to make war upon us which I furnished to the British Secret Service in 1908,[1] knew the truth, yet nevertheless adopted a policy that was deliberately intended to close the eyes of the British public and lull it to sleep, so that, in August, our beloved nation nearly met with complete disaster.
But the British public to-day are no longer children, nor are they in the mood to be trifled with and treated as such. The speeches made by Mr. McKenna in the House of Commons on March 3rd have revealed to us that the policy towards aliens is one of untruth and sham. The debate has aroused an uneasiness in the country which will only be restored with the greatest difficulty. To be deliberately told that the Intelligence Department of the War Office is cognisant of every enemy alien—in face of what I have just related—is to ask the public to believe a fiction. And, surely, fiction is not what we want to-day. We want hard fact—substantiated fact. We are not playing at war—as so many people seem to think because of the splendid patriotism of the sons of Britain—but we are fighting with all our force in defence of our homes and our loved ones, who, if weak-kneed counsels prevail, will most assuredly be butchered to make the Kaiser a German holiday.
That public opinion is highly angered in consequence of the refusal of the Government to admit the danger of spies, and face the problem in a proper spirit of sturdy patriotism, is shown by the great mass of correspondence which has reached me in consequence of my exposures in "German Spies in England." The letters I have received from all classes, ranging from peers to working-men, testify
- ↑ For a full report of this astounding speech see "German Spies in England," by William Le Queux, 1915.
