As in the present war, the advancing Germans found, in every town and village, swarms of agents who were ready to provide them with information and guidance, and it was even said that the German invaders were better acquainted with the country they were attacking than were the officers entrusted with its defence. We have seen the same thing in the present war, when time after time the Germans have been led into towns and districts by men who have lived there for years and, in many cases, had even become naturalised Frenchmen the better to carry on their work. It speaks volumes for the perfection of the German military machine that, on the outbreak of hostilities, these men should have been able, without the slightest difficulty, to join the corps operating in the districts with which they had become perfectly familiar by years of residence. And they were able, not merely to give topographical information, but even to indicate where stores of food and petrol could be found, and to point out to their comrades where the best prospects of loot and plunder existed. All this was merely a natural development of the system which Carl Stieber established, and which his successors have developed to the highest pitch of unscrupulous perfection. After the war of 1870-71, the system which Stieber invented found its place in German administration, and it has continued ever since as a separate and highly-organised department, spending vast sums of money--about £720,000 a year--and extending its ramifications to an incredible extent. It may be mentioned, incidentally, that its workings and methods have been copied by the German commercial world, and many a British employer has, during the past few years, paid dearly through his closest commercial secrets being given away to his keenest German rivals by the patient, diligent and hard-working German clerk, who was willing to work for a mere pittance for the advantage of "learning English" and studying British methods. There cannot now be the slightest doubt that thousands of these German employees were, before the war, really in the pay of German firms, and were busily engaged in sending to Germany all the information they could possibly pick up which would tend to help the German and injure the British merchant and manufacturer. I hope they have over-reached themselves, and that when the war is over we shall see a great deal less of the English worker being supplanted by spying Germans, whose apparent cheapness has been the costliest labour Englishmen have ever employed. "Never trust or employ a German, and always make him pay cash" ought to be the British commercial motto for the future.