GENERAL ITEMS.

Taranaki Daily News, 3 February 1916, Page 5

GENERAL ITEMS.

NOTES FROM THE TIMES. A SPY'S YARN. MORE SALT WANTED. Times and Sydney Sun Services. Received Feb. 2, 5.5 p.m. . _ London, Feb. I. The Daily Mail spy met in Vienna a German official from the famous Oermania shipyard a'fc Kiel, and learned the mystery of the presence of German sub marines in the Sea of Marmora. Six of the smaller type were manufactured in sections, railed hundreds of miles, and then put together and tested. He met the submarine's officers and crews at Constantinople. They differed widely from the swaggering Prussian type. "I often talked with von Herring, the hero of the German submarines since Commander von Weddingen was killed. He sunk the Triumph and the Majestic, and he described to me his wonderful Voyage, and the picking up of petrol in the Bay of Biscay. They passed Gibraltar in daylight, and suffered the agonies of imprisonment for two hours. A British submarine was met off Lemnos, but they escaped with a damaged propellor, and safely arrived at Constantinople early in May. The German sailors realise the might and efficiency of the British navy, and do not spread tales of the British fleet hiding in ports, "A naval officer told me that Germany started the war ten years too soon, and that there is no love lost between the navy and army. The former is the better type. The sinking of the Lusitania was unpopular in the navy, though the German people gloried in it.

"The Turks do not relish the submarines at Constantinople. They,are floating about, showing their guns, to instil terror into the inhabitants, whom the Germans do not trust. They are not allowing them much ammunition, which largely accounts for the shortage at Oaliipoli." The writer graphically relates the efficient German procedure, whereby numerous Austrian and German spies were sent to England, provided with forged passports, birth certificates, and credentials to enable them to pass the strictest investigations.