[26] Evening News, August 24th, 1916.
[27] Daily Mail, August 28th, 1916.
[28] Daily Mail leading article, December 6th, 1916.
L'ENVOI
Before parting with my reader I feel an apology is due from me, not for anything I have written, but for what I have left unsaid.
I admit this book is an amalgam, and far from being what it might have been, had circumstances not required the exercise of considerable restraint on the part of the writer.
Staunch loyalty to his native land is the least return every true-born British subject can make for his birthright; and just as in carrying out the investigations entrusted to me, I ever kept in mind that the one and only object of my existence for the time being was to help my country, so in compiling the preceding chapters I have been compelled, by what in a higher sphere would be called reasons of State, to suppress many facts and incidents which would, I make no doubt, have constituted interesting reading matter.
I have striven to give nothing away that could be construed directly or indirectly against my country. I have touched, lightly, yet I trust sufficiently, upon the canker spots that I so fervently hope and pray may in time be eradicated from our system of home and foreign affairs.