It has been suggested that some of the better educated Belgians, about whose _bona fides_ there could be no question, should be given the work of tracking down any possible impostors. They would probably be glad of the work, and in this direction they could do much to help us. They would be only too keen upon doing so, for most of them are filled with a hatred of everything German, beside which our own growing dislike is a mere nothing. To lay by the heels one of the German spies who have contributed so powerfully to the ruin of Belgium would be, to the average refugee, the keenest delight. I believe this plan would be well worth a trial, and I should like to see it put into effect immediately. The trial and conviction on a charge of high treason of Mr. Nicholas Emil Herman Adolph Ahlers, a naturalised German who, for some years, acted as German Consul in Sunderland, is a remarkable and emphatic corroboration of every word I have written as to the manner in which the authorities are dealing with the alien peril. Mr. Ahlers was accused of assisting German reservists to return to Germany after the declaration of war. It was alleged that he sought out our enemies, impressed upon them the necessity of returning to Germany, and gladly paid their fares. The striking feature of the affair was, it is alleged, Ahlers' own statement, "Although naturalised, I am a German at heart." On December 9th, the prisoner was convicted of high treason, and sentenced to death. Yet anything more farcical could not well be imagined, and was certainly well in keeping with the tactics of the Home Office. Mr. Ahlers was prosecuted for having "adhered to the King's enemies." Yet he had only, after all, succoured the King's enemies to the extent _actually allowed to him by the Order in Council_! As Mr. Justice Bankes justly observed at the appeal, it is abhorrent to the mind that a man should be sentenced to death for doing what the Home Secretary's circular expressly permitted. As exposed in the Court of Appeal, the whole prosecution was simply another effort of the authorities to mislead and gull the public, and to play to the gallery. When this amazing prosecution was undertaken, and the Solicitor-General was sent down to Durham to invoke the majesty of the law, _the Home Office must have known_ that the Order in Council, issued by that same department, gave alien enemies--up to August the 11th--the right to leave our shores! Therefore Mr. Ahlers ought never to have been prosecuted and sentenced to death. What was presented to the public as a grim and terrible tragedy, turned out to be an amusing, though hollow comedy. Yet we find, even in the final scene at the Court of Appeal, the Solicitor-General gallantly protesting that the Order in Council had nothing to do with the case.