With the example of how spies, in a hundred guises, have been found in Belgium, in France, in Russia, in Egypt, and even in gallant little Serbia, can any sane man believe that there are none to-day in Great Britain? No. The public know it, and the Government know it, but the latter are endeavouring to hoodwink those who demand action in the House of Commons, just as they endeavour to mystify the members of the public who present reports of suspicious cases. The question is: _Are we here told the Truth?_ I leave it to the reader of the foregoing pages to form his own conclusions, and to say whether he is satisfied to be further deluded and mystified without raising his voice in protest for the truth to be told, and the spy-peril to be dealt with by those fully capable of doing so, instead of adopting methods which are daily playing into Germany's hands and preparing us upon the altar of our own destruction. I have here written the truth, and I leave it to the British public themselves to judge me, and to judge those who, failing in their duty at this grave crisis of our national history, are courting a disaster worse than that which overtook poor stricken Belgium. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 1: For a full report of this astounding speech see "German Spies in England," by William Le Queux, 1915.] CHAPTER VII THE PERIL OF DELUDING THE PUBLIC As showing the trend of public opinion regarding the spy-peril, I may perhaps be permitted to here give a few examples taken haphazard from the huge mass of correspondence with which I have been daily flooded since the publication of my exposure on that subject. Many of my correspondents have, no doubt, made discoveries of serious cases of espionage. Yet, as spies are nobody's business, the authorities, in the majority of cases, have not even troubled to inquire into the allegations made by responsible persons. I freely admit that many wild reports have been written and circulated by hysterical persons who believe that every twinkling light they see is the flashing of signals, and that spies lurk in houses in every quiet and lonely spot. It is so very easy to become affected with spy-mania, especially when one recollects that every German abroad is patriotic, and his first object is to become a secret agent of the Fatherland. In this connection I have no more trust in the so-called "naturalised" German than in the full-blooded and openly avowed Prussian. Once a man is born a German he is always a German, and in taking out naturalisation papers he is only deliberately cheating the country which grants them, because, according to the Imperial law of his own land, he cannot change his own nationality. So let us, once and for all, dismiss for ever the hollow farce of naturalisation, for its very act is one of fraud, and only attempted with some ulterior motive.