"scrap of paper" just as effectively as
Germany has? As my husband puts it: England gave Belgium a check, a big
check, and gave it with much ostentation, but took care that there
should be no funds to meet it! Trusting to your check Belgium finds
herself bankrupt, sequestrated, blotted out as a nation. But I know
England well enough to foresee that English statesmen, with our old
friend, the Manchester _Guardian_, which we used to read in years gone
by, will always quote with pride how they "guaranteed" the neutrality of
Belgium.

As to the future. You cannot win. A nation that has prided itself on
making no sacrifice for political power or even independence must pay
for its pride. Our house here in Bremen has lately been by way of a
centre for naval men, and to a less extent, for officers of the
neighbouring commands. They are absolutely confident that they will land
ten army corps in England before Christmas. It is terrible to know what
they mean to go for. They mean to destroy. Every town which remotely is
concerned with war material is to be annihilated. Birmingham, Bradford,
Leeds, Newcastle, Sheffield, Northampton are to be wiped out, and the
men killed, ruthlessly hunted down. The fact that Lancashire and
Yorkshire have held aloof from recruiting is not to save them. The fact
that Great Britain is to be a Reichsland will involve the destruction of
inhabitants, to enable German citizens to be planted in your country in
their place. German soldiers hope that your poor creatures will resist,
as patriots should, but they doubt it very much. For resistance will
facilitate the process of clearance. Ireland will be left independent,
and its harmlessness will be guaranteed by its inevitable civil war.

You may wonder, as I do sometimes, whether this hatred of England is not
unworthy, or a form of mental disease. But you must know that it is at
bottom not hatred but contempt; fierce, unreasoning scorn for a country
that pursues money and ease, from aristocrat to trade-unionist labourer,
when it has a great inheritance to defend. I feel bitter, too, for I
spent half my life in your country and my dearest friends are all
English still; and yet I am deeply ashamed of the hypocrisy and
make-believe that has initiated your national policy and brought you
down. Now, one thing more. England is, after all, only a stepping stone.
From Liverpool, Queenstown, Glasgow, Belfast, we shall reach out across
the ocean. I firmly believe