Now for a dissection of the facts concerning the main subject.
Passing over innumerable paragraphs in the Press which hinted at much more than they disclosed, attention should be given to an article which appeared in the January (1916) number of the National Review (pp. 771-780), in which a naval correspondent gives record of a startling amount of supplies of cotton, copper, oils, foodstuffs and other commodities that were permitted to pass into Germany by permission of our benevolent Government.
The Edinburgh Review of the same month also contains an article worthy of perusal upon the same subject. Many other periodicals directly and indirectly touched upon it, but for proof positive and authentic evidence the reader is referred to the files of the Daily Mail. That paper, in its persistent and praiseworthy patriotism, by pushing forward everything it honestly believed to be for the Empire's good, or which it hoped might help shorten the war, determined to get to the bottom of the matter. In order to ascertain how far this alleged supplying of Germany was permitted it arranged for one of its Special Commissioners to visit Scandinavia for the express purpose of collecting evidence on the spot and for publication in its columns. The author has taken the liberty of extracting freely therefrom. On January 12th, 1916, the special series of articles commenced as follows:
"In setting out the facts I will try hard to keep from my presentation of them any distortion due to the disgust and burning anger that they evoked in me, as they must do in every patriot of this Empire.
"Lest even for a moment a wrong and cruel suspicion rest upon little Denmark—namely, that she is unfriendly towards the Allies and has been 'two-faced' in the many tokens of friendliness and respect she has shown us, I say with conviction that there is not a truer or deeper love for England and the English than exists to-day in Denmark. These Danes, forefathers of so many of our race, warm still to Britain and the British. Their hearts glow to our successes, yearn to our reverses. Deep down they are for us through and through. The best Danes revolt at the work Denmark is now forced to do. A big and greedy German fist hangs over her—threatening, bullying, driving. 'So far as in you lies,' says the bully behind that fist, 'you must be useful to us—as useful at least as you are to our enemy'—(aside, 'even more useful if we can make you so')—'and should you fail by one iota to yield us such surplus food commodities as you produce and such food commodities as you can get'—(aside, 'by hook or by crook')—'from abroad, then the consequences for you will be serious. We shall seize Denmark.'"
Here follow several columns of statistics relating to the importation of foodstuffs to Denmark, showing increases in some instances of upwards of 1,000 per cent. upon her normal supplies.
Denmark's total population is under 3,000,000, and to argue that she would, or even could, use these commodities herself is mere foolishness. Extracting further:
"The vast bulk of Denmark's pork goes to Germany—either directly, by train or ship, or via Sweden, where obliging workmen, dignified pro tem. with the title 'merchant consignee' (but whose whole stock-in-trade consists perhaps of a hammer, some nails and a batch of labels), change the labels on the goods and perhaps turn upside down the marked ends of the packing-cases, and then re-consign the goods to Germany.
"And they may even leave Sweden in the very railway trucks and cases in which they have arrived and travel to Germany back through Denmark in sealed trucks over which the Danish Customs have no control. Or there may be no need to trouble to send them to Sweden. They may leave Copenhagen docks direct for Lübeck, Warnemunde, Stettin, or Hamburg, in direct steamers, of which some 500 sailed during the year. Or they may go by train. Huge trains leave every day. The trains and ferries and boats connecting Denmark and Germany are so full that there is competition for room. How often may one see the Danish shippers, in advertising their sailings for German ports, add the significant words, 'Cargo space already full' days before the actual date of sailing!
"Now more Swedish traffic than ever crosses the water from Malmö or Helsingborg and makes its way to Germany across Denmark by rail. I have stood about the railways at many points in the two countries and watched truck after truck go by—all to cross the German frontier below Kolding, in Jutland. The great wagons were closed and a little seal gleamed red on their black doors. I have stood, too, on the quays at these ports and watched the dock cranes lifting and lowering sack after sack, box after box, and barrel after barrel, from the quays to German-bound steamers, to German words of command, and on the main or mizzen-mast of the steamer would be as often as not the gloomy little German flag, black and white and red, still blacker and gloomier with the smoke drifting from the funnel before it.
"On the quays at Copenhagen I watched the steamers Hugo Stinnes, of Hamburg, Esberg, Snare, Haeland, Hever, and others, of Sweden, loading wine from Spain and Portugal; oil, lard, coffee and petroleum from America; meat from Denmark, and many other goods, all for German ports. I travelled to Malmö, in Sweden, with a cargo of oils and fats and iron and boxes with no marks on them, and at Malmö saw these things put ready on the quay to await the next German steamer. At the same port I saw pork in boxes, meatstuffs in boxes and barrels labelled 'Armour and Co.,' oils and fats bearing the names Swift or Morris or Harrison or Salzberger, and some of them adding the information that the contents were 'guaranteed to contain 30 per cent. of pure neat's-foot oil'; also petroleum of 'Best Standard White' and other brands; pork 'fat backs,' and many other things besides, all labelled 'Lübeck' and going into lighters for transport thither. Fussing tugs, with a litter of 400-ton lighters behind, may be seen travelling these waters all hours of the day bound for Germany, and no one can say what mysterious cargoes slip from country to country at night. The glut of traffic at these link-points is tremendous. At some ports there is such a glut of stuff that Danish traders complain that they cannot get their own Danish produce over to Germany 'because of the amount of foreign stuff' there is to be ferried over. A pretty position, indeed!
"And it is we in Great Britain who are allowing all this 'foreign stuff' to reach these countries. It is British licences and permits and recommendations which make possible this pouring of the world's goods into Germany. Little wonder the Danish merchants and other onlookers less friendly to us look with wonder upon us. 'My word, but you are truly a Christian people,' they say. 'You love your enemies all right—well enough to feed them. And if you, England, will allow the stuff over, it is not for us, little Denmark, to stand in Germany's way.'
"But how is all this possible, you may ask, this feeding of Germany through neutral Scandinavian countries? Are there not strict undertakings and promises and guarantees given to England against these goods, supplied from outside, ever reaching our enemy, Germany?
"Our Navy does its part. Ships are hauled into —— and searched. Guarantees are exacted and forthcoming. And the whole performance, admirably and bravely done, is so much waste of effort. For the guarantees are not worth the ink they are written with; they are not worth a single tinker's expletive. To show this will be a little intricate, perhaps, but it is worth trouble to follow.
"Goods leave Great Britain and America, Spain and other countries for Danish ports. The shipper, now wary of the British Fleet, which has done wonderful police duty on the high seas, generally exacts a declaration that the goods are not for export to an enemy country. The declaration is signed right willingly, for the consignor can quite easily believe, or pretend to believe, that his goods are merely for Denmark. A British warship overhauls the boat, and perhaps takes her into —— (a certain British port) for examination.
"The declaration with each consignment is in order. But, not satisfied (the Navy all through have been suspicious, and rightly), the officer communicates with London. 'The s.s. so-and-so has big consignments of foodstuffs for Copenhagen under the names So-and-So. Can we release them?' London communicates with our Legation at Copenhagen, in whose hands they are in this matter. 'Can we let through consignments to So-and-So in your capital?' And our Copenhagen Legation replies with a list of the Danish people whose consignments must be let through and a list of those (if any) whose goods must be stopped or forwarded only on declaration that the goods must not leave Copenhagen Harbour or Copenhagen City. It all looks admirable—most businesslike; quite systematic and thorough. It is so much nonsense. For in point of fact the ideas of our Legation at Copenhagen on the good faith of some Danish traders and the bad faith of others are childish beyond words. Their rulings are the laughing-stock of Denmark. And the joke would be all the more appreciable were it not that there is so much anger caused by the arbitrariness of the Legation's trade rulings and the baiting of some honest men, while less honest go free and trade with impunity. Struck by the frequency with which one or two names appeared in the Copenhagen importers' lists, I made some calculations, then some personal inquiries. I found that 'X' alone had imported during the year 4,000,000 lbs. pork, 3,000,000 lbs. lard, 2,500,000 lbs. oleo, 1,000,000 lbs. other pork and meat. 'Y,' another man, imported in September, October and November alone, 1,045,000 lbs. of cocoa. Neither of these men was engaged in these trades before the war. They were men of quite humble business attainments. Yet both enjoyed the full confidence of our trusting British Legation at Copenhagen, who would have taken solemn affidavits, no doubt, that neither of these men traded with Germany. I would have done the same myself. But these men traded with others who did trade with Germany, either directly or through third and fourth and maybe fifth parties.
"What is the result? You have in Copenhagen that amazing modern war phenomenon the trader of the nth degree. Plain Trader imports his goods and basks and grows fat under the ægis of the British Legation in Copenhagen. Trader 2 buys from Plain Trader under a 'guarantee' not to sell to Germany, and if he does not dare to break that guarantee himself he sells to Trader 3 or Trader 4 or Trader 5, one of whom will undoubtedly do it. And the less money that Trader 5 has the better, because then, even if he is caught, which is not likely, for nobody worries, no one can squeeze him for the amount of the guarantee because he has not got it.
"The result is that every Tom, Dick and Harry of Copenhagen is a trader—from the bona fide merchant downwards. Your hotel porter may be trading with a Hungarian for flour or rice or fat; the "Boots" can get you a ton or two of meal. Imagine the amazement of the Danish housewife when her maid came in one day and, with hands clasped in enthusiasm, said, 'Oh, madam, I've got three wagon-loads of marmalade to sell'! And that happened in Copenhagen not long ago.
"The newspapers are daily blackened with great display advertisements offering goods for sale. I have before me as I write a whole sheaf of such advertisements, offering anything, from American lard to potash and oil and cocoa and coffee. And not one of these advertisements 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 advertisements from those wanting goods, and these are often more outspoken.
"Some of these nameless advertisements treat of great quantities. 'Ten thousand kilos fat, with permit to export; 20,000 kilos salted half-pigs; 50,000 kilos salt meat'; and much more says one advertisement alone. And the good soul answering to your inquiry may prove a simple little typewriting girl—one of Copenhagen's new traders to the nth 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 ships,' 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 assures 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 shipment direct from Sweden to Germany, being loaded into the steamer Heinrich Hugo Stinnes, of Hamburg, for shipment to Hamburg. Also, on the quay at Malmö (Sweden) I have seen goods for which Denmark had refused a direct export permit being loaded into nameless lighters for shipment to German Lübeck.
"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: