The speaker skilfully evaded too much information on that point, and the nation was compelled to nurse its resentment.
At the outset of his speech, Sir Edward Grey attempted to deal with the mass of statistics and evidence of direct importation of goods into Germany accumulated by the Press. He selected wheat and flour only, whilst he casually referred to a list of figures issued by the Press Bureau from the War Trade Department of the Government the day before the debate, which members in the House rightly complained had not been supplied to themselves. This list was stated to have been compiled officially in this country from true copies of the ships' manifests, and it alleged the figures given by the Danish Borsen were in many cases wrong and unduly inflated. For instance, the increase in rice imports should have been only 480 per cent. as against 580 per cent.; lard, 275 per cent. instead of 375 per cent.; pork only 1,216 per cent. instead of 1,300 per cent.; and so on. Now everyone knows that statistics are not infallible and a generous allowance should always be made by a careful calculator. But when all circumstances are taken into consideration it can safely be concluded that the majority of the increases alleged by the various Press writers, as having percolated into Germany, were, if anything, under rather than over the mark.
As to the reliability of the Borsen, it is edited by a Government statistician, and considered by Danish traders as official.
So far as Norway is concerned, H.B.M. Minister at Christiania had difficulty in obtaining official statistics regarding imports and exports after the Casement affair remained unanswered; certain it is that Government assistance was denied to various Consuls acting under him; whilst I, when in that country, was informed (by British authorities) I must not collect these figures, although to me and others working with me they were comparatively easy of access.
So far as Foreign Office knowledge is concerned, it is hardly a credit to the ability or even sanity of the British Legations in Scandinavia if they have denied knowledge of these colossal imports of goods into Germany, which were known to almost every inhabitant of seaport towns. If they deliberately shut their eyes to the evidence all around them, they presumably obeyed orders. One could then only wonder as to the reason for such suicidal policy.
As before mentioned, at the commencement of his speech Sir Edward Grey laid stress upon the fact that part of the stated increased import, namely, 2,000,000 barrels of flour were allowed to be exported to Belgium; whilst a little later in his speech he admitted that "She [Germany] had requisitioned the food supplies of the civil population of Poland and Belgium." Almost immediately afterwards Lord Robert Cecil strove hard to back up the Secretary for Foreign Affairs, but he could not give the House any positive assurance that the Belgian Relief distribution was absolutely independent of German control. The disposition of this is therefore obvious.
Sir Edward Grey attempted to whittle down the U.S.A. exports of wheat by stating that nearly half went to Spain, Portugal, Greece, and Malta; but he did not refer to the corn, etc., exported to Northern neutrals from Liverpool and other British ports, nor did he make any allowances for the stream of mysterious ships sailing round far northern seas (many of them choosing the passage north of Iceland), which sighted land on the north-western coast of Norway and carried their course inside neutral waters into the Baltic; which heavily-laden cargo-boats I and others in the Secret Service had watched and reported week by week and month by month with heart-rending persistency. The majority of these ships probably sailed direct to German ports, and no records of their cargoes were likely to be made, or returned from any country concerning them. Nor did Sir Edward Grey make reference to the grain ships, which although nominally bound for Scandinavian ports, were intercepted by their owners' or consignees' agents in the Baltic, for the purpose of varying orders for their ultimate port of destination; nor to the ships which were held up in the Baltic by German war vessels and taken to German ports under circumstances calling for grave investigation. Nor did he attempt to answer the general American statistics showing that the gain in imports to northern neutral countries exceeded the German loss.
About the middle of his speech Sir Edward Grey said: "If a vessel was held up by the Fleet with suspected cargo on board, the matter was referred to the contraband committee, who decided what part of the cargo should go to the Prize Court."
Surely any other nation in the world at war would have arranged from the outset that the capture of a vessel with contraband on board en route for the enemy, would have meant confiscation of the ship and her cargo. Our exceptional and extraordinary leniency was hardly commented upon; it was certainly not satisfactorily explained.
Continuing to quote from the speech: He would say to neutrals that we could not give up the right to interfere with enemy trade and must maintain and press that point. He would ask those countries in considering our rights to apply the principles which were applied by the American Government in the war between the North and South as affected by modern conditions. If they agreed to it, then let them with their Chambers of Commerce and other bodies make it easier for us to distinguish between goods intended for the enemy and goods intended for themselves. If those neutral countries said that we were not entitled to prevent trading through, neutral countries with the enemy, then he (Sir E. Grey) must say to the neutral countries who took that line that it was a departure from neutrality. (Cheers.) But he did not think they would take that line.