Take a simple example in order that the matter may be the better understood. It is admitted that for many years our East Coast had been overrun with spies. There are places where two or more counties meet. A member of the police force for one county has no power, authority, or discretion enabling him to enter into and to act in another. Thus he cannot follow a suspect over the county border. In 1916 a certain female, whose cleverness was only equalled by her personal charms and powers of fascination, started a tour of our great camps along the Eastern seaboard. Her movements were reported by non-authorised observers. Such a case was obviously one requiring delicate investigation. Owing to lack of the necessary department under notice, the case automatically devolved into the hands of the police. Our lady fair is watched and followed. It matters not to her; she can gaily slip over the county-border by automobile. Long reports have to be made out and passed through slow and devious channels before the police in the next county can act. By the time this becomes operative, the elusive one has returned to the county she left, or she has entered another one--an evolution which could happen several times in a very short period and much mischief be done under the nose of authorities absolutely powerless to act--until too late. It is not difficult to imagine how a home Secret Service agent, with a private motor-car, would handle such a case; more particularly when working in conjunction and perfect harmony with the police generally. Take another case. On April 13th, 1916, the author wrote to Whitehall as follows: "In a certain Naval Base of considerable importance on the East Coast in the autumn of 1914, a complete plant of wireless installation was discovered in the private house of an English merchant who was known to have business connections abroad, which plant was forthwith removed. Some months after, a second visit was paid to the same premises and further parts of wireless telegraphy were found and taken away, and an assurance was given that everything in any way connected with wireless had been handed over. In the month of March, 1916, the premises were once more visited and another complete plant was found to have been installed, which was immediately removed. In April, 1916, a fourth surprise visit was made upon the same premises, when a very ingenious and complete portable wireless plant was discovered. My information records that the latter of these respective plants controlled a radius of only about twenty miles, that they were in perfect order and that they had been repeatedly used. The man and the occupiers of this house are said to be still at large! These facts have given me much food for reflection. "Yours, etc."