist in Washington. Whom or what he represented remained a mystery. Last week the mystery ended when Mr. Shearer, to collect a pay claim filed suit in Manhattan against his alleged employers, Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corporation, the Newport News Shipbuilding Corporation, and the American Brown-Bovari Corporation. From these shipbuilders Shearer said he had received £10,246. He claimed ■ the3 r still owed him £51,531 for proj fessional services. He had, he stated, ; been hired to prepare literature, in-

formation, data, to write articles, to j interview public officials and Press *e-1 presentatives, to make speeches on be- j half of United States shipbuilding from ’ 1926 to 1929. The dullest Congress- ' man could see the connection: Big j Navy—more cruisers; more cruisers j —more work, more profits; for United States shipbuilding companies. HEARST, "ANGLOPHOBE” Mr. Schearer appeared on the Washington scene in 1924 as a naval expert, the inventor of a one-man 1 torpedo. When the United States ship Washington was towed off the - Virginia Capes for sinking by air- j plane bombs, he rushed iDto court, , vainl>' sought an injunction to pre- ! vent the navy from destroying this vessel under the terms of Washing- ! ton Arms Treaty. Later he admitted 1 that Publisher William Randolph I Hearst, “Anglophobe,” had paid the \ cost of that empty exploit. Later that year Congress was stormed with demands for an investigation of the navy. Such an inquiry, insisted big-navy men, would reveal the weak condition of the fleet, would hasten reforms—and new ships. Lobbyist Shearer was in the thick of that agitation. He began issuing what were supposed to be the navy’s military secrets. SPY ON BRITISH SHIP The United States bad had a spy aboard a British warship during * manoeuvres, who reported on secret j methods whereby British guns could outrange those of the United States j fleet,; manoeuvres in miniature at the | Naval War College at Newport bad demonstrated that the British Fleet | could destroy the United States navy in SO minutes. These “disclosures” did not precipitate a Congressional investigation of the navies, but they did stir up trouble aplenty within the navy itself. Lobbyist Shearer explained that he had received his information from private and confidential letters exchanged between naval officers studying at the war college. Mr. Curtis D. Wilbur, Secretary of the Navy, convoked a court of inquiry at the Brookland Navy : Yard. Captain Hugo W. Osterhaus | was suspected of “leaking.” Lobbyist Shearer went to the Pacific Coast, I too busy there with other navy affairs | to help out of difficulty those who had j given him his information. SEEDS OF DISCORD In 1927 he spent six weeks at Geneva during the Arms Conference, j As an international lobbyist, he sowed seeds of statistical discord and sought to preserve the irreconcilability of | the British and United States viewpoints on cruiser tonnage. When the conference failed he considered his mission a complete success and took | the “credit.” He was on deck again at the capital when the House passed the 15-cruiser Bill last year. He handed out >*ellow- ? bound pamphlets abusing the British, | bristling with statistics to prove the ; inferiority of the United States fleet. 1 Onl>’ a few Congressmen realised they were being supplied with second-hand arguments, the same material lobbyist Shearer bad used at Geneva. In the midst of his lobbying he made this statement: —“My fight is for national defence. ... I expect no reward, except the consciousness that I am helping m3' country.”