GREAT WAR SABOTAGE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 1 November 1939, Page 3

GREAT WAR SABOTAGE

AMERICAN CLAIM AGAINST GERMANY. UMPIRE REJECTS PROTEST By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright. WASHINGTON. October 30. Mr Justice Owen Roberts, the impartial umpire of the German-American Mixed Claims Commission which last June ruled in favour of American claims for approximately 50,000.000 dollars damages arising out of the Black Tom and Kingsland disasters during the Great War, disregarding an emphatic protest from Berlin and awarded the full amount of the claims. In announcing the commission’s decision Mr Justice Roberts said he was convinced that German agents had presented fraudulent evidence, leading to the commission's previous decisions rejecting American claims. It is believed to be the first time an international tribunal had found a major Power guilty of fraud. Mr Justice Roberts said he believed that the commission still had jurisdiction to decide claims, despite the fact that the German Commissioner, Herr Victor Huecking. had resigned on March 1. Approximately 35,000,000 dollars is held by the United States Treasury as a bond for payment of the award by Germany. It was stated that payments would probably be made to individual claimants regardless of the German Government’s attitude. The owners and underwriters of the Black Tom Terminal and the Kingsland, New Jersey, munitions factories which were destroyed by fire and explosion in 1916, proceeded against the German Government. In 1935 an agreement was entered upon at Munich under which these sabotage cases were to be compromised (“for the sake of improving relations”) by the payment of 22,000,000 dollars. in view of the German repudiation of the commission ,the claimants al’e likely to divide only the 26.000,000 dollars which Germany has already deposited with the United States Treasury.