The Way to Win

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 bestiality which has made the name “German” accursed for ever among civilised nations. But we do want, and I maintain that we are entitled, 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 circumstances 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 entitled 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 shores 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 identity 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 noble-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 identity 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 quantities of our merchant shipping, with passengers 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 Canal.” 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 reassuring 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.

I maintain that if we mean to win – and we do – this state of things must cease. I have raised my voice against it on many occasions. And because I have dared to do so I have received many threats and warnings of an untimely end from these uninterned gentry who are allowed to go and come about London and other large cities, eager and ready to assist the enemy should a raid either by air or land be attempted upon us.

Already we have seen what spies have accomplished in America, and how widespread is all their plots. The recent proceedings in the New York Courts and the official publication of the correspondence found upon the spies Von Papen and Boy-Ed is still fresh in the memory of readers.

Not only in America, in Canada, and in South Africa – where maps were found ready printed showing that colony as a German colony! – but also in Australia, there has lately been revealed the subtle influence of this same Invisible Hand.

The Melbourne Age, one of the most responsible journals in Australia, published a long exposure of the whole series of plots in its issues in the first week of January, 1916.

In one, under the heading “Treachery in Excelsis,” it said:

We come now to Germany’s supreme act of treachery in our regard. It will be recollected that just prior to the War Australia was visited by the British Association for the Advancement of Science for the purpose of holding here its annual international conference. Our visitors and guests comprised the most eminent men of science from all countries in the world. Germany sent four of her most distinguished professors, viz, Dr Albert Penck, Dr E. Goldstein, Dr Graebner, and Dr Pringsheim. These learned gentlemen still lingered in the Commonwealth when war was declared. They immediately approached the Federal Government for permission to return to Germany, representing that they were international scientists, and therefore neutrals, and that although by accident of birth German citizens, they belonged to the whole world, and ought not to be detained. The Commonwealth Government assented to this proposition, and merely required the savants to take the oath of neutrality. Dr Eugen Goldstein and Dr Albert Penck promptly took the oath. The former went off to Java; the latter took ship to England.

Dr Graebner and Dr Pringsheim appeared to be more dilatory than their confrères, and raised all sorts of objections. These, however, were overruled by the Australian authorities, and at length they took the oath.

Proceeding, the Age says:

Suspicion fell on them, and their correspondence was intercepted and examined, luckily for us, before they sailed. Their correspondence proved that they were spies, and they were immediately arrested and interned. Dr Eugen Goldstein got clear away. But not so Dr Albert Penck. The last-named professor’s baggage was overhauled during his journey to Europe under cabled instructions from the war authorities. It contained even more complete information concerning Australia’s military preparations and intentions than the correspondence of Graebner and Pringsheim, and it contained in addition most excellent military contour maps of the country surrounding some of our largest capital cities – maps which could have no vestige of use for any purpose than to serve the ends of a German army of invasion. The maps and other information collected by these eminent German scientists were not the work of a day or of a month. They were of a character to prove that Germany had sent the professors to Australia to steal our dearest defence secrets from us, and to repay our hospitality by paving the way for our destruction. The professors, in short, were official German spies. When Dr Penck arrived a prisoner in England he was recognised, moreover, as a German scientist who had in past years led several scientific expeditions to the Isle of Wight, overtly to examine the peculiar geology of the island, but really to spy on Portsmouth, Britain’s most important naval base in the English Channel. It is unlikely that Dr Professor Albert Penck will ever see Germany again. When the above facts are considered, what Australian is there can continue to cherish any doubt as to Germany’s designs upon the Commonwealth?

From every British colony there has come to us the same story of the clever and ingenious plotting by the enemy alien, just as we have at home daily illustrations of him at his evil work.

Our Allies grappled quickly and drastically with the enemy alien at the very outbreak of war. Russia led the way. Within four days of the declaration of war the Tzar signed a ukase ordering the deportation of all German and Austrian women and children, the internment of all Germans and Austrians, both naturalised and unnaturalised, and, further, the sale of all enemy-owned property by public auction!

Thus a clean and entire sweep was made of the plotters and traitors at one blow, and the German spy system ceased to exist in the Russian Empire.

If we desire to avoid a serious set-back, or even, perhaps, serious disaster when the day of the hammer-blow dawns, we must adopt Russia’s example and intern all enemy aliens, both the naturalised and the unnaturalised, irrespective of age or social distinction.

The leopard cannot change his spots, and the born German remains a German to the end of his days. The silly naturalisation farce is far too thin a cloak in these days of our national peril, when we are fighting for our loved ones, our homes, and our honour. I admit that to intern all naturalised Germans would, in many cases, inflict serious discomfort upon many men who have lived with us for years and become to all intents and purposes good Britishers. But in war, and in such a world-war as this, one unfortunately cannot discriminate. Personally I am acquainted with some good naturalised Germans, and I also know some bad and highly suspicious ones.

But surely at this moment, when all factors point to our ultimate victory, we will not allow the Invisible Hand to hold open the gate for the entrance of a barbarous enemy into our land?

The hilarious farce of internment and of exemption a few weeks later must no longer continue. Enemy aliens must no longer be allowed to go on honeymoons, or men go down to conduct their business in the City. Every enemy alien now at large in the United Kingdom must be put again behind stout barbed wire, and Mr McKenna’s promise, extracted by that great demonstration of women under Lady Glanusk at the Mansion House, must be kept to the letter to the country.

My demand is that all should be interned, irrespective of whether they have paid their fees and taken the so-called “oath” or not. Every German who becomes naturalised as an Englishman is a traitor to his country, and we have no room for traitors in this country to-day.

If we are to win we must promptly curb the evil activities of these wandering denizens of Lord Haldane’s “spiritual home,” a sentiment which I express whole-heartedly, and with which I know, from the mass of correspondence daily reaching me, is shared by a very large number of prominent peers, politicians, and citizens.

We must break up the Black Cross of Satan for ever.

Chapter Nine

Compulsory Service Britain’s Master-Stroke

No greater evidence could be forthcoming of the absolute determination of the British people to fight the War to a finish than the adoption, in the teeth of our most cherished prejudices, of the principle of compulsory service. Limited in its action though it may be, so watered down, apparently of set purpose, that only a very tiny fraction of men will or need be affected by it, the passing of the Act into law definitely marks a new departure for Britain, and for the first time ranges her alongside the rest of the nations of Europe in emphasising the principle – as old as law itself – that in times of stress and danger the State has the right to call upon all of its sons to come forward and do personal service in defence of the common weal. That, at least, is a very great step in advance. We can be sure it was noted with pleasure and gratification in France and Russia, and with very much the reverse feelings in Germany.

Of all the numerous problems which the War forced suddenly into prominence, this was by far the most urgent and most important. No one imagined, when the War broke out, that in less than eighteen months we should see a measure dealing with compulsory service on the Statute Book of England. That, however, is only to say that few, if any, people realised what the War was going to be; I am firmly convinced that if the problem had been boldly faced in August, 1914, and the people told plainly what it was they were “up against,” they would no more have hesitated than they did when the time finally came for a decision. I do not think there is the slightest doubt that, in spite of the occasional clamour of the cranks who, like the poor, are always with us, the Act is on the whole secure in the hearty approval of the great mass of the people.

As those who have done me the honour of reading my books will remember, I have been for many years a convinced advocate of the principle of compulsory national service for all. The principle is now adopted in part, and it would serve no good purpose to go again into the arguments for and against it. But there are one or two points to which, even in such a book as this, attention may we usefully drawn. We have to remember that for the first time in our history we have undertaken the responsibility of waging a land war on a national scale. That is to say, we have taken the field with nations whose armies consist literally of the nation in arms.

By hook or by crook we have to maintain our position. Magnificent as has been the response to the call for volunteers, it could not be expected that it would be sufficient under such conditions, partly, of course, because our people were confronted by a set of conditions to which they were absolutely strangers. It was not that there was any real decline in their patriotism – that I do not believe for a moment. Shirkers and slackers, of course, there were and are, as there have always been and will always be in every nation under the sun. But upon the whole the response of the manhood of England to the appeal for recruits was so magnificent that we are justified in regarding it with every feeling of pride. And, convinced as I am of the benefits which national service confers upon the nations which adopt it, I should have been glad from the bottom of my heart if we had been able to carry this War to a successful conclusion on the principles of voluntarism which has served us so long. It would have been a glorious vindication of those very principles of liberty which this country went into the War to uphold.

But, after all, there is no derogation from the liberty of the subject in being called upon to serve the State which protects him and to which he owes the very possibility of existence in peace and comfort. That principle is as old as liberty itself; without it liberty, as we understand it to-day, would never have been won; perhaps civilisation itself would have been centuries farther back. It is an utter misrepresentation to speak as though the conscript, which has been made a word of evil omen by the very journals which a few short years ago were holding up everything German for our admiration, were a much-to-be-pitied individual with no rights and no liberties. Because German drill-sergeants happen to be brutes – as the Germans en masse have proved themselves to be – there is no reason for thinking that we need share their brutality. The experience of France, of Switzerland, of Italy – indeed, of every country except Germany that has adopted the principle of compulsion – does not support the comfortable and lazy theory that brutes are created by the “militarism” which some of our facile writers fail entirely to understand. It is the innate brutality of the Prussian which has produced the horrible results we see springing from German militarism, not the principle of compulsion introduced as a matter of national self-preservation.

We are an insular Power, and as such we have been able in the past to rely almost entirely upon our Fleet for protection against our enemies; our land campaigns of the past, glorious though they have often been, bear little relation to the present struggle, in which the greatest battles of bygone days – battles which have decided the fate of nations – would be dwarfed to mere incidents hardly worth a paragraph in the official report. The campaigns of to-day are being fought not by armies but by nations in arms – a very important distinction. Only a few short years ago, when armies were tiny compared with the vast hosts of to-day, a single battle often decided a war. To-day battles which dwarf the greatest struggles of the past into comparative insignificance are nothing more than mere incidents in the far-flung lines of the contending hosts. And the huge size of modern armies has been made possible only by the system which takes the young and able-bodied and compulsorily trains them with a view to military service when war comes. We did not invent that system; indeed, we refused to adopt it long after it had come into operation among all other European nations. But we have to meet the system in operation in the field against us, and we have hitherto been trying with hastily improvised armies to beat nations which have spent half a century in training their manhood in the use of arms. I rejoice that such marvellous efforts have been made, and that such wonderful results have been achieved under the voluntary system. But that system can never produce “the nation in arms,” and it is emphatically “the nation in arms” that is required if we are to beat the Germans. Before this frightful struggle ends we shall certainly require to make every effort of which we, as a nation and an Empire, are capable.