The atmosphere of spying in business is a subtle and comparatively modern form of German espionage, and has developed with the remarkable rise of German industry in the last quarter of a century.  It fits in admirably with the Consular spy system, and links up Germans, naturalised and otherwise, in a chain which binds them together in a solidarity of workers for the cause.  The Deutsche Bank and the Hamburg-Amerika Line were very potent engines of espionage.

Nor does the “Viktoria Insurance Company of Berlin” limit its activities to the kind of business suggested by the sign over the door.  A “Special Bureau” in the Avenue de l’Opera, Paris, consisted of German Reserve officers who spent a half-year or more in France.  As soon as one of these “finished his education” he was replaced by another Reserve officer.  Their duties took them on long motor-trips through eastern France, strangely enough to localities which might be of strategic importance in the event of war.  It is not without significance that all the clerks of the “Special Bureau” left for Germany the day of mobilisation.

Many of the semi-spies of the German commercial, musical, and theatrical world are, from their point of view, honest workers and enthusiastic for German Kultur.  They recently fastened upon England, because the Germans for many years have been taught to regard this country as their next opponent.

They are now as industrious in the United States as they were in England before the war, because those Germans who think they have won the war believe that the United States is their next enemy.  How active they have been in my country may be gathered from the revelations concerning Bernstorff, von Papen, Boyed, Dumba, the officials of the Hamburg-Amerika Line, and many others, whose machinations have been revealed by the New York World and other journals.

It is the duty of the German Minister and his staff in any foreign country, and particularly in countries likely to become hostile, to get as close as possible to members of Governments, members of Legislatures, leaders of thought and society, and members of the Press, especially the first and the last in this category.  Count Bernstorff in the United States did exactly what Prince Lichnowsky did in Britain before the war, and, if I may say so, did it a great deal more successfully, though it is the plea of the Prince’s defenders that he succeeded in making very powerful and permanent connections in Great Britain,

Our American Ambassadors, on the other hand, confine their attention to strictly ambassadorial work, attend to the needs of travelling Americans, and communicate with their Government on matters vital to American interests.