"You cannot wonder if we Germans, and for that matter the whole world, have drawn certain conclusions from these and other incidents. We do not doubt that your ministers have acted wisely in suppressing bad tidings; but why should they have taken all those pains and endured the derision, while incurring the distrust, of foreign countries--a material injury, mind you, and not merely a sentimental one--unless they had known, only too well, that publication of this or that piece of news would have too painfully affected the nerves of your people? Concealment of checks, reverses, and disasters which had not already become known to the Austrians and ourselves might have served a useful military purpose; but what purpose except that of a sedative for British public opinion could be served by the concealment of such matters when we, your enemies, knew them already? Have you ever thought of asking your American friends in what order they would place the candour of the official communications which emanate from Berlin, Petrograd, Paris, and London? "Shortly before Christmas one of your legal ministers, who, I understand, is specially responsible for looking after the Press Bureau, explained to the House of Commons the principles by which he had been guided in the suppression of news and comment. He should refuse, he said, to publish any criticism {161} which might tend to disturb popular confidence in the Government, or which might cause the people of England to think that their affairs were in a really serious state. On practical grounds there is no doubt something to be said for such a policy; but (will you tell me?) has any autocratic government ever laid down a more drastic rule for blindfolding the people in order to preserve its own existence?[5] [Sidenote: BRITISH PATRIOTISM] "Pondering upon these things, I scratch my head and marvel what you can possibly have had in yours, when you used to assure us that the surpassing merit of the English political system was that it trusted the people, the inherent weakness of ours, the Austrian, and the Russian that they did not. "Your Prime Minister, speaking in the early autumn, thus adjured the men of Wales:--'Be worthy of those who went before you, and leave to your children the richest of all inheritances, the memory of fathers who, in a great cause, put self-sacrifice before ease, and honour above life itself.' These are noble words, of Periclean grandeur. But have they met with a general response? Are these sentiments prevalent outside government circles, among those--the bulk of your people--who do not come under the direct influence of ministerial inspiration and example? If so, why then {162} have your rulers not screwed up their courage to call for national service? Why do they still continue to depend for their recruits upon sensational advertisements, newspaper puffs, oratorical entreaties, and private influence of a singularly irregular sort?