dealt with and reported upon by a constable in uniform.
Here let me record something further.
In February last I called at New Scotland Yard in order to endeavour to get the police to make inquiry into two highly suspicious cases, one of a person at Winchester, and the other concerning signal-lights seen north-east of London in the Metropolitan District. I had interviews with certain officials of the Special Department, and also with one of the Assistant Commissioners, and after much prevarication I gathered—not without surprise—that no action could be taken without the consent of the Home Office! How this latter fact can be in accordance with the Home Secretary's statement in the House of Commons I confess I fail to see.
But I warn the Government that the alien peril—now that so many civil persons have been released from the internment camps—is a serious and growing one. The responsibility should, surely, not be placed upon, or implied to rest upon, Lord Kitchener, who is so nobly performing a gigantic task. If the public believed that he was really responsible, then they, and myself, would at once maintain silence. The British public believes in Lord Kitchener, and, as one man, will follow him to the end. But it certainly will not believe or tolerate this see-saw policy of false assurances and delusion, and the attempt to stifle criticism—notably the case of the Globe—of which the Home Office have been guilty. There is a rising feeling of wrath, as well as a belief that the peril from within with which the country is faced—the peril of the thousands of enemy aliens in our midst—most of whom are not under control—together with the whole army of spies ready and daily awaiting, in impatience, the signal to strike
