Our national existence was certainly at stake. Lord Roberts knew it. He--with members of the Cabinet--had read the Kaiser's fateful words which I have here printed in the foregoing pages, and it was this knowledge which prompted him to so strenuously urge the peril of our unpreparedness until the outbreak of war. The hypocrisy of the Kaiser is sufficiently revealed by the fact that two months after his declaration at the Secret Council at Potsdam he made a public speech at Strasburg on August 30th in which he assured the world that the peace of Europe was not in danger. In the same month, however, that the German Emperor disclosed his secret intentions towards Great Britain, some important military manoeuvres took place in Essex and were watched most closely by the German authorities. The spy-peril had then commenced. It would seem that the Kaiser took the keenest interest in the matter. Despite the fact that there was an officially accredited German military attaché, a number of German agents were also present, and among the number was Count Eulenburg, a Secretary of the German Embassy in London. A military correspondent of the _Daily Mail_ wrote that the Count's taking of notes and making of sketches had excited a good deal of adverse criticism among the British officers who were familiar with the fact. The reports of all these secret agents were apparently to be laid before the Kaiser, who was well aware of the significance of the operations in Essex to both the German Army and Navy. The only organ of the Press which recognised the spy-peril in its earliest stages was the _Daily Mail_, which never ceased to point out the imminent and serious danger, and to warn the public that Germany meant us harm. Because of this open policy, it was from time to time denounced by the deluded public--deluded because of official lies--for what was termed its "scaremongerings." But recent events have surely shown the world that that journal spoke the open truth, while all others, and more especially a certain dear old delightful London daily paper, so glibly told us that "there will be no war with Germany," while even three days before the outbreak of war this same journal actually made a plea for "German Culture." Culture indeed! Have not the modern Huns now revealed themselves? What must readers of that paper now think? It has truly been said that the influence of the half-naked barbarians who swept over the Thuringian forests soon after the birth of Christianity has never been totally eradicated. There is, _au fond_, an inherent brutality in the German character which the saving grace of the art of music has never destroyed, the brutality which caused the destruction of Louvain, of Rheims, of Ypres, of Termonde, of Malines, the wreck of cathedrals and churches, and the wholesale savage butchery of innocent men, women, and even tiny children.