How infinitely sounder and stronger is this mood than that
which, I remember, manifested itself in the third year of the First German War. I have already in this column alluded to the spy-mania which formed so hysterical a feature of 1917. Air-raids in those days were few and startling, yet there was not a village in Great Britain in which someone was not suspected of flashing guidance to the Zeppelins at night. One would have imagined that in the present war these suspicions would have been even more wide- spread and intense. On the one hand, the air:raids have been far more numerous and far more alarming. On the other hand, the use made by the Germans of their fifth column in Norway, Belgium, Holland and France offered some justification for suspicion. Yet, in fact, there have in this war been but few instances of spy-mania and few denunciations. Since the war began I have only received one letter, and had one interview, in which the loyalty of any citizen was called in question. In the last war, letters of denuncia- tion were received by Members of Parliament in shoals.
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