THE DANES.

Taihape Daily Times, Issue 219, 3 February 1917, Page 3

THE DANES.

IN THE SMUGGLERS’ TRADE. GERMAN BRIBES TO SWEDES ALSO. LONDON, Nov. 17. In the following despatch the Exchange Telegraph Company’s special correspondent at Stockholm gives an interesting insight into the extensive system of smuggling by which Germany is in some measure supplementing her home supplies. AN INVESTIGATION. In connection with the pending controversy in Scandinavian countries over British blockade measures, I have made enquiries both here and in Copenhagen, and have obtained some instructive facts as to the widespread smuggling which, in spite of severe repressive laws, is still going on. The specific cases described have already been reported in the Scandinavian press. In both Denmark and Sweden, from which countries the chief smuggling to Germany goes on, the penalties are very severe. In Denmark, during the last seven months, fines amounting to £3OO. 000 have been imposed, and under the new law passed last spring there have been heavy sentences of imprisonment. Sweden, for a single offence of re-ex-port of imported goods on her Export Prohibition List, lately imposed fines amounting to nearly £30,000. Threats of such penalties do not deter the smugglers. In Denmark hardly a day passes without a prosecution or press exposures. RUBBER AS HERRINGS. Many of the smugglers in Denmark arc Germans, some arc Danes, and some of the work seems to be done by international organisations which are ready to serve any belligerent. Most of the smuggling is done by the primitive method of false description.

A typical case is that of Herr Hans Voight, a German merchant in a big way of business at Copenhagen, who, with three accomplices, has been convicted of smuggling out 60,0001 b. of rubber. The rubber was concealed in herring tins and described as herrings. Each of the four were sentenced to 120 days’ imprisonment, and the whole four collectively arc pronounced liable to repay to the State 400,000 crowns. It is believed in seme quarters that Germany pays such fines, and that explains why the penalties do not act as a deterrent.

In some cases native Danes only arc involved, and it has been proved that in certain instances that traffic is carried on with the aid of corrupt railway employees. In the sensational Hoeisley case in Jutland twenty Danes were implicated 5 ten are under arrest, and sufficient confessions have already been made to show that hundreds of thousands of crowns’ worth of export-forbid-den goods have been systematically exported to Germany during recent months The goods wore disguised partly as seaweed and partly a s other products not on the prohobition list. The first store seized consisted of tin, and it was found on railway premises hidden under serwced. DYES SMUGGLED OUT. In Copenhagen I was inrormed that Denmark is the theatre of a double kind of smuggling. With the sanction of Berlin certain goods on the export prohibition list arc smuggled into Denmark in exchange for food and other products on Denmark’s’ prohibition list. The Danish Government suppresses this traffic as far as possible, but it continues nevertheless. The goods smuggled out are aniline dyes, coloured printing inks, medicines and medical stores. These are passed over ■ the PrussianDanish border of Jutland, chiefly over the Konigsau riven. An international organisation, the headquarters of which is unknown, is said to be endeavouring to get similar German goods into Russia, where they fetch high prices. The profits are as high as 1000 per cent.

Germans resident in Scandinavian countries do a certain amount of smug gling out through the parcels post. In Sweden several cases have been detected, and elaborate attempts are still sometimes made to export raw materials in “faked” made-up forms. The classic instances were the copper statuettes of Hindenburg, of which one German firm ordered 25,000 from Sweden. The Customs authorities have discovered thousands of cases of tinned fish, which contained only a minimum of fish packed in an enormous quantity of fat.