ely the same conditions applied to all other
food-stuffs with the exception of dairy produce, the price of which was
quadrupled by Tuesday afternoon, and fish, the price of which put it at
once beyond the reach of all save the rich, and all delicacies, the
prices of which became prohibitive. Twelve million persons had lived on
the verge of hunger, before, under normal conditions, and when the
country's trade had been far larger and more prosperous than of late.
Now, with the necessities of life standing at fully three times normal
prices, a large number of trades employing many thousands of work-people
were suddenly shut down upon, and rendered completely inoperative.

It must be borne in mind that we had been warned again and again that
matters would be precisely thus and not otherwise in the event of war,
and we had paid no heed whatever to the telling.

Historians have explained for us that the primary reason of the very
sudden rise to famine rates of the prices of provisions was the
persistent rumour that the effective bulk of the Channel Fleet had been
captured or destroyed on its way northward from Spanish waters. German
strategy had drawn the Fleet southward, in the first place, by means of
an international "incident" in the Mediterranean, which was clearly the
bait of what rumour called a death-trap. Once trapped, it was said,
German seamanship and surprise tactics had done the rest.

The crews of the Channel Fleet ships (considerably below full strength)
had been rushed out of shore barracks, in which discipline had fallen to
a terribly low ebb, to their unfamiliar shipboard stations, at the time
of the Mediterranean scare. Beset by the flower of the German Navy, in
ships manned by crews who lived afloat, it was asserted that the
Channel Fleet had been annihilated, and that the entire force of the
German Navy was concentrated upon the task of patrolling English waters.

We know that men and horses, stores and munitions of war, were pouring
steadily and continuously into East Anglia from Germany during this
time, escorted by German cruisers and torpedo-boats, and uninterrupted
by British ships. There was yet no report of the Channel Fleet, the
ships of which were already twenty-four hours overdue at Portsmouth.

Two things, more than any others, had influenced the British Navy during
the Administration of "The Destroyers": the total cessation of building
operations, and the withdrawal of ships and men from se