1938-01-15 — Page 14

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THE HONGKONG TELEGRAPH.

SATURDAY, JANUARY

15,

1938.

W

HEN Franco's now famous "Hooded Mon" conspiracy is stripped of its glamour of accrot fortresses, hidden telophone exchanges, private ciphers and the Hko, it becomes the best argument in favour of Stato control of the atms trade for years,

ta

It seems incredible that the Capitalist Governments, first panic about armed revolutions, she ld lead the opposition to tak- in/ be most clomentary steps to mi them Impossible,

Without arms you can't run an armed revolution, yot arms are stul two-a-penny on the Continent. One of the most profitable of the nrms traffickers" happy hunting grounds is "neutral" Switzerland. And Switzerland has played a big part-not offelally, of course -In tho preparation of the Hooded Men" eonspiracy which has been going on for well over a усл.

Gun-Running

IFTEEN months ago, evidence of gun-running from Switzer- land Into France began to accu- mulate.

Of course, it was all blamed on the Spanish War, and every time one of the small fry was caught trying to slip across the frontier after dark with a machine rifle and a few hundred rounds of ammunition he was accused of being a "Red" in the pay of the Spanish Government.

But the French and Swiss police know that only a small propor- tion of the smuggled arms ever left French territory again.

There were occasional arrests but It was clone that the traille was so carefully organised that only the smallest fraction of the smuggling was ever brought to light.

Trail of Cartridges

IN Beptember, 1930, for example, two young French Fascists were arrested at Annecy, in the Haute- Bavole, for complicity in an attempt to smuggle 03 Mauser rifles and cartridges in a lorry

to France.

Two months lat Jeneva police raided a house wit..in 100 yards of the French frontier which had obviously been used as a clearing- house for the traffic.

They found a dump of four machine rifles, Afty revolvers and 3.000 rounds of ammunition of Swiss origin-toɔ small a consign- ment to be much use in Spain, but

SECRETS of the

HOODED MEN

"The Absent-Minuled Waiter" is how Holland, reflected in this cartoon from "De Groene sees the arms dump plot. Amsterdammer,"

very useful contribution towards an armed uprising in France. It was a trail of cartridges fallen from a car on His way from. Geneva to Lyons which is said to have pro- vided the French police with the final clue they wanted to expose the whole conspiracy,

One favourite method of the amugglers was to dump the arms, carefully wrapped in oliskin, dur- Ing the night in one of the many small streams marking the fron- tler.

Then, 1 few days later, they would cross the frontier in the normal fashion, or an agent on the French alde would be told where to go and, again at night, fish the bundle out of the stream.

In a year, working at different places, quite a supply of arms can bo amassed in this way. In Geneva

1 has been known for some time that in the cottages and houses in the small towns and in the chalets in the Haute-Savole there have been arms dumps of varying sizes..

Now, I would safely wager, those who still have hidden arms ara hastily dumping them in river beds or hiding them under rocks in

the anticipation of

toothcomb

search begun by the Saretċ.

And it is all made possible -be- cause, without any check at all, any body which has sufletent money can buy any amount of arms in Switzerland, or Belgium, or Czechoslovakia. "The only diff- culty is to transfer them secretly to where they are to be used.

It would be simple to stop with State control. After all, nobody wants machine rifles but Govern- ments, gangsters or revolution-

aries, and with a licensing system such as there would be under State control it would not be dificult to seo, at least, that only Glover- ments were supplied. Claims on Franco

BASILY the most hard-worked section of the Foreign Office

at the moment, I Imaging, must be the Claims Department.

A few days ago, through the British Ambassador at Hehdaye, it presented a billa mere matter of £134,500, Birito General Franco.

That was for the damage done to H.MS. Hunter when she struck ą mine last May and, too, for the capital sum required to pay com- pensation to the dependents of the clight members of the crew who were killed and the fourtech In- jured in the explosion.

Huge Statement

INCIDENTALLY, it is interesting

to note that while the damage to the Hunter is estimated at £124,000, the capital sum required to compensate the victims' depen- dents is only £10,500, yielding, at 3 per cent., a little over £360.

But the Hunter incident is only one of hundreds for which Franco is about to receive a bill.

The Claims Department. I leaza, is busily engaged in drawing, up estimates of all the damage done to British property since the rebel- lion broke out well over a year ago. A huge statement is nearly ready and will be submitted to Franco early in the New Year. It will show that General Franco is "in account with the British Govern. ment for astronomical figures.

Franco, I am afraid, is going to find out, like other people who make wars, that there is a good deal of paying to do afterwards.

Mayerling

+

THE facts of an episode in his.

tory. which have been kept, a strict secret for nearly half a cen- tury, may be made known this wock when the heirlooms "of a

famous Irish-Czech family are put up for public auction in Austria. Among them is believed to be a scaled box containing the dossier of the Tragedy of Mayerling, in which a Crown Prince met his death. which scandalised the Courts of Europe.

Mayerling was the hunting lodge of the Emperor Franz Josef's son, Rudolf, who had been carrying on an open affair in Vienna with a young girl, the Baroness Maric Vetsera.

Rudolf was married to a Belgian Princess, and for reasons of State hts Imperial father, in a stormy scone, commanded his rebellious son to break away from the on- tanglement.

The Crown Prince at onco left with Marie Vetsera for Mayerling, and, the next morning, after a night of wild drinking. it is said. was found in his bedroom shot On the bed, through the head. covered with roses, lay the body of his mistress, also shot.

Every offort was made to hush up the scandal, but the facts be- came known, But whether it was a suicide pact, whether Rudell murdered Mario Vetsera and then shot himself, was a closely guarded secret known only to the Emperor and to his confidential Minister. Count Taafc.

So closely was the secret guarded that rumours soon began to circu- late that Rudolf's death was the result of a political crime.

"Secret" Box.

("OUNT TAAFE'S grandson-who

is "in the news" as a possible candidate for the first President of the Irish Free State under the new Constitution-has decided to return to Ireland, which his family left 200 years ago.

The furniture and archives of his Castle at Ellischau are to be put up for sale, including, it is be- Beved, the box containing the secret of Mayerling handed to the present Count's grandfather nearly fifty years ago by the Em- peror Franz Joset.

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