GERMAN TREACHERY

A LESSON TO NEUTRALS

From a thoroughly trustworthy source we have received the following information concerning the publication by the American State Department of three deciphered telegrams sent by the German Ambassador at Buenos Ayres to his Government by means of the Swedish Legation and Stockholm: It is well known that immediately after the beginning of the present conflict Germany was cut off from direct telegraphic communication with all foreign countries, except those on her own borders. It would appear that the Foreign Office in Stockholm before long assumed the post of telegraph office for the German Government, and has during the last three years regularly or continuously transmitted telegrams in German cipher under the guise of Swedish Government messages. Cipher telegrams bearing the signature of the Swedish Foreign Minister and addressed to the Swedish Legations in various foreign countries have been transmitted by the Swedish Legation to the German Legation, the telegrams really being in German code. In the same way German Ministers in various foreign countries have been in free telegraphic communication with Berlin by handing their cipher messages to the Swedish Minister, who signs and dispatches them as Swedish Government messages direct to the Foreign Office at Stockholm, whence they are forwarded to Berlin. The general system, so far as the American Continent is concerned, would seem to be that most of the telegrams have been directed to the Swedish Legation at Buenos Ayres. The German Legation there reciphers them, and forwards them to German Ministers in other countries.