assassination at Sarajevo, Sir Edward Grey was asked: "Whether any naval agreement has been recently entered into between Russia and Great Britain, and whether any negotiations with a view to a naval agreement have recently taken place or are now pending between Russia and Great Britain." The Foreign Secretary went out of his way to give what our Pacifists describe as "a very full and a very complete reply," viz. "The Prime Minister replied last year to the question of the hon. member, that if a war arose between European Powers there were no unpublished agreements which would hamper or restrict the freedom of the Government or Parliament to decide whether or not Great Britain should participate in the war. That answer covers both the questions on the Paper. It remains as true to-day as it was a year ago. No negotiations have since been concluded with any Power that would make that statement less true. No such negotiations are in progress, and none are likely to be entered upon so far as I can judge. But if any agreement were to be concluded that made it necessary to withdraw or modify the Prime Minister's statement of last year, which I have quoted, it ought in my opinion to be, and I suppose that it would be, laid before Parliament.”

This painful observation was followed by a singularly unedifying duel between the German semi-official Press and the semi-official organ of the Brunner-Mond party, the Westminster Gazette. The Germans naturally assumed, knowing what was in their own minds that there must be some naval convention between Russia and Great Britain with a view to eventualities not then remote. Sir Moritz Mond's organ vigorously and violently repudiated this suggestion as though it were an insult to accuse us of entering into a naval convention with Russia, and somewhat unsuccessfully it must be admitted, sought to allay the alarm of its German friends who could not believe that we could be such fools as not to have a naval convention with Russia.

There may be persons who admire the kind of foreign policy which leaves everything to chance, which refuses to face realities and declines to take precautions against contingencies which should never be absent from the thoughts of serious statesmen. Private persons who refuse to insure their houses are not generally regarded as wise, but the standard in public life is different

at any rate on this side of the Channel. Those of us who have long instinctively distrusted Germany have walked by faith rather than by sight, though it was obvious that such prodigious and prolonged preparations during the piping times of peacethe financing of huge armaments by means of loans-and the feverish and frantic haste with which battleships were added to battleships, battalions to battalions, and guns to guns, could only spell war. But we were only amateurs. We were not experts. We had no access to official information. We did not sit on the Defence Committee-in passing it might be interesting to know what useful purpose the Defence Committee has served from the day of its inception until the hurricane which took it completely unawares, like the rest of the powers that be, unless it provides an arena in which the men who know but can't talk have to listen to the men who can talk but don't know. One might have been over-suspicious of Germany. There was possibly some explanation of her attitude and armaments unknown to the man in the street but known to the man in the Cabinet.

V. WHAT EVERY CABINET MINISTER

KNEW

THE revelations of the past month rob responsible statesmen of their last fig-leaf of reputation and leave them completely naked if unashamed. It appears that so far from exaggerating the German danger, over-colouring German policy, magnifying German preparations and designs, being in fact unduly alarmist, we were under rather than over the mark. From a recent communiqué issued to the Press by our unconscionable Home Secretary, Mr. McKenna-whose administration is a daily anxiety to the British public since he openly boasted in the House of Commons that no German spy had been shot and who now tardily seeks to allay the alarm for which he is largely responsible -we learnt:

"It was clearly ascertained five or six years ago that the Germans were making great efforts to establish a system of espionage in this country, and in order to trace and thwart these efforts a Special Intelligence Department was established by the Admiralty and the War Office which has ever since acted in the closest co-operation with the Home Office and Metropolitan Police and the principal provincial Police Forces. In 1911, by the passing of the Official Secrets Act, 1911, the law with regard to espionage which had hitherto been confused and defective, was put on a clear basis and extended so as to embrace every possible mode of obtaining and conveying to the enemy information which might be useful in war.

"The Special Intelligence Department, supported by all the means which could be placed at its disposal by the Home Secretary was able, in three years, from 1911 to 1914, to discover the ramifications of the German Secret Service in England. In spite of enormous efforts and lavish expenditure of money by the enemy, little valuable information passed into their hands."

In other words, for many years Great Britain has been honeycombed by German espionage, so much so that it was necessary

to introduce special legislation to deal with this danger. Mr. Churchill has lifted a corner of the veil in a speech at Liverpool on September 21, when he stated:

"The late Lord Salisbury was forced to the conclusion that it was impossible to maintain a foreign policy based upon association with Germany. Germany began the building of a great Navy for our undoing. He was glad to be able to tell his audience what he thought about it now. (Laughter and cheers.) Every detail of the German scheme proved that it was meant for us— for our exclusive benefit. (Laughter.) There was the Agadir crisis. The war would have happened then if the Chancellor of the Exchequer had not gone to the Mansion House and made a speech, but they thought they would wait a little longer. I became responsible for this great department of the Navy and I have had to see every day evidence of the espionage system which Germany maintained in this country. I have had the evidence put under my eye month after month of the agents whom they have maintained year after year here in great numbers. These men have exported all the details of our naval organisation that they could get by bribery and subornation. We have been the subjects of a careful and deliberate and scientific military reconnaissance. Well, they know all about us. If they like to come they know the way.'

As ex hypothesi Germany was a very friendly Power whose illustrious Sovereign was the principal pillar of European peace and the passionate admirer and lover of this country, whom he had loaded with friendly and affectionate assurances so much so that it was iniquitous to regard him as "the hostile head of a hostile State "-as he was habitually described in the National Review-what was the meaning of this vast expenditure on spies in the British Isles, as by no possibility could the information be of the smallest value to Potsdam? Was Lord Haldane aware of the operations of his German friends? The notion that Germany contemplated hostile operations in this country was voted as ridiculous as to imagine that she would send an Expeditionary Force to Mars.

Quite so. That was the comfortable belief of the average Radical, and as this is no party question one is bound to add that a large number of Unionists and conspicuous Unionist

journals in London and the provinces were in the same fool's paradise. But we now know that Cabinet Ministers knew better. That the Home Secretary, for instance, had long been aware of the sinister activity of German agents in this country, which indicated that the Mailed Fist meant mischief. The Admiralty had no illusions on the subject. What of the War Office? Germany, we may be told, makes a practice of wasting such an enormous amount of money and energy on espionage everywhere, that one should not overrate its importance or infer that because there is a network of spies in, say, Scotland that she therefore contemplates attacking Scotland. At the same time, as a fairly thrifty Power who does not throw her money into the sea and expects some return on investments, if she spends freely on any object we may be sure that it is a matter of policy. It is unnecessary however to labour the question of her intentions. because it is no longer open to his Majesty's Ministers to plead innocence or ignorance since Mr. Asquith spoke at Cardiff on October 2 and made yet another revelation concerning AngloGerman relations which renders his own conduct and that of his colleagues less defensible than ever. It appears that two years ago the German Government officially intimated to our Government, as plainly as words can intimate anything, that she was an aggressive Power awaiting the favourable moment for aggression. The Prime Minister shall tell his own story, which will prompt many people to ask, "What return do we poor taxpayers get for the £5000 we annually pay Cabinet Ministers if they have no obligation to safeguard our interests?"

The Balliol cynic at the head of the Government nowadays speaks as one who has never suffered from any illusions about Germany, such for example as obsessed his intimate friend Lord Haldane, the intimate friend and evil genius of Sir Edward Grey, and via Lord Haldane infected almost the entire Cabinet. Mr. Asquith has not yet reached the picturesque levels of Mr. Churchill, who regards the Germans as rats "a subject on which he is doubtless expert-or of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Lloyd George, in whose mind Prussian Junkers now happily fill the vacancy once occupied by British Dukes-they are Road-Hogs of Europe." Nevertheless, the Premier's denunciation of the enemy is both eloquent and adequate, though in his

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"the