To have seriously attacked the Government and put it out of office would have raised a general outcry. It was considered disloyal even to criticise. "Wait and see" was the only policy Englishmen were permitted to contemplate. Meanwhile this farce, this weakness or this cowardly inaction, whichever epithet is most appropriate to it, was permitted to drift its course. Gleefully the Germans continued to annex the rich cod and herring harvests of Norway, nor did they cavil at the super-price. Gleefully the Norwegian fishermen continued to rake in the deluge of gold, the like of which had never been known within the memory of man. Gleefully the Goulashes of Scandinavia continued to increase and multiply, whilst they prospered and waxed exceedingly rich, in spite of a few widely-proclaimed spectacular fines and confiscations. The advertisements in the papers of neutral countries offering to supply necessities direct into Germany also continued and spread, like the proverbial grain of mustard-seed, until the very mails were glutted with contraband.

One of these multitudinous advertisements is given as an example. It is from the Fatherland, March 29th, 1916, the subsidised German-American weekly published in New York:

FOOD TO GERMANY.

Delivered through my Firm at Stuttgart.

Can condensed milk30 cents
Fruit marmalades, per pound35 cents
Fifty cigars$2.00
One pound of rice40 cents
One pound of bacon75 cents
One pound of lard70 cents
One pound of cheese25 cents
100 cigarettes$1.70

Also dried fruits, beans, peas, etc. Invigorating wines for sick and wounded.

Information and price lists on request.

E. R. Trieler, Dept. F. 35-37, West 23rd St., New York.

No wonder Lord Grimthorpe, after quoting an influential Frenchman's opinion that "England had muscles of iron but brains of wool," argued that, instead of bringing more lawyers into the management, the country would be much more satisfied if the Ministry of Blockade was put into the hands of a fighting man like Lord Beresford or Lord Fisher.