"It is time that Great Britain made the weight of her will felt, especially as regards the strict application of the blockade, which, has too often been relaxed out of a desire not to arouse an unpleasant quarrel with Washington. It is time to end these half-measures. We must make up our minds as to what to do, and do it." On July 6th, 1916, Lord Robert Cecil admitted in the House of Commons, in reply, what was tantamount to a confession that the British Fleet employed in the blockade was still muzzled, being bound down by red-tape precedents and strict London directions. On July 9th he was further compelled to confess that 10,708 tons of lard had been permitted to enter Belgium, as well as about 2,000 tons of tallow and other fats. Nominally this was fathered by the Neutral Relief Committee, but in reality it was just so much more assistance granted to the enemy. FAT (FOR EXPLOSIVES) IN TONS In the early part of 1914 Germany exported lard to Holland, but this ceased on the eve of war. Great Britain, on the other hand, for some extraordinary and unintelligible reason, permitted her exports to Holland to increase. These are the figures: From Germany. From Great Britain. 1914 861 660 1915 Nil 6,591 1916 Nil 12,273 BARLEY FOR MALT In 1916 Great Britain exported to Holland about fifteen times more barley than normal pre-war exports, so diminishing our home supplies that the British working-man was deprived of his national beverage through shortage and prohibitive prices. Whisky also was similarly affected. TOBACCO The Christian spirit of "love your neighbours and your enemies better than yourselves" had apparently no limits with the British Government. Their loyal and hard-suffering subjects were deprived of a full supply of the soothing weed on the excuse of economising freight room, but no effort seems to have been made to curtail _Dutch supplies_, which were _thirty-five times greater than the pre-war exports_. In 1914 Hamburg and Bremen exported 4,544 tons of tobacco to Holland, but in 1915 and 1916 neither of these towns exported any at all. The amounts exported by Holland from January to June in tons were as follows: To Great Britain. To Germany. 1914 1,611 31,891 1915 1,672 54,456 1916 923 96,931 The figures published by the German Steel and Iron Manufacturers Association for the first six months of each respective year show the following outputs, thanks to Sir Francis Oppenheimer's previous Netherlands Overseas Trust, which permits iron ore in millions of tons to proceed direct to Krupps' and other blast furnaces in Germany without let or hindrance to be used against us. PIG IRON Tons 1915 5,530,000 1916 6,497,000 STEEL