The German system falls naturally under several heads. To take them in reverse order of importance, there is first the commercial system of espionage, which takes the form of sending out men who accept posts as clerks in foreign (to Germany) business firms. These men come, especially to England, ostensibly to learn the language, but in many cases they have received thorough tuition in idiomatic and commercial English from some member of the British colonies existing in such centres as Berlin and Dresden. They accept a very low wage for what are in reality services far beyond their pay in value. They gain access to books and price-lists, and to lists of customers, by means of which they are able to give exact details of the markets to which British goods are sent, and the prices, rates of freight, discounts, etc. These particulars are transmitted in full to Germany, and with them the German competing firms are able to undercut British firms in foreign markets, and to secure British trade by always making their estimates a little lower than those of the competing British firms. Since in commerce all is legitimate in the interests of one's employer, the only comment to be made on this method of spying is that it is despicable in that it involves the deliberate abuse of hospitality, and thus no code of ethics can be found to justify it; but business and ethics are two different things. This commercial spying, however, is but an offshoot from the great espionage system perfected by Stieber, chief of German secret police and privy councillor, of whom more anon. The main system is concerned with military and naval matters, and various points discovered in connection with this main system show that Germany has for many years made up its mind to embark on a war of aggrandisement--whether or no the War Lord of popular conception was fully in agreement with the idea is another matter, and one that history will probably show. The superiority of the German system to that of other and what may be termed competing nations is evidenced by one apparently unimportant fact. When French and British spies have been caught in Germany, and sentenced to terms of imprisonment in German fortresses, in a great number of cases it has transpired that the offenders were military officers still on the active list. They had been specially chosen for their work, perhaps; they had undertaken it with the highest of motives, also, perhaps; and they had understood the grave risks they ran in that their Governments would afford them no direct protection in case of their being detected. But they were officers on the active list, soldiers by profession.