In America, where the German and Austro-Hungarian population is so much larger than in any other foreign country, the work of my department is split up into three sections. There is a naval, a military, and a commercial branch, each under an expert controlling and distinct organization which could, however, be co-ordinated in the event of war. In the United Kingdom there was no separation of interests, and the root organization, that which I controlled, covered, after the outbreak of the war, all three departments. And let me say here for the information of my good friends who may perhaps imagine I am boasting, that when I describe myself as “controlling” the organization, I may inadvertently deceive. The exact position was that I had organized my department, dug the channels through which would flow the streams or rivulets of information; that I myself had been in the position of the central reservoir which collected and refined and transmitted the information so received. It does not necessarily mean that because I was the architect that I was necessarily the tenant of the fabric which I had created. All the time in the first months of war there were great comings and goings. Men arrived from Germany, from America, from Switzerland, Sweden, and Holland, with forged passports, each charged with a distinct and separate mission. Lody, whose name you may have heard, came in the guise of a tourist agent, having certain definite discoveries to make and certain propaganda to forward. Other men came from America on similar missions. Some of these were gentlemen of the very highest character who were not associated with me in any way, but nevertheless sought me out in order to secure my assistance for the development of their plans. Of their adventures I know little. Whether they returned to Germany or not I am unable to say. Some got away and some were caught, but in what manner I never knew. I was loath to believe, and, indeed, did not believe, that a Secret Service existed in Britain. There were, of course, detectives and plain clothes policemen, whose task it was to watch railway and steamship arrivals, but obviously it was impossible in the space of a few weeks to create such a bureau as exists in the Wilhelmstrasse, or that over which Captain von Treutchen presides with such distinguished success in the Admiralty Buildings. In November, 1914, I received orders direct from Berlin--the first I had ever received--telling me that I must devote myself entirely to industrial propaganda. I was informed that the sum of £12,000 had been placed to my credit in the West London and Birmingham Bank, and I was told to make my headquarters at Manchester in the capacity of buyer for a well-known firm of Chilian importers with whom my chiefs had a working arrangement. I arrived at Manchester late one misty afternoon and made my way to the best hotel, where rooms had been reserved for me.