Note: Images of the original pages are available through Internet Archive. See https://archive.org/details/britainsdeadlype00lequrich BRITAIN'S DEADLY PERIL Are we Told the Truth? by WILLIAM LE QUEUX Author of "German Spies in England" London Stanley Paul & Co 31 Essex Street, Strand, W.C. First published in 1915 Copyright in the United States of America by William Le Queux, 1915 CONTENTS FOREWORD PAGE The Unknown To-morrow 7 CHAPTER I The Peril of "Muddling Through" 13 CHAPTER II The Peril of Exploiting the Poor 31 CHAPTER III The Peril of not Doing Enough 49 CHAPTER IV The Peril of the Censorship 66 CHAPTER V The Peril of the Press Bureau 81 CHAPTER VI The Peril of the Enemy Alien 96 CHAPTER VII The Peril of Deluding the Public 119 CHAPTER VIII The Peril of Invasion 139 CHAPTER IX The Peril of Apathy 148 CHAPTER X The Peril of Stifling the Truth 160 CHAPTER XI Facts to Remember 171 FOREWORD THE UNKNOWN TO-MORROW The following pages--written partly as a sequel to my book "German Spies in England," which has met with such wide popular favour--are, I desire to assure the reader, inspired solely by a stern spirit of patriotism. This is not a book of "scaremongerings," but of plain, hard, indisputable facts. It is a demand for the truth to be told, and a warning that, by the present policy of secrecy and shuffle, a distinct feeling of distrust has been aroused, and is growing more and more apparent. No sane man will, of course, ask for any facts concerning the country's resources or its intentions, or indeed any information upon a single point which, in the remotest way, could be of any advantage to the barbaric hordes who are ready to sweep upon us. But what the British people to-day demand is a sound and definite pronouncement which will take them, to a certain extent, into the confidence of the Government--as apart from the War Office, against which no single word of criticism should be raised--and at the same time deal effectively with certain matters which, being little short of public scandals, have irritated and inflamed public opinion at an hour when every man in our Empire should put forth his whole strength for his God, his King, and his country. Germany is facing the present situation with a sound, businesslike policy, without any vacillation, or any attempt to shift responsibility from one Department of the State to another. Are we doing the same?