dshed. As
it was, the whole business was completed in a wonderfully short while,
and with remarkable smoothness. The judicial and municipal
administration of these centres was to remain English; but supreme
authority was vested in the officer commanding the German forces in each
place, and the heads of such departments as the postal and the police,
were German. No kind of public gathering or demonstration was
permissible in these towns, unless under the auspices of the German
officer in command, who in each case was given the rank of Governor of
the town.

We had learned by this time that the Channel Fleet had not been entirely
swept away. But a portion of it was destroyed, and the remaining ships
had been entrapped. It was strategy which had kept British ships from
our coasts during the fatal week of the invasion. "The Destroyers" were
responsible for our weak-kneed concessions to Berlin some years earlier,
in the matter of wireless telegraphy. In the face of urgent
recommendations to the contrary from experts, the Government had yielded
to German pressure in the matter of making our own system
interchangeable, and had even boasted of their diplomacy in thus
ingratiating themselves with Germany. As a consequence, the enemy had
been able to convey messages purporting to come from the British
Admiralty and ordering British commanders to keep out of home waters.

That these messages should have been conveyed in secret code form was a
mystery which subsequent investigations failed to solve. Some one had
played traitor. But the history of the invasion has shown us that we had
very many traitors among us in those days; and there came a time when
the British public showed clearly that it was weary of Commissions of
Inquiry. Where so many, if not indeed all of us, were at fault, where
the penalty was so crushing, it was felt that there were other and more
appropriate openings for official energy and public interest than the
mere apportioning of blame and punishment, however well deserved.

The issue of what was called the "Invasion Budget" was Parliament's
first important act, after the dispersal of the German forces in
England, and the termination of the Government distribution of food
supplies. The alterations of customs tariff were not particularly
notable. The House had agreed that revenue was the objective to be
considered, and fiscal adjustments with reference to commerce were
postponed for the time. The great change