British Secret Service During the Great War Part 31

The New York _Journal of Commerce_, quoting statistics of the U.S.A.

export trade for the first ten months of 1915 under a headline, "Increase to Neutral Europe Equals German Loss," shows that "whilst shipments to Germany fell away 31,400,000 for the period named, the gain to the neutral nations on the north of Germany was 32,000,000."

What could give more confirmatory proof?

On January 24th, 1916, the _Morning Post_ received a further cablegram from Washington, U.S.A., containing the elucidating facts that in the ten months from January 1st to October 31st, 1913, Germany imported from the U.S.A. 9,898,289 lbs. of cotton-seed oil, the Netherlands 31,867,327 lbs., and Norway 6,174,033 lbs.

In the corresponding ten months of 1915 the figures were: Germany, nil; the Netherlands, 93,153,175 lbs.; and Norway 24,110,269 lbs.

Other statistics follow, such as cotton-seed, meal and cake, etc., proving beyond all shadow of doubt that neutral countries were importing far more goods and foodstuffs, etc, than their usual average imports plus the total previous imports of Germany in addition.

A careful a.n.a.lysis of the leading American exports showed, almost without an exception, the striking fact that the prices of peace exports were very much lower in 1915 than in 1913; whilst the prices of war exports all showed large and heavy advances.

Deducing from these figures, leader-writers came to the obvious conclusion that _Germany was enjoying unrestricted imports for which Great Britain directly or indirectly paid_.

Returns from other parts of the world merely corroborated, adding proof upon proof. By way of example the Brazilian official trade returns during the first nine months of 1913, compared with 1915, show the following exports to the countries named:

1913. 1915.

Sweden 389,475 2,844,787 Norway 63,562 594,900 Denmark 105,637 715,387

In addition to the export figures given and those quoted from the U.S.A.

should be added the enormous quant.i.ties of corn, etc, re-exported from Liverpool and other British ports under special license issued by our Government.

It is therefore reasonably arguable that _our Government has used our Fleet to convoy our Merchantmen in freighting foodstuffs, at our expense, to feed the Germans_. By this incomprehensible tolerance home prices of food in the United Kingdom were directly raised to a high figure and neutral countries were directly helped to pile up fortunes by _bleeding and pinching our own peoples in order to feed their enemies_.

On January 21st, 1916, in the House of Commons Major Rowland Hunt asked the Foreign Secretary "whether the Foreign Office had been aware of the state of things demonstrated by the American trade statistics and if so could he say how much longer our Navy was to be crippled by the Foreign Office, the war prolonged, and many more thousands of our men sacrificed?"

Sir E. Grey: "I understand that the subject is to be discussed next week. I must, however, say that the statements in the question are grossly unfair and entirely misrepresent the facts of the case. I reserve any further statement I have to make until next week."

From December 16th to 30th, 1915, just on 25,000 tons of iron ore were openly _consigned to Germany_ through Rotterdam and Holland; as to which see further on.

Here is a sample report of the sales one day at Esbjerg (Denmark) cattle market, December, 1915:

"Cattle sold to-day numbered 1,450 head, of which Street, of Hamburg, bought 141; Dar Neilsen, of Kiel, 330; Franck of Berlin, 440; an Austrian buyer, 327."

This leaves 212 for Danish buyers. No wonder best beef was then half a crown a pound in Denmark!

Incidentally great quant.i.ties of the fodder with which these cattle for Germany are fed come from British ports and possessions.

Our Government was fully, persistently, and impressively advised by the Secret Service agents of this continual and enormous export of cattle and beef direct to Germany in January and February, 1915. Yet it apparently did not lift a finger to attempt to stop or divert it throughout the year following, or at any time.

Sweden, which normally imports 734,720 lbs. of meat in November and exports 2,961,280 lbs., imported during November, 1915, 8,016,960 lbs.

Holland, which usually imports in November 1,843,520 lbs. of meat and exports 11,874,240 lbs., imported in November, 1915, no less than 17,973,760 lbs.

In the light of these figures it seems idle to say that our blockade was tightened or in any degree effectual.

In the House of Commons on January 19th, 1916, Mr. Booth put the following question to Lord Robert Cecil in reference to these exports.

Mr. Booth: "Is the n.o.ble Lord aware that the Germans in New York toasted the health of the Foreign Office at Christmas time?"

No answer was returned.

On January 26th, 1916, Sir Edward Grey delivered his promised reply in the House of Commons. It was brilliant oratory, but it was not argument.

It was a defence of the Navy, which needed no defence. It was a masterpiece of forensic jurisprudence, but it revealed between the c.h.i.n.ks of polished sentences and high-sounding declamation, in startling nakedness, the weaknesses, the unwarrantable hesitating caution, or the downright cowardice of the Cabinet. With such grace and skill did the speaker unfold his case that a reader, unaware of the facts concealed behind it, would believe the policy and actions of the Government had been hitherto faultless, flawless, and blameless. Reading it at a later date brought to my mind the story of a poacher's wife, who with tears of grateful joy streaming down her countenance, thanked a learned junior counsel for his able and successful defence of her husband, who had been charged with stealing a certain shot-gun.

"My good woman," replied her modest advocate, "it was only a mistake.

The judge truly said that your good husband left the Court without a stain upon his character. It was only _alleged_ that he stole the gun."

"Alleged be bothered," said the woman; "why, we've got the gun at home now!"

If this speech of Sir Edward Grey, as a speech, had a fault at all, it was that the defence he made was too good to ring true. At the time of its utterance it appeared to appease the House. No one wished to hamper the Government, which, like the energetic but painfully inefficient pianist at a certain Western mining camp, was protected by proclamation: "Please don't shoot. He's doing his best." But outside the House the underlying effect of the speech upon thinking people was very different.

It created satisfaction in Germany and amongst neutral Governments. It caused great jubilation amongst the vast army of mushroom traders and adventurers abroad who were piling up fortunes by illicit trading. But it left Englishmen and our true sympathisers in this tragic war irritable, indignant, and unsatisfied; smouldering in their just wrath at the confessed weak-kneed policy of politicians, who, however good their intentions, proved that they had not yet grasped the difference between a quarrel at law and a quarrel at war.

It left the nation disappointed. The people felt we had been fooling with the war too long; that the time had arrived for some strong and decisive action. That politics and patronage should be shelved and the Navy given a free hand. It remembered how the Government had hesitated, procrastinated, and vacillated in this so-called blockade, as in other matters. It remembered that Parliament had refused to pa.s.s a code of international rules called the Declaration of London because that code, made largely to please Germany, weakened the hands of the Navy. It remembered that _the Government had gone behind the back of Parliament and illegally put that very code into operation after war began_. It had not forgotten that this proved such a scandalous weakening of our right and our strength that soon after the Coalition Government came into being that code was said to have been sc.r.a.pped. Even as to this doubts arose for long afterwards.[21]

It had not forgotten the seventeen long months of public pressure and the trouble there had been to force cotton as contraband; nor the seventeen months of "wait and see" before the Navy was permitted to examine mails and extract (_inter alia_) parcels of rubber. It had not forgotten Sir Edward Grey's declaration that "he had no intention of making cotton contraband"; nor Lord Haldane's contention that "it was useless stopping the import of cotton to Germany, because if we did Germany could find a subst.i.tute for it."

The nation had been deceived and lulled to sleep before by soft words and gentle a.s.surances. It had been told, "we decline to be bound by judicial niceties." It had been promised "to prevent commodities of any kind from entering or leaving the enemy's country"; "to stick at nothing." It remembered with some misgiving how these promises had been kept.[22]

What, it reasoned, were the disappointments of a few Dutch and Scandinavian adventurers from making fortunes out of a war which to ourselves was a tragedy? The country had unbounded confidence in the Navy. It had not unbounded confidence in either the Government or the Foreign Office. It hungered with an overwhelming desire to know why the Navy should not be given a free and unhampered hand.

The speaker skilfully evaded too much information on that point, and the nation was compelled to nurse its resentment.

At the outset of his speech, Sir Edward Grey attempted to deal with the ma.s.s of statistics and evidence of direct importation of goods into Germany acc.u.mulated by the Press. He selected wheat and flour only, whilst he casually referred to a list of figures issued by the Press Bureau from the War Trade Department of the Government the day before the debate, which members in the House rightly complained had not been supplied to themselves. This list was stated to have been compiled officially in this country from true copies of the ships' manifests, and it alleged the figures given by the Danish _Borsen_ were in many cases wrong and unduly inflated. For instance, the increase in rice imports should have been only 480 per cent. as against 580 per cent.; lard, 275 per cent. instead of 375 per cent.; pork only 1,216 per cent.

instead of 1,300 per cent.; and so on. Now everyone knows that statistics are not infallible and a generous allowance should always be made by a careful calculator. But when all circ.u.mstances are taken into consideration it can safely be concluded that the majority of the increases alleged by the various Press writers, as having percolated into Germany, were, if anything, under rather than over the mark.

As to the reliability of the _Borsen_, it is edited by a Government statistician, and considered by Danish traders as official.

So far as Norway is concerned, H.B.M. Minister at Christiania had difficulty in obtaining official statistics regarding imports and exports after the Cas.e.m.e.nt affair remained unanswered; certain it is that Government a.s.sistance was denied to various Consuls acting under him; whilst I, when in that country, was informed (by British authorities) I must not collect these figures, although to me and others working with me they were comparatively easy of access.

So far as Foreign Office knowledge is concerned, it is hardly a credit to the ability or even sanity of the British Legations in Scandinavia if they have denied knowledge of these colossal imports of goods into Germany, which were known to almost every inhabitant of seaport towns.

If they deliberately shut their eyes to the evidence all around them, they presumably obeyed orders. One could then only wonder as to the reason for such suicidal policy.

As before mentioned, at the commencement of his speech Sir Edward Grey laid stress upon the fact that part of the stated increased import, namely, 2,000,000 barrels of flour were allowed to be exported to Belgium; whilst a little later in his speech he admitted that "She [Germany] had requisitioned the food supplies of the civil population of Poland and Belgium." Almost immediately afterwards Lord Robert Cecil strove hard to back up the Secretary for Foreign Affairs, but he could not give the House any positive a.s.surance that the Belgian Relief distribution was absolutely independent of German control. The disposition of this is therefore obvious.

Sir Edward Grey attempted to whittle down the U.S.A. exports of wheat by stating that nearly half went to Spain, Portugal, Greece, and Malta; but he did not refer to the corn, etc., exported to Northern neutrals from Liverpool and other British ports, nor did he make any allowances for the stream of mysterious ships sailing round far northern seas (many of them choosing the pa.s.sage north of Iceland), which sighted land on the north-western coast of Norway and carried their course inside neutral waters into the Baltic; which heavily-laden cargo-boats I and others in the Secret Service had watched and reported week by week and month by month with heart-rending persistency. The majority of these ships probably sailed direct to German ports, and no records of their cargoes were likely to be made, or returned from any country concerning them.

Nor did Sir Edward Grey make reference to the grain ships, which although nominally bound for Scandinavian ports, were intercepted by their owners' or consignees' agents in the Baltic, for the purpose of varying orders for their ultimate port of destination; nor to the ships which were held up in the Baltic by German war vessels and taken to German ports under circ.u.mstances calling for grave investigation. Nor did he attempt to answer the general American statistics showing that the gain in imports to northern neutral countries exceeded the German loss.

About the middle of his speech Sir Edward Grey said: "If a vessel was held up by the Fleet with suspected cargo on board, the matter was referred to the contraband committee, who decided what _part_ of the cargo should go to the Prize Court."

Surely any other nation in the world at war would have arranged from the outset that the capture of a vessel _with contraband_ on board _en route for the enemy_, would have meant _confiscation_ of the ship and her cargo. Our exceptional and extraordinary leniency was hardly commented upon; it was certainly not satisfactorily explained.

Continuing to quote from the speech: _He would_ say to neutrals that we could not give up the right to interfere with enemy trade and must maintain and press that point. _He would_ ask those countries in considering our rights to apply the principles which were applied by the American Government in the war between the North and South as affected by modern conditions. _If they agreed_ to it, then let them with their Chambers of Commerce and other bodies make it easier for us to distinguish between goods intended for the enemy and goods intended for themselves. _If those_ neutral countries said that we were not ent.i.tled to prevent trading through, neutral countries with the enemy, _then he_ (Sir E. Grey) _must say_ to the neutral countries who took that line that it was a departure from neutrality. (Cheers.) But he did not think they would take that line.

What naturally strikes the reader on perusal is this: why not the words, "I had said" and "I have asked" instead of "he would say" and "he would ask" which Sir Edward Grey used in his speech? Why wait eighteen months to arrive at such a decision? Why were not these words used as soon as war was declared? Flagrant breaches arose, as Sir Edward Grey should or must have known, and continued to increase in magnitude from the autumn of 1914. Why he waited until the then date, and why he had not acted before, was not explained. In the next few grandiloquent sentences he admitted the justification and the necessity; whilst the House cheered the words, forgetting past neglected deeds.