GERMAN NAVY SCANDAL.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVI, Issue 2270, 15 August 1908, Page 2

GERMAN NAVY SCANDAL.

IXTRAOHDINA® MItAODS

An extraordinary series of frauds (savs the Berlin correspondent of tlio “Daily Telegraph”), which have for years been-practiced on the Imperial Dockyard at Kiel, have been occupying the polico for some weeks past, and tile investigations aro leading daily to moro and more astounding revelations. The persons implicated are partly officials, some of them occupying high positions, and ljartly outside merchants. Tlie plan ot operations was for those inside to pass out cartloads of stores which were scheduled for tho use of definite ships, but were simply taken down to tlio station and despatched to Berlin and other places, where they had been sold. Tho total amount.of the thefts must be something prodigious, as on one single day goods to the value of £2OOO were abstracted. One of the men in custody is director of storehouses, who has been 54 years in public service, and was decorated with tlie Red Eagle on attaining his jubilee. He has admitted defalcations now covered by the limitarv provision, and it appears that lie had been regularly preyed upon by certain of his -accomplices, who blackmailed him for large amounts. Another of the accused is a scrapiron merchant, who is believed to be worth a quarter of a million sterling. He used to buy used stores wholesale from tlio yard,and always received twice as much as he was charged for. It is said that his‘waggons used to lie so 'loaded with anything there might be an opportunity of getting out on them that they frequently broke down on the way to the station. The police have succeeded in confiscating £75,000 belonging to tho wealthiest participators in this land piracy. A somowhat similar state of affairs seems to have existed in the \Yilhelmsliaven Dockyard, but the thefts wore not quite of so wholesale a nature. Apparently the business would never have been discovered if some antelli--geiit police officer an Berlin bad not noticed that a merchant there was in the habit of selling rope, paints, and lubricants considerably below the market price.