II. What ships of the Third Division were put out of service on July 23, or about the end of July, or have reduced their crews, and the reasons for so doing?
III. How many officers and men are still on board, and why was the programme altered after it was stated that the Third Division should be full up?
Before answering these questions Mr Duff communicated with the police, and it was stated in the initial proceedings against Schulz that, if British people usually acted in the way that Mr Duff and Mr Tarrant had done, and in the way that Detective-Sergeant Martin, whom they consulted, had acted, England would have nothing to fear from any system of espionage.
The evidence given by Mr Tarrant went to show that Schulz had offered him a salary of 50 pounds a month for acting as “Military and Naval Correspondent” to a German paper, for which Schulz was to act as agent and intermediary. The only defence set up was to the effect that Schulz was a bona-fide journalist, and had no ulterior motive in attempting to obtain information. The Tobler correspondence was too strong evidence to the contrary, and the well-merited sentence of a year and nine months’ imprisonment in the second division was imposed. It is characteristic of the German spy system that, after his release from jail, Schulz was disowned by his previous employers.
Later cases, like that of Ernst, to which reference will be made later, go to prove that both in England and France a system of counter-espionage has been organised, which goes far to neutralise such efforts as that detailed above. So persistent is the German thirst for information that one man who came into the British courts as defendant had actually received payment from German sources for information which he was virtually proved to have obtained from Whittaker’s almanac and like sources. This, however, only goes to show that the object of the German secret service is to check such information as it may receive, by means of duplicate and triplicate reports.
There is little likelihood of the system of German naval espionage having any definite effect in England until an invasion has been successfully accomplished, for there is a wide difference between learning the strength of a coast defence and overcoming that defence. Both in naval and military matters, also, the plan has long since been adopted of changing orders at irregular intervals, so that, in case of active service requirements, the strength and dispositions of the forces vary from month to month and even from week to week. Signal and telegraphic codes are changed, routine is altered, and, altogether, such differences are effected in various ways that information supplied by spies one week may be quite valueless the next. Not that it is advisable to underrate the spy peril or the value of the German system, but at the same time it is equally unwise to overrate the possibilities of the system. Were another Stieber forthcoming, Germany might yet accomplish all that it set out to do with the assistance of its secret service; but, under present conditions, such success is extremely unlikely.