The Way to Win Part 6

There is, it is true, one aspect of the case which is to some extent favourable to Germany. A great portion of her war debt--in fact, practically the whole of it--is held at home, and it is quite possible that at the end of the War the people who have entrusted her with their savings will find themselves told that they will have to wait indefinitely for their money. Repudiation on this scale would perhaps enable Germany to keep herself right with the rest of the world and avoid actual default in the international sense. But the effect on her own people would be appalling! Now it is a very remarkable fact that though the German Government has carefully kept from the ma.s.s of the people any real knowledge of the facts of the situation as we know it exists, it has during the past few months been allowing certain newspapers to warn the public in guarded terms of what is coming. The _Berliner Post_ states openly that the situation is "terrifying." That is a good deal of an admission for a people who a few months ago were setting out, as they themselves said, on a conquest of the world, and were going to extort the cost from their beaten enemies. Warning the German people that they must be prepared for very bad times, the _Post_ goes on to say:

Even the highest war indemnity that is thinkable cannot preserve us from a stupendous addition to the Imperial Budget for 1916-17.

Without war damages we shall have to reckon upon an increase in the yearly taxation of at least four milliards of marks. From a technical point of view alone such amount cannot be procured immediately by taxation. From the political point of view it would be a great mistake if the population was not gradually acquainted with the situation, which, looked upon as a whole, has something terrifying about it.

Only by slowly being made accustomed to it can the situation become softened for the people. Probably the State Secretary for Finance, when he introduces his proposals for the new taxation, will give as near as possible a review of what the annual deficit will be. German people will only then be able to understand what wounds the War has made and what great measures will be necessary for years to come to heal them. At present the greatest part of the people probably has no idea of the situation.

It is perhaps permissible to ask, in view of this outburst, what the German people, deluded and hoodwinked for so long, are likely to say when the full facts break upon their minds. It will be noted that the _Berliner Post_ deals with the financial situation apart from the war expenses, and finds very little comfort in it. The German people will find still less to be exultant about when the whole truth appears, as sooner or later it must, for it cannot be hidden much longer. Up to the present Germany has imposed practically no new taxes; they will be on a crushing scale when the German people have to set themselves to pay the damages involved in the conflagration which they so wantonly provoked.

But, doubters will ask, are we in any better case? I will quote in answer Sir George Paish, one of our leading financial authorities. "We may confidently expect," he recently declared, "that the nation after the War will have as much capital for investment as before the War."

In twelve months of war Great Britain has been able to buy and to pay for nearly 900 million pounds of Colonial and foreign produce and goods for home consumption and for war purposes. In addition she has found something like 350 million pounds of money for her Allies, Colonies, and customers. She has met her own war expenses, amounting to 1,000 million pounds, exclusive of the 350 million pounds supplied to her Allies and Colonies for war purposes. This great amount of money has been found with surprising ease. But it is during the current year that we shall feel the severest strain. We have to maintain upon the seas a Fleet even more powerful than that of last year, to provide our Allies, Colonies, and friends with at least 400 million pounds in loans, and to support in the field forces numbering nearly four million men, which will cost anything up to 2,000 million pounds. And in spite of these gigantic liabilities we find to-day that British credit stands practically unimpaired, while that of Germany is rapidly falling, and may soon vanish altogether. If the War has done nothing else, it has given the world such an example of financial stability as has never been seen.

It is the deliberate opinion of Sir George Paish that our position after the War will be just about where we stood at the beginning. We shall have sold a great many of our foreign securities, but, on the other hand, we shall have bought others from our Allies, customers, and Colonies, and, on balance, neither our home nor our foreign wealth will have been appreciably reduced. What we shall have lost will be our new savings. This loss amounts already to about 600 million pounds; if the War lasts another year it will have reached 1,000 million pounds in comparison with what our wealth would have been but for the War.

Of course, we shall have created a great debt. Already our debt, including the pre-war debt, is about 2,200 million pounds, and the debt charge and current Government expenses are about 300 million pounds.

But it must be remembered that some 100 million pounds of this is interest which accrues to British investors, and that a large part of this interest will still be available for new capital purposes. Our losses in men will be grievous. But it must be recalled that one lesson of the War is that the whole nation is learning to work harder and more efficiently and that, in consequence, it is very doubtful whether our productive capacity has been seriously, if at all, reduced. When our men return from the War we shall have an enormous supply of labour available, and for the full employment of that labour we shall be able to find the capital. Will Germany be in anything like so favourable a position?

The bold and courageous policy of Mr McKenna in grappling adequately with the problem of finance has secured the emphatic approval of the entire nation. New burdens have been cheerfully shouldered; the country has shown unmistakably that it is prepared to make any sacrifices to win the War, and we have seen the income-tax doubled with far less protest than would have been aroused by the addition of a penny a few years ago.

The nation has set itself to meet the cost of the War in the only possible way, by reducing all unnecessary expenditure, public and private, and devoting itself to the maintenance of our essential services, anxious only that so long as efficiency is secured money shall not be spared. We have boldly faced the enormous additional taxation rendered necessary by the gigantic war expenditure, and therein we have a tremendous advantage over Germany, who is only now beginning to consider the new taxes that will be required, and does not seem particularly gratified by the prospect with which she finds herself faced. Ominous mutterings of the coming storm are already to be heard, and when that storm breaks not even the iron discipline with which the Prussians have dragooned the entire German people will suffice to protect them from the wrath of those whom they have so grossly deceived.

I do not know whether the German Government will dare to attempt to impose anything like the taxation which would be necessary to make provision for the war debt, but I am at least certain that as matters stand in Germany to-day the people have neither the will nor the ability to find the money. They have been fed with lying a.s.surances that the money is to be found by someone else, and their rage and disappointment when they find out how they have been deceived will, beyond doubt, lead to consequences little foreseen by the light-hearted blunderers who set half the world in flames eighteen months ago.

I do not think that either now or in the future we need fear any comparison between the financial position of Britain and of her enemy.

We are, and always have been, a far wealthier nation than the Germans; our credit is good, while Germany's is tottering to complete collapse; our resources in capital are as yet not seriously touched; our trade, even though its volume be diminished by the withdrawal of men for the Army and for munition making, still goes on as far as we can carry it.

The real financial strength of the British Empire has as yet not been fully marshalled for the fray, and should the day ever come when money must be found beyond the resources of ordinary taxation there are vast reservoirs of strength which will yield supplies in abundance. For we are in this War to win--let there be no mistake about that--and to gain a complete and lasting victory there is no sacrifice that our people, properly instructed, will refuse to make. "To the last man and the last shilling" if necessary must be our motto. Our people ask only for a definite and a strong lead; if they get that, we need have no fear of the outcome of the greatest struggle we have ever been called upon to wage.

CHAPTER EIGHT.

THE INVISIBLE HAND.

I may fairly claim to have taken perhaps a leading part in bringing home to the people of this country a realisation of the perils to which our foolish good nature has exposed us in the matter of the spy danger.

Though I am quite willing to admit that much has been done by our excelled Intelligence Department in putting a check upon the activities of the German spies since the War began, I cannot but confess that I look upon the continued presence in this country of some 22,000 German and Austrian enemies, allowed for the most part to go freely about their business, whatever it may be, with unmixed alarm.

I raised my voice against the presence of spies among us before the War, and since. Indeed, since the outbreak of hostilities I have addressed over a hundred audiences upon this very vital aspect of the War.

Before the crisis--as long ago as 1906--I wrote and spoke of German spies; but for my pains I was jeered at by the public, laughed at by officialdom, and boycotted by a section of what is to-day known as the "Hush-a-bye Press." Many times I sat with Lord Roberts, both of us in a state of despondency. He had tried to do his best to awaken Britain and point out the pitfall ahead, and I had, in my own modest way, endeavoured to a.s.sist him. But it was all to no purpose; and when I wrote the forecast, _The Invasion_, to which Lord Roberts wrote a striking preface, people busy with their money-making and under the hypnotism of the Hun, declared that the great Field Marshal was "old,"

and that I was a mere "alarmist."

In this War, united as we are to-day in the common cause, we have buried the past. The future alone--the way to win the War--concerns us.

We know quite well, and the facts have been admitted since the War began, that in times of peace not only our own country, but practically every country in the world, was overrun with a horde of Germans who, though ostensibly in business on their own account, were, in fact, secret agents for that department known as "Number 70, Berlin." No nation has ever carried espionage to such lengths as it has been carried by the Germans, perhaps because there is no nation capable of so shamelessly abusing the hospitality of others and so flagrantly returning evil for good. I have no doubt whatever that the laxity shown not only by ourselves, but by other nations to Germans in times of peace, has been a matter for unmixed amus.e.m.e.nt in the secret councils of the Kaiser at Potsdam. To live in apparent peace and friendship for the express purpose of betraying is a Judas-like achievement in which no nation but the barbaric Teuton could take a pride, and there is ample evidence that before the War this was one of the favourite methods by which the German abroad served the interests of the Fatherland. This I have pointed out for years.

It cannot, alas, be pretended that, even since the War began, we have taken anything like adequate steps to protect ourselves against this grave national peril. Upon the outbreak of the War Germany took steps at once to intern or expel every enemy alien, and thus to put them out of the way of doing any injury. We cannot and do not complain of this; the complaints that have been made against the German proceedings were on the ground that the people interned were treated more like beasts than human beings. The mere fact of expulsion or internment was a matter of ordinary prudence, and the Germans were unquestionably right in taking no chances in the matter of espionage. Their action was only another instance of the thoroughness with which they had prepared for war, for there is no doubt that the steps taken were resolved upon long before war broke out; they could not otherwise have been taken with such promptness and on so great a scale.

Have we been as prudent? What was our action? Of the facts with regard to German spies in England the Government had been fully warned long before the War, and there was and is no excuse for any shilly-shallying with the subject. Yet for a long period hardly any action was taken to prevent the continued existence of a great danger, and it was only when the population became dangerously excited after the sinking of the "Lusitania" that internment was taken in hand with anything like vigour.

And even this promise of Mr McKenna's has not been maintained, for we are now informed officially that there are still some 22,000 Germans and Austrians uninterned! Can it be said that these people do not const.i.tute a very grave and a very real danger?

I am quite willing to admit that a proportion of them are perfectly respectable, honest folk who have no sympathy, it may be, with the cause of Germany, and who would not do anything to harm the country of their adoption. There are undoubtedly even Germans who are not devoid of all decent feeling. But there can be little question that a great many of them are of quite another way of thinking, and would be only too willing to commit outrage, wreck trains, blow up factories, destroy munition works, and stab us in the back if the opportunity offered itself.

Some months after the War broke out Mr McKenna, who was then Home Secretary, published a long report in which he dealt with the steps that had been taken to break up the German spy system in England. Possibly the then existing spy organisation was very badly crippled--perhaps for a time it was even destroyed. But the Germans are a pertinacious people; they have since had time to reorganise and perfect their plans, and I have no doubt they have done so. That we have interfered with them is unquestionable, and thanks to the increasingly stringent pa.s.sport system--adopted shortly after it was advocated in my book _German Spies in England_--the German agents no doubt find it increasingly difficult to come and go undetected. It has, however, to be recognised that no pa.s.sport system can keep these gentry out altogether; we know that even in France the German agents, whether actually Germans by birth or not, are very active. We know, too, that they are active here; we have caught and shot no fewer than ten of them up to the time of writing. But will it be pretended that we have caught them all? It is much more likely that many of them are still at large among us, and still active, though their opportunities for mischief have been very drastically restricted by the admittedly splendid work of our Naval and Military Intelligence Departments.

Now I think it will be admitted that the purpose of internment is not punitive, but preventive. We do not want to visit the misdeeds of Germany upon those Germans who are helpless in our midst; we do not want to inflict any unnecessary hardships on those who are not in a position to defend themselves, and who, whatever their nationality, cannot be held responsible for the b.e.s.t.i.a.lity which has made the name "German"

accursed for ever among civilised nations. But we do want, and I maintain that we are ent.i.tled, to protect ourselves against those who, living here unmolested, are eager to return only evil for good. If in the course of protecting ourselves we inflict some hardships on those who do not deserve them, we can feel regret, but we cannot blame ourselves. The fault lies not with us, but with those who plotted and arranged for war on an unexampled scale, and whose proceedings before and after war broke out were of a kind which put them completely out of court if they plead for any kind of consideration.

Without hesitation I say that it would be practically impossible for a German spy to do any effective work here if he were not aided and abetted by Germans resident in England. To be of any real value a spy must have been trained as such, and he must have a base from which to work; he must have a shelter in which he will be practically free from suspicion; he must have messengers and go-betweens who can move about freely without attracting undue attention. And it is quite certain that no German spy coming to England can obtain all these things except with the active help of Germans already domiciled here--naturalised Germans who are enjoying absolute freedom.

More than one German prisoner has escaped from our internment camps under circ.u.mstances which suggest very strongly that he has received help from people outside. That those people were British I refuse to believe. The inference is that they were Germans, and the conclusion is that all such people ought either to be interned or bundled, bag and baggage, out of the country. There is no safety in any middle course.

It is for these reasons that I do urge very strongly that the Government shall at once take steps to see that all enemy aliens shall either be expelled or interned. I am convinced that our apathy in this direction, though it springs from feelings which are in every way creditable to our hearts, if not to our brains, is exposing us to dangers which, in these critical days, we should not be called upon to face.

The activity of German spies in England at the present moment needs no demonstrating. The Government has admitted it by the drastic steps they have taken to deal with the peril. But every nation spies during war-time, whatever they may do in peace, and I am certainly not going to blame the Government because German agents are able to come over here and send home information which may be of value to their country.

Probably it would not be possible for the Government to stop them coming, and our Intelligence Department is ent.i.tled to congratulations upon the excellent work that has been done in detecting them. When the full story of their activities is told--if it ever is--it will be found how we have very often met and beaten the Hun at a game which he has been apt to consider as peculiarly his own. At the same time I do not think we have done all that we could and should have done, and the readiest way of helping on the good work would be to remorselessly intern or expel all enemy aliens, no matter what their status may be.

I am convinced that we should thus deal a formidable blow at the activities of the spies who visit our sh.o.r.es from time to time. They would be deprived at a stroke of their best protectors, and they would be exposed to a very greatly increased risk of detection. I admit that it would be very regrettable if some thousands of innocent Germans and Austrians, who, it may be, have a genuine admiration for England, and many of whom have sons serving in our Army, were thus inconvenienced.

But the plain fact is that we cannot afford to take a single unnecessary risk, and whatever may be the inconvenience to the individual the safety of the State must be the first consideration.

It has been shown over and over again, both here and in other countries, that naturalisation is one of the favourite devices of the spy. It protects him by rendering him less likely to suspicion, and enables him to move about freely in places where the non-naturalised alien would have no chance of going. It has been proved during the present War that German troops have been led by men who had actually lived for many years in the district, and had come to be looked upon almost as natives.

Naturally they made exceedingly efficient guides. Yet under cover of naturalisation they had been able for years to carry on active espionage work.

Then we also have the Invisible Hand. From August, 1914, to the present day a mysterious, silent, intelligent, Anglo-phobic mailed fist has been steadily at work for our discomfiture. Evidence of the existence of the Invisible Hand lies broadcast. As far as I know, however, only one person has publicly referred to it--the brilliant and well-informed writer who chooses to be known as "Vanoc," of the _Referee_.

He has pointed out that no effort has been made to locate, to destroy, or to intern the owner of the Invisible Hand. Yet we have seen its deadly finger-prints in many departments and in many parts of England, Scotland, and Wales. We recognise them and their ident.i.ty with those of our enemies.

"Vanoc" wrote on February 20, 1916, the following words, which should be carefully weighed in all their full meaning:

Ships with steam up waiting for weeks at a time in the Channel, for want of organisation, have cost the taxpayer thousands of pounds for demurrage. The artificial rise in freight is itself an effective blockade of England. That blockade is the work of the Invisible Hand.

Civilian doctors are overworked, while many doctors in Government service are hard put to it to find work until midday. Of all the events that have happened since the beginning of the War, the refusal of the late Ministry to hold a court-martial on the loss of the "Formidable" is probably the most dramatic and the most effective demonstration of the power of the Invisible Hand. I am not free to tell the true story. When it is told it will be found that the Invisible Hand was hard at work during the Irish troubles and in the Curragh Camp affair before the outbreak of war.

Captain Loxley and his faithful dog friend were drowned from the bridge of a ship handed over to the enemy by the Invisible Hand. The loss of Sir Christopher Craddock's squadron was the work of the Invisible Hand. Influencing honest Britons to organise the destruction of one of their cruiser squadrons, the deed was easily done. Lord Fisher of Kilverstone has never consciously been under the control of the Invisible Hand, but in his work at the Hague Conference he and Sir Charles Otley, both most honourable and n.o.ble-minded English gentlemen, were the unconscious instruments of the Invisible Hand.

The bogey of the neutral Powers is a fiction concocted in the damp, sinister palm of the Invisible Hand. At the meeting at Cannon Street Hotel on February 14, 1916, Lord Devonport made it clear to London men of business that an occult force is at work able to use the resources of the British Empire to feed, arm, succour, and strengthen Germany.

The writer went on to point out that of all the triumphs of the Invisible Hand there was none greater than its successful manipulation of events which led to the escape of the "Goeben" and the "Breslau"; to the war with Turkey; to the death or disablement of 206,000 men of our race in the Gallipoli Peninsula; and in conclusion he wrote:

The finger-prints of the Invisible Hand show that it has a sense of humour. We have not only been steadily checked or defeated on land for eighteen months, but we have been contemptuously checked or defeated. When the last troops left Gallipoli an aeroplane hovered over the farewell scene. A paper was dropped on which was inscribed, "We don't want to lose you, but we think you ought to go." Between the Scylla of silly optimism and the Charybdis of ignorant pessimism there is a narrow strait. To steer our course we must take the Invisible Hand off the helm. We can win this War, but no longer can we win it easily. That feat is possible only if the Fleet is unshackled and the methods that are so successful at sea are applied to the administration of the land. The appointment of Mr Joseph Pease--a Quaker and a president of the Peace Society--to the Ministry at the present time is a piece of work upon which the Invisible Hand is to be warmly congratulated.

If we are to win the War, the ident.i.ty of this Invisible Hand must be exposed and its sinister influence defeated. We have seen it at work in a hundred devious ways--the protection of the enemy alien, the amazing leniency shown towards spies, the splendid efforts of one department strangled by the red tape of another, the protection of German-owned property and funds, the provision of delights at Donington Hall and other Hun hostels; indeed, the whole of the "Don't-hurt-the-poor-German"

policy which has been the amazement of ourselves and neutrals alike.

It was this Invisible Hand which destroyed the splendid Dominion Parliament House at Ottawa. Indeed, the Invisible Hand has been responsible for no fewer than fifty-eight incendiary fires in factories engaged in war work in the United States; and by its sinister direction large quant.i.ties of our merchant shipping, with pa.s.sengers and crews, have been sent to its doom. It was the fatal Invisible Hand which blew up the great explosive factory in Havre; the Invisible Hand which suborned the despicable fellow Lincoln, ex-M.P., to become a traitor and endeavour to lead our Grand Fleet into a cunningly-prepared trap laid for it by the "Navy of the Kiel Ca.n.a.l." Therefore one wonders what may be the next blow dealt against us by this mysterious unknown influence, which seems to be the hand of Satan set upon us.

Is it, indeed, the Invisible Hand which to-day refuses to allow some of our Government Departments to be cleansed of the Teuton taint?

Let us take off the gloves and fight this treacherous, unscrupulous, and untrustworthy foe with a firm and heavy fist. We must coddle the Hun no longer. In the past the Home Department has been far too lenient towards the enemy in our midst; and though there are signs of improvement, yet much more remains to be done.

In these days of the Zeppelin menace and daylight raids by Black Cross aeroplanes there is a distinct and ever-present peril in allowing so many enemy aliens to be at large. Further, it is hardly rea.s.suring to Englishmen that, while they are going forward to train and to fight, their places in business and elsewhere may be taken by enemy aliens who have been officially exempted from internment.

The last published official figures given in the House of Commons by the Home Department show that no fewer than 7,233 enemy aliens have been exempted. In the London area alone there were still at large 9,355 male enemy aliens and 8,207 female enemy aliens, while 471 male enemy aliens were still allowed to reside and wander in prohibited areas.