VAST HUN STORES TO BE SEIZED.

Taranaki Daily News, 24 December 1917, Page 6

VAST HUN STORES TO BE SEIZED.

U.S. ACTION. PLOT TO HAKE ALLIES SHORT. 3s T ew York, Nov. 2. A significant fact announced to-day is that Secret Service agents of the Administration have seized £500,000 worth of copper, steel, oil, and nickel held in storage here in the interest of Germany. I understand that the confiscation of these stores represents merely the thin end of a wedge, with which the Government intends shortly to release, for the benefit of the Allied belligerents immense quantities of supplies of all kinds purchased during the first two years by German agents on this continent. "When the actual volume and value of the German stores concealed in this country are disclosed," observed a high official to-dav, "the world will be amazed."

Dr. Alertb, the Germanic Powers' fiscal agent here, had at his disposal praciic-~ ally unlimited funds. His purchasing campaigns were, carried out with the astute aid of German bankers, and had in view two objectives. One of these Dr. Albert, with that curious frankness which occasionally characterises the Teuton mind, described when, towards the close of 1015, he observed to a membaj of the. Federal Reser< Hoard: "The war will be over in a few months. We want the vast quantities of cotton we ah; now purchasing to set Germany's idle spindles whirling the moment peace is declared, so that we can go on once more into the world's markets as Great Britain's rival in manufactured cotton goods.'-'

£30,000,000 IN COTTON. It is known that, apart from several million bales smuggled into the Germanic Empires through adjacent neutral countries in 1915 and 1016, Germany has in storage here at least a million hales. These were purchased by Dr. Albert's agents at prices ranging between 4d and 7Jd per lb. They are now worth approximately £30,000,000. Agents of the Administration have been engaged for some time past in investigating stocks of cotton stored at different seaport cities and commercial centres in the south by brokers who acted on behalf of the Germans at a time when such transaetions were legitimate. All these stores will shortly Le confiscated. The second object of the German purchrises in this country was to create a shortage of high explosives and other war materials required by the Allies and incidentally to create "inflated prices. The output of many factories was bought up by German agents and placed in storage. Immense quantities of chemicals, and especially tri-nitvo-toluol, were concealed in various parts of the country by German/ representatives. All these the American Government is about to commandeer, together with vast amounts of steel, shells, leather, raw and finished hides, and manufactured goods of every description.