BOMB OUTRAGES

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 83, Issue 34, 10 February 1939, Page 3

BOMB OUTRAGES

POLICE STILL ACTIVE MORE MEN IN COURT EXPLOSIVES DISCOVERED LONDON, Feb. 7. Police activity in connection with the bomb outrages is unabated. Visits to a number of houses at night resulted in the discovery of explosives at Manor Park. Two arrests were made. Subsequently Charles McCarthy and his son Thomas were remanded at Bow Street, being charged with possession of numerous explosives, balloons, and alarm clocks fitted with timing apparatus, discovered after the search at Manor Park.

When Michael Mason and Joseph Walker were remanded at Liverpool on charges connected with the bomb outrages, the prosecution intimated that they would be handed over to the metropolitan police and charged with the others in London. Seven others were remanded on various charges, among which are possession of quantities of arms and explosives. These men include James Shannon and his sons Patrick and John.

A series of muffled subterranean explosions, the lid of a manhole shooting up 20 feet, accompanied by flames and dense smoke, near the Stepney electricity station, alarmed the neighbourhood. The electric lights went out and several windows were cracked. Police cordoned the street.

Subsequently it was stated officially that the explosions were due to a fault in a transformer. Five hundred detonators and a considerable quantity of gelignite were stolen overnight from a stone quarry at Wirksworth, in Derbyshire.

There are now no British troops in effective occupation in Southern Ireland, though there may be some small units engaged in the process of “wash-ing-up” duties after the British occupation. Britain’s interest in the delence of Southern Ireland was expressly terminated by the Anglo-Irish Agreement announced in April last. This agreement declared that the provisions of the 1921 Agreement, which reserved “the defence by sea” of the Irish Free State to Britain until such time as the Free State could defend itself and under which the Free State agreed to give the use of its harbour facilities to Britain weie terminated. The United Kingdom Government agreed to transfer to the Government of Eire the Admiralty property and the harbour defences at Berehaven, Cobh, and Lough Swilly not later than December 31 last. There are, however, British troops in Northern Ireland, which is a British military command.