It was established yesterday that more or less directly the visit of Mr. Schwab to England last Fall, on the Olympic, was due to the activity of German agents in this country in their efforts to buy the Bethlehem Steel Company. Word of the attempts of the German agents to obtain control of the Bethlehem Company soon found its way to England, and the result was that Mr. Schwab was invited to London for a special conference with the War Office. He renewed his acquaintance with Lord Kitchener, and his previously formed intention not to sell out was fortified with a guarantee of orders large enough to keep the big plant at Bethlehem going steadily for eighteen months or more. When rumors were prevalent about New York that the visit of Sir Trevor Dawson, head of a great English steel concern, had as its object an attempt to obtain control of the Bethlehem Company so as to insure that it would continue turning out supplies for the Allies, the German agents here were making a strong bid for the control of the concern, and their efforts have since continued. A TIMES reporter put to Mr. Schwab yesterday the direct question as to whether he was in actual control of the Bethlehem Steel Company. "Absolutely," he said. "The only way anybody else could obtain control would be to get my interest. I would never sell my interest without making for the men who stood by me with their support when I was struggling to put the Bethlehem Company where it is today the same terms that would be offered for my share. As a matter of fact, my interest in the Bethlehem Company is not for sale. Indeed, I could not sell. I have contracts that I cannot break." It was said yesterday that the Germans had been trying to conduct their negotiations for the Bethlehem Company in much the same fashion as they recently had employed in their diplomatic negotiations, and that if they had been successful in getting the Bethlehem Company they would have found themselves with contracts on their hands which they would have had to carry out. The mere closing of the plant and the refusal to continue the further manufacture and delivery of munitions of war already contracted for would not save them from a situation which would be the equivalent of jumping from the frying pan into the fire. Not only the courts would be promptly invoked to see that legal contracts were carried out, but, if necessary, the Federal Government could step in and insist that the manufacture and delivery of supplies contracted for be continued, in order to prevent a breach of neutrality. Then would be presented the spectacle of German interests turning out vast quantities of guns, shells, and shrapnel to be sent to Europe to be used in fighting their own troops.