Front matter

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BRITAIN'S DEADLY PERIL

BRITAIN'S DEADLY PERIL

Are we Told the Truth?

BY

WILLIAM LE QUEUX

AUTHOR OF "GERMAN SPIES IN ENGLAND"

LONDON

STANLEY PAUL & CO

31 ESSEX STREET, STRAND, W.C.

First published in 1915

Copyright in the United States of America by William Le Queux, 1915

CONTENTS

FOREWORD

PAGE

The Unknown To-morrow 7

CHAPTER I

The Peril of "Muddling Through" 13

CHAPTER II

The Peril of Exploiting the Poor 31

CHAPTER III

The Peril of not Doing Enough 49

CHAPTER IV

The Peril of the Censorship66

CHAPTER V

The Peril of the Press Bureau 81

CHAPTER VI

The Peril of the Enemy Alien 96

CHAPTER VII

The Peril of Deluding the Public119

CHAPTER VIII

The Peril of Invasion 139

CHAPTER IX

The Peril of Apathy 148

CHAPTER X

The Peril of Stifling the Truth 160

CHAPTER XI

Facts to Remember 171

FOREWORD

THE UNKNOWN TO-MORROW

The following pages—written partly as a sequel to my book "German Spies in England," which has met with such wide popular favour—are, I desire to assure the reader, inspired solely by a stern spirit of patriotism.

This is not a book of "scaremongerings," but of plain, hard, indisputable facts.

It is a demand for the truth to be told, and a warning that, by the present policy of secrecy and shuffle, a distinct feeling of distrust has been aroused, and is growing more and more apparent. No sane man will, of course, ask for any facts concerning the country's resources or its intentions, or indeed any information upon a single point which, in the remotest way, could be of any advantage to the barbaric hordes who are ready to sweep upon us.

But what the British people to-day demand is a sound and definite pronouncement which will take them, to a certain extent, into the confidence of the Government—as apart from the War Office, against which no single word of criticism should be raised—and at the same time deal effectively with certain matters which, being little short of public scandals, have irritated and inflamed public opinion at an hour when every man in our Empire should put forth his whole strength for his God, his King, and his country.

Germany is facing the present situation with a sound, businesslike policy, without any vacillation, or any attempt to shift responsibility from one Department of the State to another. Are we doing the same?

What rule or method can be discerned, for example, in a system which allows news to appear in the papers in Scotland which is suppressed in the newspapers in England? Why, indeed, should one paper in England be permitted to print facts, and another, published half a mile away, be debarred from printing the self-same words?

The public—who, since August 4th last, are no longer school-children under the Head-Mastership of the Prime-Minister-for-the-Time-Being—are now wondering what all this curious censorship means, and for what reason such an unreliable institution—an institution not without its own scandals, and employing a thousand persons of varying ideas and warped notions—should have been established. They can quite understand the urgent necessity of preventing a horde of war correspondents, at the front, sending home all sorts of details regarding our movements and intentions, but they cannot understand why a Government offer of £100 reward, published on placards all over Scotland for information regarding secret bases of petrol, should be forbidden to be even mentioned in England.

They cannot understand why the Admiralty should issue a notice warning the public that German spies, posing as British officers, are visiting Government factories while at the same time the Under-Secretary for War declares that all enemy aliens are known, and are constantly under police surveillance. They cannot understand either why, in face of the great imports of foodstuffs, and the patriotic movement on the part of Canada and our Overseas Dominions concerning our wheat supply, prices should have been allowed to increase so alarmingly, and unscrupulous merchants should be permitted to exploit the poor as they have done. They are mystified by the shifty shuttlecock policy which is being pursued towards the question of enemy aliens, and the marked disinclination of the authorities to make even the most superficial inquiry regarding cases of suspected espionage, notwithstanding the fact that German spies have actually been recognised among us by refugees from Antwerp and other Belgian cities.

The truth, which cannot be disguised, is that by the Government's present policy, and the amusing vagaries of its Press Censorship, the public are daily growing more and more apathetic concerning the war. While, on the one hand, we see recruiting appeals in all the clever guises of smart modern advertising, yet on the other, by the action of the authorities themselves, the man-in-the-street is being soothed into the belief that all goes well, and that, in consequence, no more men are needed and nobody need worry further.

We are told by many newspapers that Germany is at the end of her tether: that food supplies are fast giving out, that she has lost millions of men, that her people are frantic, that a "Stop the War" party has already arisen in Berlin, and that the offensive on the eastern frontier is broken. At home, the authorities would have us believe that there is no possibility of invasion, that German submarines are "pirates"—poor consolation indeed—that all alien enemies are really a deserving hardworking class of dear good people, and that there is no spy-peril. A year ago the British public would, perhaps, have believed all this. To-day they refuse to do so. Why they do not, I have here attempted to set out; I have tried to reveal something of the perils which beset our nation, and to urge the reader to pause and reflect for himself. Every word I have written in this book, though I have been fearless and unsparing in my criticism, has been written with an honest and patriotic intention, for I feel that it is my duty, as an Englishman, in these days of national peril to take up my pen—without political bias—solely for the public good.

I ask the reader to inquire for himself, to ascertain how cleverly Germany has hoodwinked us, and to fix the blame upon those who wilfully, and for political reasons, closed their eyes to the truth. I would ask the reader to remember the formation in Germany—under the guidance of the Kaiser—of the Society for the Promotion of Better Relations between Germany and England, and how the Kaiser appointed, as president, a certain Herr von Holleben. I would further ask the reader to remember my modest effort to dispel the pretty illusion placed before the British public by exposing, in The Daily Telegraph, in March 1912, the fact that this very Herr von Holleben, posing as a champion of peace, was actually the secret emissary sent by the Kaiser to the United States in 1910, with orders to make an anti-English press propaganda in that country! And a week after my exposure the Emperor was compelled to dismiss him from his post.

Too long has dust been thrown in our eyes, both abroad and at home.

Let every Briton fighting for his country, and working for his country's good, remember that even though there be a political truce to-day, yet the Day of Awakening must dawn sooner or later. On that day, with the conscience of the country fully stirred, the harmless—but to-day powerless—voter will have something bitter and poignant to say when he pays the bill. He will then recollect some hard facts, and ask himself many plain questions. He will put to himself calmly the problem whether the present German hatred of England is not mainly due to the weak shuffling sentimentalism and opportunism of Germanophils in high places. And he will then search out Britain's betrayers, and place them in the pillory.

Assuredly, when the time comes, all these things—and many more—will be remembered. And the dawn of the Unknown To-morrow will, I feel assured, bring with it many astounding and drastic changes.

William Le Queux. Devonshire Club, S.W. April 1915.

BRITAIN'S DEADLY PERIL

CHAPTER I

THE PERIL OF "MUDDLING THROUGH"

Has Britain, in the course of her long history, ever been prepared for a great war? I do not believe she has; she certainly was not ready last August, when the Kaiser launched his thunderbolt upon the world.

Perhaps, paradoxical as it may seem, this perpetual unreadiness may be, in a sense, part of Britain's strength.

We are a people slow of speech, and slow to anger. It takes much—very much—to rouse the British nation to put forth its full strength. "Beware of the wrath of the man slow to anger" is a useful working maxim, and it may be that the difficulty of arousing England is, in some degree, a measure of her terrible power once she is awakened.

Twice or thrice, at least, within living memory we have been caught all unready when a great crisis burst upon us—in the Crimea, in South Africa, and now in the greatest world-conflict ever seen. Hitherto, thanks to the amazing genius for improvisation which is characteristic of our race, we have "muddled through" somehow, often sorely smitten, sorely checked, but roused by reverses to further and greater efforts.

The bulldog tenacity that has ever been our salvation has been aroused in time, and we have passed successfully through ordeals which might have broken the spirit and crushed the resistance of nations whose mental and physical fibre was less high and less enduring.

We have "muddled through" in the past: shall we "muddle through" again? It is the merest truism—patent to all the world—that when Germany declared war, we were quite unready for a contest. For years the nation had turned a deaf ear to all warnings. The noble efforts of the late Lord Roberts, who gave the last years of his illustrious life—despite disappointments, and the rebuffs of people in high places who ought to have known—nay, who did know—that his words were literally true, passed unheeded.

Lord Roberts, the greatest soldier of the Victorian era, a man wise in war, and of the most transcendent sincerity, was snubbed and almost insulted, inside and outside the House of Commons, by a parcel of upstarts who, in knowledge and experience of the world and of the subject, were not fit to black his boots. "An alarmist and scaremonger" was perhaps the least offensive name that these worthies could find for him: and it was plainly hinted that he was an old man in his dotage. Lulled into an unshakable complacency by the smooth assurances of placeholders in comfortable jobs, the nation remained serenely asleep, and never was a country less ready for the storm that burst upon us last August. I had, in my writings—"The Invasion of England" and other works—also endeavoured to awaken the public; but if they would not listen to "Bobs," it was hardly surprising that they jeered at me.

I am speaking of the nation as a whole. To their eternal honour let it be said that there were nevertheless some who, for years, had foreseen the danger, and had done what lay in their power to meet it. Foremost among these we must place Mr. Winston Churchill, and the group of brilliant officers who are now the chiefs of the British Army on the Continent. To them, at least, I hope history will do full justice. It was no mere coincidence that just before the outbreak of war our great fleet—the mightiest Armada that the world has ever seen—was assembled at Spithead, ready, to the last shell and the last man, for any eventuality.

It was no mere coincidence that the magnificent First Division at Aldershot, trained to the minute by men who knew their business, were engaged when war broke out in singularly appropriate "mobilisation exercises." All honour to the men who foresaw the world-peril, and did their utmost to make our pitiably insufficient forces ready, as far as fitness and organisation could make them ready, for the great Day when their courage and endurance were to be so severely tested.

But when all this is said and admitted, it is clear that our safety, in the early days of the war, hung by a hair. Afloat, of course, we were more than a match for anything Germany could do, and our Fleet has locked our enemy in with a strangling grip that we hope is slowly choking out her industrial and commercial life. Ashore, however, our position was perilous in the extreme. Men's hair whitened visibly during those awful days when the tiny British Army, fighting heroically every step of the way against overwhelming odds, was driven ever back and back until, on the banks of the Marne, it suddenly turned at bay and, by sheer matchless valour, hurled the legions of the Kaiser back to ruin and defeat. The retreat was stayed, the enemy was checked and driven back, but the margin by which disaster was averted and turned into triumph was so narrow that nothing but the most superb heroism on the part of our gallant lads could have saved the situation. We had neglected all warnings, and we narrowly escaped paying an appalling price in the destruction of the flower of the British Army. With insufficient forces, we had again "muddled through" by the dogged valour of the British private.

To-day we are engaged in "muddling through" on a scale unexampled in our history. The Government have taken power to raise the British Army to a total of three million men. In our leisurely way we have begun to make new armies in the face of an enemy who for fifty years has been training every man to arms, in the face of an enemy who for ten or fifteen years at least has been steadily, openly, and avowedly preparing for the Day when he could venture, with some prospect of success, to challenge the sea supremacy by which we live, and move, and have our being, and lay our great Empire in the dust.

We neglected all warnings; we calmly ignored our enemy's avowed intentions; we closed our eyes and jeered at all those who told the truth; we deliberately, and of choice, elected to wait until war was upon us to begin our usual process of "muddling through." Truly we are an amazing people! Yet we should remember that the days when one Englishman was better than ten foreigners have passed for ever.

Naturally, our preference for waiting till the battle opened before we began to train for the fight led us into some of the most amazing muddles that even our military history can boast of. When the tocsin of war rang out, our young men poured to the colours from every town and village in the country. Everybody but the War Office expected it. The natural result followed: recruiting offices were simply "snowed under" with men, and for weeks we saw the most amazing chaos. The flood of men could neither be equipped nor housed, nor trained, and confusion reigned supreme. We had an endless series of scandals at camps, into which I do not propose to enter: probably, with all the goodwill in the world, they were unavoidable. Still the flood of men poured in. The War Office grew desperate. It was, clearly, beyond the capacity of the organisation to handle the mass of recruits, and then the War Office committed perhaps its greatest blunder. Unable to accept more men, it raised the physical standard for recruits. No one seems to have conceived the idea that it would have been better to take the names of the men and call them up as they were needed. Naturally the public seized upon the idea that enough men had been obtained, and there was an instant slump in recruiting which, despite the most strenuous of advertising campaigns—carried out on the methods of a vendor of patent medicines—has, unfortunately, not yet been overcome.

Following, came a period of unexampled chaos at the training-centres. Badly lodged, badly fed, clothed in ragged odds and ends of "uniforms," without rifles or bayonets, it is simply a marvel that the men stuck to their duty, and it is surely a glowing testimony to their genuine patriotism. I do not wish to rake up old scandals, and I am not going to indulge in carping criticism of the authorities because they were not able to handle matters with absolute smoothness when, each week, they were getting very nearly a year's normal supply of recruits. Confusion and chaos were bound to be, and I think the men—on the whole—realised the difficulties, and made the best of a very trying situation. But they were Britons! My object is simply to show how serious was our peril through our unpreparedness. If our enemy, in that time of preparation, could have struck a blow directly at us, we must, inevitably, have gone under in utter ruin. Happily, our star was in the ascendant. The magnificent heroism of Belgium, the noble recovery of the French nation after their first disastrous surprise, the unexampled valour of our Army, and the silent pressure of the Navy, saved us from the peril that encompassed us. Once again we had "muddled through" perhaps the worst part of our task.

No one can yet say that we are safe. This war is very far indeed from being won, for there is yet much to do, and many grave perils still threaten us. It is, perhaps, small consolation to know that most of the perils we brought upon ourselves by our persistent and foolish refusal to face plain and obvious facts: by our toleration of so-called statesmen who, fascinated by the Kaiser's glib talk, came very near to betraying England by their refusal to tell the country the truth, or even, without telling the country, to make adequate preparations to meet a danger which had been foreseen by every Chancellory in Europe for years past. It can never be said that we were not warned, plainly and unmistakably. The report of the amazing speech of the Kaiser, which I have recorded elsewhere, I placed in the hands of the British Secret Service as early as 1908, and the fact that it had been delivered was soon abundantly verified by confidential inquiries in official circles in Berlin. Yet, with the knowledge of that speech before them, Ministers could still be found to assure us that Germany was our firm and devoted friend!

The Kaiser, in the course of the secret speech in question, openly outlined his policy and said:

"Our plans have been most carefully laid and prepared by our General Staff. Preparations have been made to convey at a word a German army of invasion of a strength able to cope with any and all the troops that Great Britain can muster against us. It is too early yet to fix the exact date when the blow shall be struck, but I will say this: that we shall strike as soon as I have a sufficiently large fleet of Zeppelins at my disposal. I have given orders for the hurried construction of more airships of the improved Zeppelin type, and when these are ready we shall destroy England's North Sea, Channel, and Atlantic fleets, after which nothing on earth can prevent the landing of our army on British soil and its triumphal march to London.

"You will desire to know how the outbreak of hostilities will be brought about. I can assure you on this point. Certainly we shall not have to go far to find a just cause for war. My army of spies, scattered over Great Britain and France, as it is over North and South America, as well as all the other parts of the world where German interests may come to a clash with a foreign Power, will take good care of that. I have issued already some time since secret orders that will at the proper moment accomplish what we desire.

"I shall not rest and be satisfied until all the countries and territories that once were German, or where greater numbers of my former subjects now live, have become a part of the great mother country, acknowledging me as their supreme lord in war and peace. Even now I rule supreme in the United States, where almost one-half of the population is either of German birth or of German descent, and where three million German voters do my bidding at the Presidential elections. No American Administration could remain in power against the will of the German voters, who ... control the destinies of the vast Republic beyond the sea.

"I have secured a strong foothold for Germany in the Near East, and when the Turkish 'pilaf' pie will be partitioned, Asia Minor, Syria, and Palestine—in short, the overland route to India—will become our property. But to obtain this we must first crush England and France."

And, in the face of those words, we still went on money-grubbing and pleasure-seeking!

If ever the British Empire, following other great Empires of the past, plunges downward to rack and ruin, we may rest assured that the reason will be our reliance on our ancient and stereotyped policy of "muddling through."

I am glad to think that in the conduct of the present campaign we have been spared those scandals of the baser type which, in the past, have been such an unsavoury feature of almost every great war in which we have been engaged. Minor instances of fraud and peculation, of supplying doubtful food, etc., have no doubt occurred. Human nature being what it is, it could hardly be expected that we could raise, train, equip, and supply an army numbered by millions without some unscrupulous and unpatriotic individuals seizing the opportunity to line their pockets by unlawful means. We hear occasional stories of huts unfit for human habitation, of food in camp hardly fit for human consumption. On the whole, however, it is cordially agreed—and it is only fair to say—that there has been an entire absence of the shocking scandals of the type which revolted the nation during the Crimean campaign. Much has been said about the War Office arrangement with Mr. Meyer for the purchase of timber. But the main allegation, even in this case, is that the War Office made an exceedingly bad and foolish bargain, and Mr. Meyer an exceedingly good one. Indeed it is not even suggested that the transaction involved anything in the nature of fraud. It seems rather to be a plea that the purely commercial side of war would be infinitely better conducted by committees of able business men than by permanent officials of the War Office, who are, after all, not very commercial.

Undoubtedly this is true. We should be spared a good deal of the muddling and waste involved in our wars if, on the outbreak of hostilities, the War Office promptly asked the leading business men of the community to form committees and take over and manage for the benefit of the nation the purely commercial branches of the work. Yet I suppose, under our system of government, such an obvious common-sense procedure as this could hardly be hoped for. We continue to leave vast commercial undertakings in the hands of the men who are not bred in business, with the result that money is wasted by millions, and so are lucky if we are not swindled on a gigantic scale by the unscrupulous contractors. It is usually in an army's food and clothing that scandals of this nature are revealed, and it is only just to the War Office to say that in this campaign, for once, food has been good and clothing fair.

Most of our muddling, so far, has been of a nature tending to prolong the duration of the war. Our persistent policy of unreadiness has simply meant that for four, five, or six long months we have not been ready to take the field with the forces imperatively necessary if the Germans are to be hurled, neck and crop, out of Belgium and France across the Rhine, and their country finally occupied and subjugated.

Already another new and graver peril is threatening us—the peril of a premature and inconclusive peace. Already the voice of the pacifist—that strangely constituted being to whom the person of the enemy is always sacred—is being heard in the land. We heard it in the Boer War from the writers and speakers paid by Germany. Already the plea is going up that Germany must not be "crushed"—that Germany, who has made Belgium a howling wilderness, who has massacred men, women, and even little children, in sheer cold-blooded lust, shall be treated with the mild consideration we extend to a brave and honourable opponent. Sure it is, therefore, that if Britain retires from this war with her avowed purpose unfulfilled, we shall have been guilty of muddling compared with which the worst we have ever done in the past will be the merest triviality.

If this war has proved one thing more clearly than another, it has proved that the German is utterly and absolutely unfit to exercise power, that he is restrained by no moral consideration from perpetuating the most shocking abominations in pursuit of his aims, that the most sacred obligations are as dust in the balance when they conflict with his supposed interests. It has proved too, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that England is the real object of Germany's foaming hate. We are the enemy! France and Russia are merely incidental foes. It is England that stands between Germany and the realisation of her insane dream of world dominion, and unless Great Britain to-day completes, with British thoroughness, the task to which she has set her hand, this generation, and the generations that are to come, will never be freed from the blighting shadow of Teutonic megalomania. It is quite conceivable that a peace which would be satisfactory to Russia and France would be profoundly unsatisfactory to us. Happily, the Allies are solemnly bound to make peace jointly or not at all, and I trust there will be no wavering on this point. For us there is but one line of safety: the Germanic power for mischief must be finally and irretrievably broken before Britain consents to sheathe the sword.

Against the prosecution of the war to its final and crushing end, the bleating pacifists are already beginning to raise their puny voices. I am not going to give these gentlemen the free advertisement that their hearts delight in by mentioning them by name: it is not my desire to assist, in the slightest degree, their pestilential activity. They form one of those insignificant minorities who are inherently and essentially unpatriotic. Their own country is invariably wrong, and other countries are invariably right. To-day they are bleating, in the few unimportant journals willing to publish their extraordinary views, that Germany ought to be spared the vengeance called for by her shameful neglect of all the laws of God and man.

Is there a reader of these lines who will heed them? Surely not.

Burke said it was impossible to draw up an indictment against a nation: Germany has given him the lie. Our pro-German apologists and pacifists are fond of laying the blame of every German atrocity, upon the shoulders of that mysterious individual—the "Prussian militarist." I reply—and my words are borne out by official evidence published in my recent book "German Atrocities"—that the most shameful and brutal deeds of the German Army, which, be it remembered, is the German people in arms, are cordially approved by the mass of that degenerate nation. The appalling record of German crime in Belgium, the entire policy of "frightfulness" by land and sea, the murder of women and children at Scarborough, the sack of Aerschot and of Louvain, the massacre of seven hundred men, women, and children in Dinant, the piratical exploits of the German submarines, are all hailed throughout Germany with shrieks of hysterical glee. And why? Because it is recognised that, in the long run and in the ultimate aim, they are a part and parcel of a policy which has for its end the destruction of our own beloved Empire. Hatred of Britain—the one foe—has been, for years, the mainspring that has driven the German machine. The Germans do not hate the French, they do not hate the Russians, they do not even hate the "beastly Belgians," whose country they have laid waste with fire and sword. The half-crazed Lissauer shrieks aloud that Germans "have but one hate, and one alone—England," and the mass of the German people applaud him to the echo.

Very well, let us accept, as we do accept, the situation. Are we going to neglect the plainest and most obvious warning ever given to a nation, and permit ourselves to muddle into a peace that would be no peace, but merely a truce in which Germany would bend her every energy to the preparation of another bitter war of revenge?

Here lies one of the gravest perils by which our country is to-day faced, and it is a peril immensely exaggerated by the foolish peace-talk in which a section of malevolent busybodies are already indulging. It is as certain as the rising of to-morrow's sun that, when this war is over, Germany would, if the power were left within her, embark at once on a new campaign of revenge. We have seen how, for forty-five long years, the French have cherished in their hearts the hope of recovering the fair provinces wrested from them in the war of 1870-1871. And the French, be it remembered, are not a nation capable of nourishing a long-continued national hatred. Generous, proud, and intensely patriotic they are; malicious and revengeful they emphatically are not. As patriotic in their own way as the French, the Germans have shown themselves capable of a paroxysm of national hatred to which history offers no parallel.

They have realised, with a sure instinct, that Britain, and Britain alone, has stood in the way of the realisation of their grandiose scheme of world-dominion, and it is certain that for long years to come, possibly for centuries, they will, if we give them the opportunity, plot our downfall and overthrow us. Are we to muddle the business of making peace as we muddled the preparations for war? If we do we shall, assuredly, deserve the worst fate that can be reserved for a nation which deliberately shuts its eyes to the logic of plain and demonstrable fact.

Germany can never be adequately punished for the crimes against God and man which she has committed in Belgium and France. The ancient law of "An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth" is the only one under which adequate punishment could be meted out, and whatever happens we know that the soldiers of the Allies will never be guilty of the unspeakable calendar of pillage and arson and murder which has made the very name of "German" a byword throughout civilisation throughout all the ages that are to come. However thoroughly she is humbled to the dust, Germany will never taste the unspeakable horror that she has brought upon the helpless and unoffending victims of her fury and lust in Belgium and in parts of France. It may be that if they fall into our hands we should hang, as they deserve to be hanged, the official instigators of atrocities whose complicity could be clearly proved—though we, to-day, give valets to the Huns at Donington Hall. We cannot lay the cities of Germany in ruin, and massacre the civilian population on the approved German plan. What we can do, and ought to do, is to make sure that, at whatever cost of blood and treasure to us, Germany is deprived of any further capacity to menace the peace of the world. It is the plain and obvious duty of the Allies to see that the hateful and purely German doctrine that might is the only right shall, once and for all, be swept from the earth. It is for us to make good the noble words of Mr. Asquith—that Britain will prosecute the war to the finish. It is for us to see that there shall be no "muddling through" when the treaty of peace is finally signed in Berlin.

When the war was forced upon us, the best business brains of this country recognised that one of the surest and speediest means of securing an efficient guarantee that Germany should not be able to injure us in the future would be a strenuous effort to capture her enormous foreign trade. Modern wars, it must be remembered, are not merely a matter of the clash of arms on the stricken field. The enormous ramifications of commercial undertakings, immeasurably greater to-day than at any time in history, mean that, in the conduct of a great campaign, economic weapons may be even more powerful than the sword of the big battalions. This unquestionable fact has been fully realised by our leading thinkers. Thoughtless people have been heard to say that, if France and Russia wish to conclude peace, England must necessarily join with them because she cannot carry on the war alone. There could be no greater mistake.

Just so long as the British Fleet holds the command of the sea, Germany's foreign trade is in the paralysing grip of an incubus which cannot be shaken off. In the meantime, all the seas of all the world are free to our ships and our commerce, and, though the volume of world-trade is necessarily diminished by the war, there remains open to British manufacturers an enormous field which has been tilled hitherto mainly by German firms.

We may now ask ourselves whether our business men are taking full advantage of this priceless opportunity offered them for building up and consolidating a commercial position which in the future, when the war is ended, will be strong enough to defy even the substantial attacks of their German competitors. I sincerely wish I could see some evidence of it. I wish I could feel that our business men of England were looking ahead, studying methods and markets, and planning the campaigns which, in the days to come, shall reach their full fruition. But alas! they are not. We heard many empty words, when war broke out, of the war on Germany's trade, but I am very much afraid—and my view is shared by many business acquaintances—that the early enthusiasm of "what we will do" has vanished, and that when the time for decisive action comes we shall be found still relying upon the traditional but fatal policy of "muddling through" which has for so long been typical of British business as well as official methods.

We shall still, I fear, be found clinging to the antiquated and worn-out business principles and stiff conventionalities which, during the past few years, have enabled the German to oust us from markets which for centuries we have been in the habit of regarding as our own peculiar preserves. That, in view of the enormous importance of the commercial warfare of to-day, I believe to be a very real peril.

King George's famous "Wake up, England!" is a cry as necessary to-day as ever. I do not believe Germany will ever be able to pay adequate indemnity for the appalling monetary losses she has brought upon us, and if those losses are to be regained it can only be by the capture of her overseas markets, and the diversion of her overseas profits into British pockets. Shall we seize the opportunity or shall we "muddle through"?

This is not a political book, for I am no politician, and, further, to-day we have no politics—at least of the Radical and Conservative type. "Britain for the Briton" should be our battle-cry. There is one subject, however, which, even though it may appear to touch upon politics, cannot be omitted from our consideration. If the war has taught us many lessons, perhaps the greatest is its splendid demonstration of the essential solidarity of the British Empire. We all know that the German writers have preached the doctrine that the British Empire was as ramshackle a concern as that of Austria-Hungary; that it must fall to pieces at the first shock of war. To-day the British Empire stands before the world linked together, literally, by a bond of steel. From Canada, from Australia, from India, even—despite a jarring note struck by German money—from South Africa, "the well-forged link rings true." Germany to-day is very literally face to face with the British Empire in arms, with resources in men and money to which her own swaggering Empire are relatively puny, and with, I hope and believe, a stern determination no less strong and enduring than her own. The lesson assuredly will not be lost upon her: shall we make sure that it is not lost upon us?

For some years past there has been a steadily growing opinion—stronger in the Overseas Dominions, perhaps, than here at home—that the British Empire should, in business affairs, be much more of a "family concern" than it is. Either at home, or overseas, our Empire produces practically everything which the complexity of our modern social and industrial system demands. Commerce is the very life-blood of our modern world: is it not time we took up in earnest the question of doing our international business upon terms which should place our own people, for the first time, in a position of definite advantage over the stranger? Is it not time we undertook the task of welding the Empire into a single system linked as closely by business ties as by the ties of flesh and blood and sentiment? That, I believe, will be one of the great questions which this war will leave us for solution.

In the past, Germany's chief weapon against us has been her commercial enterprise and activity. It should now be part of our business to prevent her harming us in the future, and, in the commercial field, the strongest weapon in our armoury has hitherto remained unsheathed. Shall we, in the days that are to come, do our imperial trading on a great family scale—British goods the most favoured in British markets—or shall we here again "muddle through" on a policy which gives the stranger and the enemy alien at least as friendly a welcome as we extend to our own sons?

Perhaps, in the days that are coming, that in itself will be a question upon which the future of the British Empire will depend.

CHAPTER II

THE PERIL OF EXPLOITING THE POOR

No phenomenon of the present serious situation is more remarkable, or of more urgent and vital concern to the nation, than the amazing rise in food prices which we have witnessed during the past six months. At a time when the British Navy dominates the trade routes, when the German mercantile flag has been swept from every ocean highway in the world, when the German "High Seas" fleet lies in shelter of the guns of the Kiel Canal fortifications, we have seen food prices steadily mounting, until to-day the purchasing power of the sovereign has declined to somewhere in the neighbourhood of fifteen shillings, as compared with the period immediately preceding the outbreak of hostilities.

Now this is a fact of the very gravest significance, and unless the price of food falls it will inevitably be the precursor of very serious events. Matters are moving so rapidly, at the time I write, that before these lines appear in print they may well be confirmed by the logic of events. Ominous mutterings are already heard, the spectre of labour troubles has raised its ugly head, and, unless some modus vivendi be found, it seems more than probable that we shall witness a very serious extension of the strikes which have already begun.

The most important of our domestic commodities are wheat, flour, meat, sugar, and coal. Inquiries made by a Committee of the Cabinet have shown that, as compared with the average prices ruling in the three years before the war, the price of wheat and flour has risen by something like 66 per cent.! Sugar has increased 43 per cent., coal about 60 per cent., imported meat about 19 per cent., and British meat 12 per cent. The rise in prices is falling upon the very poor with a cruelty which can only be viewed with horror. Imagine, for a moment, the plight of the working-class family with an income of thirty shillings a week, and perhaps five or six mouths to feed. Even in normal times their lot is not to be envied: food shortage is almost inevitable. Suddenly they find that for a sovereign they can purchase only fifteen shillings' worth of food. Hunger steps in at once: the pinch of famine is felt acutely, and, thanks to the appalling price to which coal has been forced, it is aggravated by intense suffering from the cold, which ill-nurtured bodies are in no condition to resist.

I am not contending that there is any very abnormal amount of distress throughout the country, taking the working-classes as a whole. Thanks to the withdrawal of the huge numbers of men now serving in the Army, the labour market, for once in a way, finds itself rather under than over-stocked, and the ratio of unemployment is undoubtedly lower than it has been for some considerable time. The better-paid artisans, whose wages are decidedly above the average at the present moment, are not suffering severely, even with the high prices now ruling. But they are exasperated, and some of them are making all kinds of unpatriotic threats, to which I shall allude presently.

The real sufferers, and there are too many of them, are the families of the labouring classes of the lower grades, whose weekly wage is small and whose families, as a rule, are correspondingly numerous. At the best of times these people seldom achieve more than a bare existence: at the present moment they are suffering terribly. Yet all the consolation they get from the Government is the assurance that they ought to be glad they did not live in the days of the Crimean War, and the pious hope that "within a few weeks"—oh! beautifully elastic term!—prices will come down—if we, by forcing the Dardanelles, liberate the grain accumulated in the Black Sea ports. No doubt the best possible arrangements have been made towards that issue, and we all hope for a victorious end, but our immediate business is to investigate the distress among the very poor, and to check the ominous threats of labour troubles which have been freely bandied about and have even been translated into action—or inaction—which has had the effect of delaying some of the country's preparations for carrying on the war.

The average retail prices paid by the working-classes for food in eighty of the principal towns on March 9th and a year ago are compared in the following table issued by the President of the Board of Trade:

Last Year Now

s. d. s. d.

Bread, per 4 lbs. 05½ 07¾

Butter, per lb. 1 3¾ 1 4½

Jam, per lb. 0 5 0 5¾

Cheese, per lb. 0 8¾ 0 10¼

Bacon (streaky), per lb. 0 11 1 0

Beef, English, per lb. 09¾ 011

Beef, chilled or frozen, per lb. 07¼ 08¾

Mutton, English, per lb. 0 10¼ 0 11¼

Mutton, frozen, per lb. 0 6¾ 0 8¼

Tea, per lb. 1 6 1 9¼

Sugar, granulated, per lb. 0 2 0 3½

A few more facts. Though the matter was constantly referred to, yet we had been at war for five months before the Government could be prevailed upon to prohibit the exportation of cocoa; with what result? In December, January, and February last our exports of cocoa to neutral countries were 16,575,017 lbs., whilst for the corresponding period for 1913 the exports were but 3,584,003 lbs.! Before the war, Holland was an exporter of cocoa to this country; since the war she has been the principal importer; and there is a mass of indisputable evidence to show that nearly the whole of our exports of cocoa have found their way to Germany through this channel.

The prohibition is now removed, so we may expect that the old game of supplying the German Army with cocoa from England will begin again!

The German Army must also have tea. Let us see how we have supplied it. During the first fortnight of war, export was restricted and only 60,666 lbs. were sent out of the country, whereas for the corresponding period of the previous year 179,143 lbs. were exported. During the next three months the restrictions were removed, when no less a quantity than 15,808,628 lbs. was sent away—the greater part of it by roundabout channels to Germany—against 1,146,237 lbs. for the corresponding period in 1913. After three months a modified restriction was placed upon the export of tea, but after reckoning the whole sum it is found that during the time we have been at war we have sent abroad over 20,000,000 lbs. of tea, while in the corresponding period of the previous year we sent only a little over 2,000,000 lbs.!

Now where has it gone? In August and September last, Germany received from Holland 16,000,000 lbs. whereas in that period of 1913 she only received 1,000,000 lbs. Tea is given as a stimulant to German troops in the field, so we see how the British Government have been tricked into actually feeding the enemy!

And again, let us see how the poor are being exploited by the policy of those in high authority. At the outbreak of war the market price of tea was 7½d. per lb. As soon as exportation was allowed, the price was raised to the buyer at home to 9d. Then when exports were restricted, it fell to 8¼d. But as soon as the restrictions on exports were removed altogether, the price rose until, to-day, the very commonest leaf-tea fetches 10d. a lb.—a price never equalled, save in the memories of octogenarians.

Who is to blame for this fattening of our enemies at the expense of the poor? Let the reader put this question seriously to himself.

Generally speaking, of course, prices of all articles are regulated by the ordinary laws of supply and demand; if the supply falls or the demand increases, prices go up. But there is another factor which sometimes comes into play which is very much in evidence at the present moment—the existence of "rings" of unscrupulous financiers who, with ample resources in cash and organisation, see in every national crisis a heaven-sent opportunity of increasing their gains at the expense of the suffering millions of the poor. It is quite evident, to my mind, that something of the kind is going on to-day, as it has gone on in every great war in history. The magnates of Mark Lane and the bulls of the Chicago wheat pit care nothing for the miseries of the unknown and unheeded millions whose daily bread may be shortened by their financial jugglings. They are out to make money. It may be true, as Mr. Asquith said, that we cannot control the price of wheat in America. But, at least, it cannot be said that the price of bread to-day is due to shortage of supply. During the last six months of 1914, as compared with the last six months of 1913, there was actually a rise of 112,250 tons in the quantities of wheat, flour, and other grain equivalent imported into this country. Where, then, can be the shortage, and what explanation is there of the prevailing high prices except the fact that large quantities of food are being deliberately held off the market in order that the price may be artificially enhanced? This is not the work of the small men, but of the big firms who can buy largely enough, probably in combination, to control and dominate the market.

When the subject was recently debated in the House of Commons the voice of the Labour member was heard unmistakably. Mr. Toothill said bluntly that if it was impossible for the Government to prevent the prices of food being "forced up" unduly, then it remained for Labour members to request employers to meet the situation by an adequate advance in wages. That request has since been made in unmistakable terms. Mr. Clynes was even more emphatic. "Though the Labour party were as anxious as any to keep trade going in the country," he said, "it was clear to them that the truce in industry could not be continued unless some effective relief were given in regard to the prices under discussion." In other words, the Labour "organisers" will call for strikes—perhaps hold up a large part of our war preparations—unless the employers, most of whom are making no increased profit out of the price of food, are prepared to shoulder the entire burden.

It is quite clear, to my mind, that the prices of food are being forced up by gigantic unpatriotic combines, either in this country or abroad, or both. I do not think that mere shortage of supply is sufficient to account for the extraordinary advances that have taken place. Whether the Government can take steps to defeat the wheat rings, as they did to prevent the cornering of sugar, is a question with which I am not concerned here. My purpose is merely to point out that the constant rise in food prices, brought about by gangs of unscrupulous speculators, is bringing about a condition of affairs fraught with grave peril to our beloved country.

If we turn to coal we find the scandal ten times greater than in the case of flour and meat. It is at least possible that agencies outside our own country may be playing a great part in forcing up the prices of food; they can have no effect upon the price of coal, which we produce ourselves and of which we do not import an ounce. Coal to-day is simply at famine prices. It is impossible to buy the best house coal for less than 38s. per ton, while the cheapest is being sold at 34s. per ton, and the very poor, who buy from the street-trolleys only inferior coal and in small quantities, are being fleeced to the extent of 1s. 11d. or 2s. per cwt. This is an exceedingly serious matter, and it is not to be explained, even under present conditions, by the ordinary laws of supply and demand. Why should coal in a village on the banks of the Thames be actually cheaper than the corresponding quality of coal when sold in London?

There can be only one answer—the London supply is in the hands of the coal "ring" which has compelled all the London coal merchants to come into line. So extensive and powerful is the organisation of this ring, that the small men, unless they followed the lead of the big dealers, would be immediately faced with ruin: they would not only find it difficult to obtain coal at all, but would promptly be undersold—as the Standard Oil Company undersold thousands of small competitors—until they were compelled to put up their shutters.

The big coal men, the men who make the profit—and with their ill-gotten gains will purchase Birthday honours later on—of course blame the war for everything. The railways, they say, cannot handle the coal; so much labour has been withdrawn for the Army that production has fallen below the demand. But I am assured, on good authority, that coal bought before the war, and delivered to London depots at 16s. or 17s. per ton, is being retailed to-day at between 36s. and 40s. per ton. The big dealers know that, cost what it may, the public must have coal, and they are taking advantage of every plausible excuse the war offers them to wring from the public the very highest prices possible. "The right to exploit," in fact, is being pushed to its logical extreme in the face of the country's distress, and the worst sufferers, as usual, are the very poor, who for their pitiful half-hundred-weights of inferior rubbish pay at a rate which would be ample for the finest coal that could grace the grate of a West-End drawing-room.

Can we shut our eyes to the fact that in this shameful exploiting of the very poor by the unpatriotic lie all the elements of a very serious danger? Let us not forget the noble services the working-classes of Britain are rendering to our beloved country. They have given the best and dearest of their manhood in the cause of the Empire, and it is indeed a pitiful confession of weakness, and an ironic commentary on the grandiose schemes of "social reform" with which they have been tempted of late years, if the Government cannot or will not protect them from the human leeches—the Birthday knights in the making—who suck their ill-gotten gains from those least able to protect themselves.

The Government have promised an inquiry which may, if unusual expedition is shown, make a "demonstration" with the coal-dealers just about the time the warm weather arrives. Prices will then tumble, the Government will solemnly pat itself upon the back for its successful interference, and the coal merchants, having made small or large fortunes as the case may be during the winter, will make a great virtue of reducing their demands to oblige the Government. In the meantime, the poor are being fleeced in the interests of an unscrupulous combine. Is there no peril here to our beloved country? Are we not justified in saying that the machinations of these gangs of unscrupulous capitalists are rapidly tending to produce a condition of affairs which may, at any moment, expose us to a social upheaval which would contain all the germs of an unparalleled disaster?

Let the condition of affairs in certain sections of the labour world speak in answer. I have already quoted the thinly-veiled threat of Mr. Clynes. Others have gone beyond threats and have begun a war against their country on their own account. There is an unmistakable tendency, fostered as usual by agitators of the basest class, towards action which is, in effect, helping the Germans against our brave soldiers and sailors who are enduring hardships of war such as have not been equalled since the days of the Crimea.

HOW WE SUPPLY THE GERMAN ARMY WITH FOOD

Exports of Cocoa to Neutral Countries (for the German Market)

Dec. 1, 1913, to Mar. 1, 1914 Dec. 1, 1914, to Mar. 1, 1915

3,584,003 lbs. 16,575,017 lbs.

Exports of Tea to Neutral Countries (for the German Market)

Dec. 1, 1913, to Mar. 1, 1914 Dec. 1, 1914, to Mar. 1, 1915

1,146,237 lbs. 15,808,628 lbs.

As I wrote these lines, strikes on a large scale had begun on the Clyde and on the Tyne, two of our most important shipbuilding centres, where great contracts—essential to the success of our arms—are being carried on, and in the London Docks, where most of the food of London's teeming millions is handled. London dockers, to the number of some 25,000, are agitating for a rise in wages; between 5,000 and 6,000 of them have struck work at the Victoria and Albert Dock on the question, forsooth, whether they shall be engaged inside the docks, or outside. In other words, the expeditious handling of London's sorely needed food is being jeopardised by a ridiculous squabble which one would think half a dozen capable business men could settle in five minutes. But here, as usual, the poorest are the victims of their own class.

In spite of the well-meaning but idiotic young women who have gone about distributing white feathers to men who, in their opinion, ought to have joined the Army, common-sense people will recognise that the skilled workers in many trades are just as truly fighting the battles of their country as if they were serving with the troops in Belgium or France. If every able-bodied man joined the Army to-day the nation would collapse for want of supplies to feed the fighting lines. It is not my purpose here to discuss whether the men or the masters are right in the disputes in the engineering trades. Probably the authorities have not done enough to bring home to the men the knowledge that, in executing Government work, they are in fact helping to fight the country's battles. None the less the men who strike at the present moment delay work which is absolutely essential to the safety of our country. We know from Lord Kitchener's own lips that they have done so.

Our war organisation to-day may be divided into three parts—the Navy fighting on the sea, the Army fighting on land, and the industrial army providing supplies for the other two. It must be brought home to the last named, by every device in our power, that their duties are just as important to our success as the work of their brothers on the storm-swept North Sea, or in the mud and slush and peril of the trenches in Flanders. This war is very largely a war of supplies, and our fighting must be done not only in the far-flung battle lines, but in the factory and workshop, whose outputs are essential to the far deadlier work which we ask of the men who are heroically facing the shells and bullets of the common enemy.

Now there is no disguising the fact that the industrial army at home contains far too large a percentage of "slackers."

That is the universal testimony of men who know. There are thousands of workmen who will not keep full time, for the simple reason that they are making more money than they really need and are so lazy and unpatriotic that they will not make the extra effort which the necessities of the situation so urgently demand. What we need to-day is, above all things, determined hard work: we do not want to see our fighting forces starved for want of material caused by the shirking of the "slackers" or by unpatriotic disputes and squabbles. To-day we are fighting for our lives. The privates of the industrial army ought to realise that "slacking" or striking is just as much a criminal offence as desertion in the face of the enemy would be in the case of a soldier. It is true, as a recent writer has said, that "those who fight industrially, working long hours in a spirit of high patriotism, may not seem very heroic," but it is none the less the fact that they are fighting: they are doing the work that is essential to our national safety and welfare. Do they—at least do some of them—realise this? The following extract from Engineering, the well-known technical journal, shows very clearly that among certain classes of highly paid workers there is a total disregard of our national necessity which is positively appalling. As the result of a series of inquiries Engineering says:

"Every reply received indicates that there is slackness in many trades. Be it remembered that high wages can be earned; for relatively unskilled although somewhat arduous work, 30s. a day can be earned.

"Time-and-a-quarter to time-and-a-half is paid for Saturday afternoon work, and double time for Sunday work. Men could earn from £7 to £10 per week—and pay no income-tax.

"Men will work on Saturday and Sunday, when they get handsomely paid, but will absent themselves on other days or parts of days.

"The head of a firm, who has shown a splendid example in his work, and is most kindly disposed to all workers, states in his reply to us: 'Our trouble is principally with the ironworkers, especially riveters, who appear to have a definite standard of living, and who regulate their wages accordingly; they seem to aim at making £3 per week: if they can make this in four days, good and well; but if they can make it in three days, better still.... The average working-man of to-day does not wish to earn more money, and put by something for a 'rainy day,' but is quite content to live from hand to mouth, so long as he has as easy a time as possible."

What words are strong enough to condemn the action of such men who, safe in their homes from the perils of the serving soldier, and infinitely better paid than the man who daily risks his life in the trenches, are ready deliberately to jeopardise the safety of our Empire by taking advantage of the gravest crisis in our history to levy what is nothing less than industrial blackmail? It cannot be pretended that these men are under-paid: they can earn far more than many members of the professional classes. Just as truly as the coal and wheat "rings" are exploiting the miseries of the very poor, so these aristocrats of the labour world are playing with the lives of their fellows and the destinies of our Empire. They are helping the enemy just as surely as the German who is fighting in his country's ranks. They are, in short, taking advantage of a national danger to demand rates of pay which, in times of safety and peace, they could not possibly secure.

For years past we have been striving to arrive at some means of settling these unhappy labour disputes which have probably done more harm to British trade than all the German competition of which we have heard so much. In every district machinery has been set up for conciliation and settlement where a settlement is sincerely desired by both parties to a dispute. And if this machinery is not set in motion at the present moment, it is because one party or the other is so blind and self-willed that it would rather jeopardise the Empire than abate a jot of its demands. Could anything be more heart-breaking to the men who are fighting and dying in the trenches?

Whatever may be the merits of any dispute, there must be no stoppage of War Office or Admiralty work at the present moment, and if any body of men refuse at this juncture to submit their dispute to the properly organised conciliation boards, and to abide by the result, they are traitors in the fullest sense of the world. How serious the crisis is, and how grave a peril it constitutes to our country, may be judged from the fact that the Government found it necessary to appoint a special Committee to inquire into the production in engineering and shipbuilding establishments engaged in Government work. The Committee's view of the case, which I venture to think will be endorsed by every thinking man, may be judged by the following extract from their report:

"We are strongly of opinion that, during the present crisis, employers and workmen should under no circumstances allow their differences to result in a stoppage of work.

"Whatever may be the rights of the parties at normal times, and whatever may be the methods considered necessary for the maintenance and enforcement of these rights, we think there can be no justification whatever for a resort to strikes or lockouts under present conditions, when the resulting cessation of work would prevent the production of ships, guns, equipment, stores, or other commodities required by the Government for the purposes of the war."

The Committee went on to recommend that in cases where the parties could not agree, the dispute should be referred to an impartial tribunal, and the Government accordingly appointed a special Committee to deal with any matters that might be brought before it.

I do not think it is possible to exaggerate the seriousness of the danger with which we must be threatened if these unhappy disputes are not brought to a close, and I know of no incident since the war began that has shown us up in so unfavourable a light as compared with our enemy. Whatever we may think of Germany's infamous methods; whatever views we may hold of her monstrous mistakes; whatever our opinion may be as to the final outcome of the war, we must, at least, grant to the Germans the virtue of patriotism. The German Socialists are, it is notorious, as strongly opposed to war as any people on earth. But they have, since the great struggle began, shown themselves willing to sink their personal views when the safety of the Fatherland is threatened in what, to them, is a war of aggression, deliberately undertaken by their enemies. We have heard, since the war began, a great deal of wild and foolish talk about economic distress in Germany. We have been told, simply because the German Government has wisely taken timely precautions to prevent a possible shortage of food, that the German nation is on the verge of starvation. But would Germany, who for seven years prepared for war, overlook the vital question of her food supply? Probably it is true that the industrial depression in Germany, thanks to the destruction by our Navy of her overseas trade, is very much worse than it is in England. But no one has yet suggested that the Krupp workmen are threatening to come out on strike and paralyse the defensive forces if their demands for higher wages are not instantly conceded. It is more than probable that any one who suggested such a course, even if he escaped the heavy hand of the Government, would be speedily suppressed in very rough-and-ready fashion by his own comrades. The Germans, at least, will tolerate no treachery in their midst, and unless the leaders among the English trade unionists can bring their men to a realisation of the wickedness involved in strikes at the present moment, they will assuredly forfeit every vestige of public respect and confidence.

I am not holding a brief either for the masters or the men. Let ample inquiry be made, by all means, into the subject of the dispute. If the masters raise any objection to either the sitting or the finding of the Government Commission, they deserve all the blame that naturally attaches to the strikers. The inquiry should be loyally accepted by both sides, and its findings as loyally respected. Prima facie, men who can earn the wages mentioned in the extract from Engineering which I have already quoted are well off—far better off than their comrades who are doing trench duty in France, and are free from the hourly risk to which the fighting forces are exposed. There may be, however, good and valid reasons why they should be paid even better. If there are, the Government inquiry should find them out. But to stop work now, to hold up the production of the ships, guns, and materials necessary to carry on the war, is criminal, wicked, and unpatriotic in the highest degree. It is setting an evil example only too likely to be followed, and, if it is persisted in, may well be the first step of our beloved nation on the downward road which leads to utter destruction.

Mr. Archibald Hurd, a writer always well informed, has summed up the situation in the Daily Telegraph in the following words, which are worth quotation:

"The recruiting movement has shown that the great industrial classes are not, as a whole, unconscious of the stake for which we are fighting—the institutions which we cherish and our freedom. Probably if the workers at home were reminded of the importance of their labours, they would speedily fall into line—if not, well, the resources of civilisation are not exhausted, and the Government should be able to ensure that not an unnecessary day, or even hour, shall be lost in pressing forward the work of equipping the new Fleet and the new Army which is essential to our salvation. The Government is exercising authority under martial law over Army and Navy; cannot it get efficient control over the industrial army?

"In France and Germany these powers exist, and are employed. We are not less committed to the great struggle than France and Germany."

Those are wise and weighty words, and it may be that they point the way to a solution of what may become a very grave problem.

CHAPTER III

THE PERIL OF NOT DOING ENOUGH

The vast issues raised by the war make it a matter of most imperative necessity that Great Britain and her Allies shall put forward, at the earliest possible moment, the greatest and supremest efforts of which they are capable, in order that the military power of the Austro-German alliance should be definitely and completely crushed for ever.

It must never be forgotten that the prize for which Germany is fighting is the mastership of Europe, the humbling of the power of Great Britain, and the imposition of a definitely Teutonic "Kultur" over the whole of Western civilisation. That the free and liberty-loving British peoples should ever come under the heel of the Prussian Junker spirit involves such a monstrous suppression of national thought and feeling as to be almost unbelievable. Yet, assuredly, that would be our fate and the fate of every nationality in Europe should Germany emerge victorious from this Titanic struggle she has so rashly and presumptuously provoked.

With our very existence as the ruling race at stake it is clear that our own dear country cannot afford to be sparing in her efforts. Whatever the cost; whatever the slaughter; whatever the action of our Allies may be in the future, when the terrific out-pouring of wealth will have bled Europe white, we, at least, cannot afford to falter. For our own land, the struggle is really, and in very truth, a struggle of life and death.

If we endure and win, civilisation, as we understand it to-day, will be safe; if we lose, then Western civilisation and the British Empire will go down together in the greatest cataclysm in human history. Now are we doing everything in our power to avert the threatening peril? Moreover—and this is of greatest importance—are our Allies persuaded that we are really making the great efforts the occasion demands? This gives us to pause.

Let us admit we are not, and we have never pretended to be, a military nation in the sense that France, Russia, and Germany have been military nations. We have been seamen for a thousand years, and the frontiers of England are the salt waves which girdle our coasts. Seeking no territory on the Continent of Europe, and unconcerned in European disputes unless they directly—as in the present instance—threaten our national existence, our armed forces have ever been regarded as purely defensive, yet not aggressive. For our defence we have relied on our naval power; perhaps in days gone by we have assumed, rather too rashly, that we should never be called upon to take part in land-fighting on a continental scale.

Even after the present war had broken out, it was possible for the Parliamentary correspondent of a London Liberal paper to write that certain Liberal Members of the House of Commons were protesting against the sending of British troops to the Continent on the ground that they were too few in number to exercise any influence in a European war! Perish that thought for ever! I mention this amazing contention merely to show how imperfectly the issues raised by the present conflict were appreciated in the early days of the struggle. To-day we see the establishment of the British Army raised by Parliamentary sanction to 3,000,000 men without a single protest being uttered against a figure which, had it been even hinted at, a year ago would have been received with yells of derision. Yet, in spite of that vast number, I still ask "Are we doing enough?" In other words, looking calmly at the stupendous gravity of the issues involved, is there any further effort we could possibly make to shorten the duration of the war?

For eight months German agents, armed with German gold, have been industriously propagating, in France and in Russia, the theory that those countries were, in fact, pulling the chestnuts out of the fire for England. German agents are everywhere. We were represented as holding the comfortable view that our fleet was doing all that we could reasonably be called upon to undertake; that, secure behind our sea barriers, we were simply carrying on a policy of "business as usual" with the minimum of effort and loss and the maximum of gain through our principal competitors in the world's commerce being temporarily disabled. The object of this manœuvre was plain. Germany hoped to sow the seeds of jealousy and discord, and to thrust a wedge into the solid alliance against her. Now it is, to-day, beyond all question that, to some extent at least, this manœuvre was successful. A certain proportion of people in both France and Russia, perhaps, grew restive. In the best-informed circles it was, of course, fully recognised that Britain, with her small standing Army, could not, by any possibility, instantly fling huge forces into the field. The less well informed, influenced by the German propaganda, began to think we were too slow. This feeling began to gather strength, and it was not until M. Millerand, the French Minister for War, whom I have known for years, had actually visited England and seen the preparations that were in progress, that French opinion, fully informed by a series of capable articles in the French Press, settled down to the conviction that England was really in earnest. Unquestionably, M. Millerand rendered a most valuable service to the cause of the Allies by his outspoken declarations, and he was fully supported by the responsible leaders of French thought and opinion. The cleverly laid German plot failed, and our Allies to-day realise that we have unsheathed our sword in the deadliest earnest.

In spite of this, however, the thoughtful section of the public have been asking themselves whether, in fact, our military action is not slower than it should have been. Germany, we must remember, started this war with all the tremendous advantage secured by years of steady and patient preparation for a contest she was fully resolved to precipitate as soon as she judged the moment opportune. She lost the first trick in the game, thanks to the splendid heroism of Belgium, the unexpected rapidity of the French and Russian mobilisation, and lastly, the wholly surprising power with which Britain intervened in the fray—the pebble in the cog-wheels of the German machinery.

The end of the first stage, represented, roughly, by the driving of the Germans from the Marne to the Aisne, temporarily exhausted all the combatants, and there followed a long period of comparative inaction, during which all the parties to the quarrel, like boxers in distress, sparred to gain their "second wind." Now just as Germany was better prepared when the first round opened, so she was, necessarily, more advanced in her preparations for the second stage. Thanks to her scheme of training, there was a very real risk that her vast masses of new levies would be ready before our own—and this has actually proved to be the case.

New troops are to-day being poured on to both the eastern and western fronts at a very rapid pace, probably more rapidly than our own. We know that it was, in great part, their new levies that inflicted the very severe reverse upon the Russians in East Prussia and undid, in a single fortnight, months of steady and patient work by our Allies. It is also probably true that Germany's immense superiority in fully trained fighting men is steadily decreasing, owing partly to the enormous losses she has sustained through her adherence to methods of attack which are hopeless in the teeth of modern weapons. But she is still very much ahead of what any one could have expected after seven months of strenuous war, and we must ask ourselves very seriously whether, by some tremendous national effort, it is not possible to expedite the raising of our forces to the very maximum of which the nation and the Empire are capable. It is not a question of cost: the cost would be as nothing as compared with the havoc wrought by the prolongation of the war. If there is anything more that we can do, we ought, emphatically, to do it. It is our business to see that at no single point in the conduct of the war are we out-stripped by any effort the Germans can make.

Now it is a tolerably open secret that we are not to-day getting the men we shall want before we can bring the war to a conclusion. Why? When our men read of the utter disregard of the spy question, of the glaring untruths told by Ministers in the House of Commons, of how we are providing German barons with valets on prison ships—comfortable liners, by the way—of the letting loose of German prisoners from internment camps, and how German officers have actually been allowed, recently, to depart from Tilbury to Holland to fight against us, is it any wonder that they hesitate to come forward to do their share? Let the reader ask himself. Are all Departments of the Government patriotic? Is it not a fact that the public are daily being misled and bamboozled? Let the reader examine the evidence and then think.

Now, though no figures as to the progress of recruiting have been published for some months, it is practically certain that we are still very far from the three million men we still assuredly require as a minimum before victory, definite and unmistakable, crowns our effort. I have not the slightest doubt that before this struggle ends we shall see practically the entire male population of the country called to the colours in some capacity, and unfortunately that is an aspect of the case which is certainly not yet recognised by the democracy as a whole. We have done much, it is true. We have surprised our friends and our enemies alike—perhaps we have even surprised ourselves—by what has been achieved, but on the technical side of the war, under the tremendous driving energy of Lord Kitchener, amazing progress has been made in the provision of equipment, and the latest information I have been able to obtain suggests that before long the early shortage of guns, rifles, uniforms, and other war material will have been entirely overcome, and that we shall be experiencing a shortage, not of supplies—but alas! of men.

That day cannot be far off, and when it dawns the problem of raising men will assume an urgency of which hitherto we have had no experience. Up to now we have been content to tolerate the somewhat leisurely drift of the young men to the colours for the simple reason that we had not the facilities for training and equipping them. We cannot, and we must not, tolerate any slackness in the future. The wastage of modern war is appallingly beyond the average conception, and when our big new armies take the field, that wastage will rise to stupendous figures. It must be made good without the slightest delay by constant drafts of new, fully trained men, and when that demand rises, as it inevitably will, to a pitch of which we have hitherto had no experience, it will have to be met. Can it be met by the leisurely methods with which we have hitherto been content?

I do not think so for a moment, and I am convinced that our responsible Ministers should at once take the country fully into their confidence and tell us plainly and unmistakably what the man-in-the-street has to expect. I have so profound an admiration for the men who have voluntarily come forward in the hour of their country's need that I hope, with all my heart, their example will be followed—and followed quickly—to the full extent of our nation's needs. But I confess I am not sanguine. The recent strikes in the engineering trade on the Clyde have gone far to convince me that, even now, a very large proportion of our industrial classes do not even to-day realise the real seriousness of the position, for it is incredible that Britons who understood that we are actually engaged in a struggle for our very existence should seriously jeopardise and delay, through a miserable industrial squabble, the supply of war material upon which the safety of our Empire might depend. The strike on the Clyde was, to me, the most evil symptom of apathy and lack of all patriotic instincts which the war has brought forth; it was, to my mind, proof conclusive that a section at least of our working-classes are entirely dead to the great national impulse by which, in the past, the British people have been so profoundly swayed. Is the Government doing enough to rekindle those impulses? Has it taken the people fully and frankly into its confidence? Above all, has it made it sufficiently clear to the masses that we are not getting the men we need, and that unless those men come forward voluntarily, some method of compulsory selection will become inevitable?

No, it has not!

We come back to the question in which, I am firmly convinced, lies the solution of many of our present difficulties—are we being told the truth about the war? Has the nation had the clear, ringing call to action that, unquestionably, it needs?

No, it has not!

I shall try to show, in the pages of this modest work, that the country has not been given the information to which it is plainly entitled respecting the actual military operations which have been accomplished. It is certainly not too much to say that the country has not been really definitely and clearly informed as to the measure of the effort it will be called upon to make in the future. I am not in the secrets of the War Office, and it is impossible to say what the policy of the Government will be, or what trump cards they hold, ready to play them when the real crisis comes. But there certainly is an urgent and growing need for very plain speaking. I speak plainly and without fear. We should like to be assured that the recruiting problem, upon the solution of which our final success must depend, is being dealt with on broad, wise, and statesmanlike lines, and that the Government will shrink from no measure which shall ensure our absolute military efficiency. I have no doubt that Lord Kitchener has a very accurate estimate of the total number of men he proposes to put into the field before the great forward movement begins, of the probable total wastage, and of the period for which, on the present basis of recruiting, that wastage can be made good.

The country would welcome some very definite and explicit statement, either from Mr. Asquith or Lord Kitchener, as to the real position, and as to whether the Government has absolute confidence that the requirements of the military authorities can be met under the existing condition of affairs. The time is, indeed, more than ripe for some grave and solemn warning to the people if, as I believe, the effort we have made up to now, great though it has undoubtedly been, has not been sufficient. We to-day need an authoritative declaration on the subject. There is far too strong a tendency, fostered by the undue reticence of the irresponsible Press Bureau and the screeching "victories" of the newspapers, to believe that things are going as well and smoothly as we could wish; and though I would strenuously deprecate an attitude of blank pessimism, the perils which hedge around a fatuous optimism are very great.

My firm conviction, and I think my readers will share in it, is that the great mass of public opinion is daily growing more and more apathetic towards the war, and truly that is not the mental attitude which will bring us with safety and credit through the tremendous ordeal which lies before us. The Government is not doing enough to drive home the fact that greater and still greater efforts will be required before the spectre of Prussian domination is finally laid to rest: the country at large, befogged by the newspapers, and sullenly angry at being kept in the dark to an extent hitherto unheard of, is in no mood to make the supreme sacrifices upon which final victory must depend. We are, as a result, not exercising our full strength: we are not doing enough, and our full strength will not be exerted until the Government takes the public into its confidence and tells them exactly what it requires and what it intends to have. That it would gain, rather than lose, by doing so, I have not the slightest doubt, while the gain to the world through the throwing into the scale of the solid weight of a fully aroused Britain would be simply incalculable.

While writing this, came the extraordinarily belated news of the decision of the Government to declare a strict blockade of the German coasts. It has been a matter of supreme bewilderment to every student of the war why this decision was not taken long before. Why should we have failed for so long to use the very strongest weapon which our indisputed control of the sea has placed in our hands, is one of those things which "no fellah can understand." We have been foolish enough to allow food, cotton, and certain other articles of "conditional contraband" free access to Germany, and it is beyond question that in so doing we have enormously prolonged the war. And all this, be it remembered, at a time when Germany was violating every law of God and man! Assume a reversal of the prevailing conditions: would Germany have been so foolishly indulgent towards us? Would she have treated us with more consideration than she showed towards the starving population of Paris in 1871? The very fact of our long inaction in this respect adds enormously to the strong suspicion that in other directions we are not doing as much as we should. Lord Fisher is credited with the saying, "The essence of war is violence: moderation in war is imbecility. Hit first, hit hard, hit everywhere."

I think it is safe to say that in more than one direction we have displayed an imbecility of moderation which has tended to encourage the Germans in the supreme folly of imagining that they are at liberty to play fast and loose with the opinion of the civilised world. Our treatment of German spies and enemy aliens in our midst is a classic example of our contemptuous tolerance of easily removable perils, just as much as is our incredible folly in neglecting to make the fullest use of our magnificent naval resources. Thanks to our tolerance, the Germans have been freely importing food and cotton, with probably an enormous quantity of copper smuggled through in the same ships. We have paid in the blood and lives of our gallant soldiers, husbands, brothers, lovers, while the Germans have laughed at us—and not without justice—as a nation of silly dolts and imbeciles. Yet we have tardily decided upon "retaliatory measures" which we were perfectly entitled to take the instant war was declared, only under the pressure of Germany's campaign of murder and piracy at sea! Are we doing enough in other directions?

Equally belated, and equally calculated to give the impression that we have been too slow in using our strength, is the attack upon the Dardanelles. It has long been a mystery why, in view of the tremendous results involved in such a blow at Germany's deluded ally, this attack was not made earlier. We do not know, and the Government do not enlighten us. But the delay has helped to send the price of bread to famine prices through blocking up the Russian wheat in the Black Sea ports; it has given the Turks and the Germans time to enormously strengthen the defences, and has prevented us from sending to our Russian friends that support in munitions of war of which they undoubtedly stood in need. There may, of course, have been good reasons for the delay, but if they exist, they have baffled the investigation of the most competent military and naval critics. It must never be forgotten that the reopening of the Dardanelles and the fall of Constantinople must exercise a far more potent influence on the progress of the war than, say, the relief of Antwerp—another example of singularly belated effort! It must, in fact, transform the whole position of the war and react with fatal effect through Turkey upon her Allies. Yet the war had been in progress for seven months before a serious attempt was made at what, directly Turkey joined in the war, must have been one of the primary objects of the Allies. What added price, I wonder, shall we be compelled to pay for that inexplicable delay, not merely in the increased cost of the necessaries of life at home and the expenses of the war abroad, but in the lives of our fighting men? For it must not be forgotten that a decisive blow at Turkey would do much to shorten the duration of the war. It would be a serious blow at Germany, and would be more than likely to precipitate the entrance into the struggle, on the side of the Allies, of Italy and the wavering Balkan States. In hard cash, the war is costing us nearly a million and a half a day. We have to pay it, sooner or later. The loss of life is more serious than the loss of wealth, and there is no doubt that both must be curtailed by any successful operation against the Turks.

The Army has, beyond question, lost thousands of recruits of the very best class owing to the parsimony displayed in the matter of making provision for the dependents of men who join the fighting forces. The scale originally proposed, it will be remembered, produced an outburst of indignation, and it was very soon amended in the right direction, but when all is said and done it operates with amazing injustice. One of the most striking features of the war has been the splendid patriotism shown by men who, in social rank, are decidedly above the average standard of recruits.

Many comparatively rich men have joined the Army as privates, and the roll descends in the social scale until we come down to the day labourer. We draw no distinction between the loyalty and devotion of any of our new soldiers, but it cannot be denied that the working of the system of separate allowances is exceedingly unfair to the men of the middle classes.

Financially, the family of the working-man is frequently better off through the absence of the husband and father at the front than it has ever been before—sometimes very much better off indeed. I am not complaining of that. But when we ascend a little in the scale we find a glaring inequality. The man earning, say, £250 a year, and having a wife and one child, finds, too often, that the price he has to pay for patriotism is to leave his family dependent upon the Government allowance of 17s. 6d. per week. Is it a matter for wonder that so many have hesitated to join? Can we praise too highly the patriotism of those who, even under such circumstances, have answered the call of duty?

The truth is that the whole system of separation allowances, framed to meet the necessity of recruits of the ordinary standard, is inelastic and unsuitable to a campaign which calls, or should call, the entire nation to arms. It is throwing a great strain on a man's loyalty to ask him to condemn his wife and family to what, in their circumstances, amounts to semi-starvation, in order that he may serve his country, particularly when he sees around him thousands of the young and healthy at theatres and picture palaces, free from any domestic ties, who persistently shut their eyes to their country's need, and whom nothing short of some measure of compulsion would bring into the ranks. I am not going to suggest that every man who joins the Army should be paid the salary he could earn in civil life, but I think we are not doing nearly enough for thousands of well-bred and gently nurtured women who have given up husbands and brothers in the sacred cause of freedom.

And now I come to perhaps the saddest feature of the war—the case of the men who will return to England maimed and disabled in their country's cause. That, for them, is supreme glory, though many of them would have infinitely preferred giving their lives for their country. They will come back to us in thousands, the maimed, the halt, and the blind: pitiful wrecks of glorious manhood, with no hope before them but to drag out the rest of their years in comparative or absolute helplessness. Their health and their strength will have gone; there will be no places for them in the world where men in full health and strength fight the battle of life in the fields of commerce and industry. Are we doing enough—have we, indeed, begun to do anything—for these poor victims of war's fury, much more to be pitied than the gallant men who sleep for ever where they fell on the battle-fields of France and Belgium?

Too often in the past it has been the shame and the reproach of Britain that she cast aside, like worn-out garments, the men who have spent their health and strength in her cause. Have we not heard of Crimean veterans dying in our workhouses? With all my heart I hope that, after the war, we shall never again be open to that reproach and shame. We must see that never again shall a great and wealthy Empire disgrace itself by condemning its crippled heroes to the undying bitterness of the workhouse during life, and the ignominy of a pauper's grave after death. Cost what it may, the future of the unhappy men "broke in our wars" must be the nation's peculiar care. I do not suggest—they themselves would not desire it—that all our wounded should become State pensioners en masse and live out their lives in idleness. The men who helped to fling back the Kaiser's barbaric hordes in the terrible struggle at Ypres are not the men who will seek for mere charity, even when it takes the form of a deserved reward for their heroic deeds.

Speaking broadly, the State will have the responsibility of caring for two classes of wounded men—those who are condemned to utter and lifelong disablement and those who, less seriously crippled, are yet unable to obtain employment in ordinary commercial or industrial life. As to the former class, the duty of the State is clear: they must be suitably maintained for the rest of their lives at the State's charges. With regard to the second class, I do most sincerely hope that they will not be thrown into the world with a small wounds pension and left to sink or swim as fortune and their scattered abilities may dictate. It is for us to remember that these men have given their health and strength that we might live in safety and peace, and we shall be covering ourselves with infamy if we fail to make proper provision for them.