Whatever system we decide to adopt to protect ourselves against espionage in the future, there is no question that the entire matter ought to be in the hands of one central authority, with very wide powers of inquiry and action. We must put an end once and for all to the idiotic--no other word is strong enough--position in which Mr. McKenna is able to say that outside London the spy-peril is no concern of his, and that he has no power of action. Whether we complete and extend the operations of the Confidential Department, or whether some new organisation is brought into being, the matter of espionage for the country as a whole _ought to be centralised in the hands of a single authority_. I know certain people are likely to raise a grumble that the cost will be considerable. Supposing it is? No one suggests that we should spend, as Germany has been spending, £720,000 a year on spying on our neighbours; all that we need to do is to establish a complete system of contra-espionage, and look after the people who want to spy on us. In doing this, surely the expenditure of a few thousands a year would be money well invested. In France a system has been adopted--too late, unfortunately, so far as the present war is concerned--by which the public are invited to co-operate in the work of checking the activities of the spies, by giving to the proper authority information of any suspicious cases coming to their notice. My view is that a somewhat similar procedure should be adopted here. In this way public opinion would be educated up to the importance of the subject, and a great deal of valuable information would be acquired. It is certain, of course, that much of this information would be valueless, but it would be the duty of the special department to separate the chaff from the wheat, and to see that every suspicious case was duly inquired into. Apart from anything else, this action by the public would, in itself, give the spies to pause, for they would realise how much more difficult it would be for them to carry on their nefarious work undetected. I come now to perhaps the most unpleasant feature of the spy problem--the possibility of our betrayal by traitors in our own ranks. I am proud to think that, in this respect, we are perhaps better off than any nation under the sun, but at the same time, there have been, in recent years, one or two proved cases, and, as I have already said, a good many where grounds existed for very grave suspicion. However mortifying it may be to our national pride, we cannot overlook the possibility of our secrets being sold to the enemy by men of our own blood.