Part 30 (1/2)
”The newspapers are daily blackened with great display advertis.e.m.e.nts offering goods for sale. I have before me as I write a whole sheaf of such advertis.e.m.e.nts, offering anything, from American lard to potash and oil and cocoa and coffee. And not one of these advertis.e.m.e.nts has a name or an address to it; nothing but a telephone number. One or two of these I tracked down, only to find as vendors simple, kindly souls, such as old shopwomen, caretakers, porters, shop-girls, and the rest waiting for an offer for their goods. _Per contra_, as the book-keepers say, there are advertis.e.m.e.nts from those wanting goods, and these are often more outspoken.
”Some of these nameless advertis.e.m.e.nts treat of great quant.i.ties.
'Ten thousand kilos fat, with permit to export; 20,000 kilos salted half-pigs; 50,000 kilos salt meat'; and much more says one advertis.e.m.e.nt alone. And the good soul answering to your inquiry may prove a simple little typewriting girl--one of Copenhagen's new traders to the _n_th degree.
”The machinery that has been established by Great Britain in Denmark for preventing imported foodstuffs from reaching our enemy might be very admirable--if only it worked.
”There has been little or no enforcement of the trading laws imposed upon Danish traders by Great Britain. We have supplied them with goods and have allowed them to help themselves to goods from all the ends of the earth upon set conditions--namely, that those goods should not go to Germany, our enemy. They go to Germany, nevertheless, and _they go because we have no one in Denmark who sees to it that they shall not go_. Great Britain, in short, lacks a watchful policeman in Denmark. Great Britain also lacks a live sergeant at home to see to it that her Denmark policeman does not sleep on his beat. _The British Foreign Office_ is the sergeant I mean; _the British Legation at Copenhagen_, or its commercial department, is the policeman. _Theirs is the duty. And both have failed us._
”Take the written declarations made by traders that goods supplied to them by or through us shall not go to Germany. Without control and enforcement they are perfectly useless. I myself found traders who told me point-blank that they would consider such agreements as this not morally binding upon them. 'Your Navy seizes our s.h.i.+ps,'
said one, 'and your Foreign Office releases them only on condition that the goods they contain shall be subject to your own conditions. I sign those conditions, but they are exacted from me by force, and I don't consider them as worth a snap of the fingers.
If you put a pistol to my head and said, ”Sign that cheque,” I'd sign it, but I'd telephone to the bank the minute you'd gone and stop payment. And I'll do the same thing with your British import agreements.' These agreements are perhaps 'backed' by a money penalty. The banks undertake this guarantee part of the business.
For a modest 3 per cent. or so they will put up your money guarantee against your goods ever reaching Germany and contravening the agreement clause. And when the goods go on to Sweden the Swedish banks relieve the Danish banks of their obligations. And when the goods go on from Sweden to Germany, who relieves the Swedish banks? I have it on the word of a man I believe to be thoroughly honest and well informed that the North German Bank of Hamburg alone has taken over from Swedish banks of late in one transaction as much as 78,000 worth of guarantees--that the goods will not reach Germany! _Was ever there such a comedy? A German bank guaranteeing that much-needed goods will not reach Germany!_
”The Germans are not 'let down' by their diplomacy in Copenhagen. A constant weight is poised carefully and with a silken brutality over little Denmark's head and von Ranzau smiles and a.s.sures Denmark he is really preserving her from his powerful master. And he gets his way, of course. The little matter of a permit for export? Well, perhaps it can be managed for you, Baron--_especially as the British watchman is asleep just now_!
”So the great game goes on. If Denmark has goods that cannot obtain a permit for direct export to Germany they can go _via_ Sweden.
_Vice versa_, if Sweden has goods about which our active British Legation there is too curious, send them to Denmark and re-export them. That is simple. And I have seen for myself at Denmark's port of Copenhagen Swedish goods (casks of American oil) which had been refused permits for s.h.i.+pment direct from Sweden to Germany, being loaded into the steamer _Heinrich Hugo Stinnes_, of Hamburg, for s.h.i.+pment to Hamburg. Also, on the quay at Malmo (Sweden) I have seen goods for which Denmark had refused a direct export permit being loaded into nameless lighters for s.h.i.+pment to German Lubeck.
”Thus agreements, promises, guarantees, and prohibitions--_the whole commercial code that Great Britain has devised for regulating imports into Denmark and for checking their re-export to Germany_ (and, incidentally, for displaying to us at home) _are so much meaningless pantomime_. They have become so simply because the honester traders of Denmark, and the dishonest parasites of all nations who work under them and through them, have found that there is no supervision, no punishment, no judge to answer. _Our watchmen, both in London and in Copenhagen, have slept._”
On January 13th, 1916, Lord Sydenham in the House of Lords raised the question of ”Feeding the Germans,” and in his speech stated that in cocoa alone our exports for August-July, 1913-14, were 6,138 tons as against 32,083 tons for 1914-15. For the sixteen months preceding the war our exports were 8,883 tons, as against 33,357 tons during the first sixteen months of the war.
Lord Lansdowne, following, admitted that ”_there was an enormous balance unaccounted for which it was reasonable to suppose found its way to enemy countries_.”
The following are the exports of cocoa to the countries named in the years 1913, 1914, and up to December 30th, 1915:
COCOA EXPORTS
In lbs. to 1913. 1914. 1915.
(to Dec. 30.) Holland 2,205,282 12,203,463 9,298,805 Denmark 50,782 1,853,948 10,615,873 Scandinavia 343,573 3,079,904 14,606,309
A leading article in the _Daily Mail_ of January 14th, 1916, stated:
”The strength of the greatest Navy in the world is being paralysed by administrative feebleness and diplomatic weakness. Had our sea power been used, as the sailors would have used it, from the opening of the war, it is possible that Germany would before now have collapsed. The mightiest weapon in our a.r.s.enal has been blunted because our politicians imagined they could wage what Napoleon called 'rosewater war,' and were more eager to please everybody than to hurt the enemy, and because our diplomatists are remiss.
”On December 29th the _Neue Freie Presse_,[20] a leading Austrian newspaper, published for the benefit of the people of Vienna an advertis.e.m.e.nt offering provisions from Holland. A list of the articles which could be supplied at moderate prices followed. It included cocoa, chocolate, potatoes, flour, sausages, sides of bacon, b.u.t.ter, coffee, tea, sardines, oranges, lemons and figs.
”_And yet Mr. Runciman tells us that the Germans are on the verge of starvation!_
”The cure for this state of affairs is to infuse greater energy and insight into our diplomacy and to free the Navy from its paper fetters. Much of the mischief is due to the want of capable advisers at the British Legations in the neutral capitals and of energy and vigilance on the part of the Foreign Office at home. The Germans have been quick to realise the importance of stationing active agents at the vital posts.
”_The present system of setting diplomatists who have lived all their life in a world of formality to deal with the sharpest business men in Europe in a matter where huge profits are at stake is an immense blunder which may have the most serious consequences._