facts as to which could be realised only by a survey of the various accounts of consular offices and embassies throughout Europe. Much ink has been spilt and many public utterances have been made with the object of showing that the British Government had taken but perfunctory measures in order to fight the system of espionage which was preparing England for invasion, even as France had been prepared for invasion in 1870. Writers in the daily Press and members of Parliament had declared, by the end of August 1914, that anything more inadequate than the British system of what is known as counter-espionage—that is to say, the organising of spies to watch and report on Germans who were obviously overrunning the country in quest of information of military value—was inconceivable. After all, results afford the best test of the precautions taken, and it is on record that the ease and rapidity with which the authorities rounded up over 14,000 German and Austrian potential spies, within a few weeks of the outbreak of the war, came as an illuminating shock to the German Secret Service authorities themselves who had based their warlike decisions largely upon the hypothesis that England was still asleep. A well-known authority on such matters at the Home Office informed the writer in September 1914 that even the so-called "incendiary points"—that is to say, localities which had been marked out as suitable for the setting fire to houses, in the event of aerial raids on London—were being gradually and completely scheduled by vigilant officers of our Secret Service, and in such a way that nothing was left to assist the operations of possible spies who have succeeded in eluding enumeration by our somewhat silent and unofficious, but nevertheless eternally wakeful police. As we have said in another place, the German organisation of spies, internal and external, had been raised to a point under Stieber, beyond which, given the present conditions of the world and mankind, it was practically impossible to go, and since for the past twenty years and more, we have been in possession of the technical details of Stieberism, we may rely on it that the authorities, on their side, have not read in vain. Shortly after the outbreak of the Great War, and in order to allay the anxiety created by critics of such departments as are charged with the duty of watching the enemy in our midst, the Home Office issued the following statement dealing with measures which had been undertaken with a view to counteracting the operations of foreign spies scattered throughout the Islands:—