Finally, it only remains to be noted that no sooner had the financial details of this truly vast transaction been determined (a transaction that may frankly be said to have saved the situation in so far as British railways were concerned in contributing towards the winning of the war), than Mr. Cooke promptly evolved and set in motion a system of delivery at Liverpool, or any other port of discharge, whereby consignments of material on arrival were distributed carriage free by the various railway companies to their respective works. The subsequent success of this intricate scheme of distribution may fairly be attributed to the unfailing measure of tact and resource available in the person of Mrs. Harris, M.B.E., (_née_ Miss Faith Bowen-Cooke), a lady on whom devolved the exceptional and delicate task of receiving and allotting these 15,000 tons of railway equipment, and who previously, as secretary to the "mission," as much by her business acumen and practical ability as by her own personal charm, won a sure place for herself in the admiration and esteem of many of the leading personalities in the railway world of the United States of America. CHAPTER IX THE ART OF DROP-FORGING "Who made the law that men should die in meadows, Who spake the word that blood should splash in lanes, Who gave it forth that gardens should be boneyards, Who spread the hills with flesh and blood and brains? Who made the law?" Seldom, perhaps, does a plain question receive so plain an answer as that coming direct from so qualified an authority as Prince Lichnowsky, former German Ambassador to the Court of St. James, who, in the course of his confessions, which he entitles "My Mission to London," says, simply and quite candidly, "We insisted on war." Herr Harden, too, writing in _Die Zukunft_ in November, 1914, even if a trifle more impetuous, more brutal, is none the less frankly outspoken: "Let us drop," he protests, "our miserable attempts to excuse Germany's action.... Not against our will, nor as a nation taken by surprise, did we hurl ourselves into this gigantic venture. We willed it ... it is Germany that strikes." And having fixed the blame, the moral responsibility, equally plain-sailing is it to establish the blood-stained guilt; evidence of it fairly "stinks" no matter where one turns to look; from emperor to general, from statesman to author, exudes the _credo_ of Teuton Kultur; no more lurid interpretation of which can perhaps be found than in the words of Herr Hartmann, a native of Berlin, who, after serving as an artillery officer, turned his attention to matters literary, being _inter alia_ a believer in evolutionary progress. "The enemy country," he insists, "should not be spared the devastation, the profound misery engendered by war. The burden should be and remain crushing. Immediately war is declared, terrorism becomes a primary essential absolutely imperative from the military standpoint."