V. Are crews being increased, are ships being prepared, or has
commissioning of ships suddenly taken place?
These questions, the Attorney-General pointed out, were intended as
tests for Mr Duff. Other questions, put apparently with more serious
intent, included the following:
I. What is the opinion of officers of the British Navy as to the result
of war between England and France, on the one hand, and Germany on the
other, and the likelihood of the same over the Morocco question?
II. What ships of the Third Division were put out of service on July
23, or about the end of July, or have reduced their crews, and the
reasons for so doing?
III. How many officers and men are still on board, and why was the
programme altered after it was stated that the Third Division should be
full up?
Before answering these questions Mr Duff communicated with the police,
and it was stated in the initial proceedings against Schulz that, if
British people usually acted in the way that Mr Duff and Mr Tarrant
had done, and in the way that Detective-Sergeant Martin, whom they
consulted, had acted, England would have nothing to fear from any system
of espionage.
The evidence given by Mr Tarrant went to show that Schulz had offered
him a salary of 50 pounds a month for acting as "Military and Naval
Correspondent" to a German paper, for which Schulz was to act as agent
and intermediary. The only defence set up was to the effect that Schulz
was a _bona-fide_ journalist, and had no ulterior motive in attempting
to obtain information. The Tobler correspondence was too strong
evidence to the contrary, and the well-merited sentence of a year and
nine months' imprisonment in the second division was imposed. It is
characteristic of the German spy system that, after his release from
jail, Schulz was disowned by his previous employers.
Later cases, like that of Ernst, to which reference will be made later,
go to prove that both in England and France a system of
counter-espionage has been organised, which goes far to neutralise such
efforts as that detailed above. So persistent is the German thirst for
information that one man who came into the British courts as defendant
had actually received payment from German sources for information which
he was virtually proved to have obtained from Whittaker's almanac and
like sources. This, however, only goes to show that the object of the
German secret service is to check such information as it may receive, by
means of duplicate and triplicate reports.
There is little likelihood of the system of German naval espionage
having any definite effect in England until an invasion has been
successfully accomplished, for there is a wide difference between
learning the strength of a coast defence and overcoming that defence.
Both in naval and military matters, also, the plan has long since been
adopted of changing orders at irregular intervals, so that, in case of
active service requirements, the strength and dispositions of the forces
vary from month to month and even from week to week. Signal and
telegraphic codes are changed, routine is altered, and, altogether, such
differences are effected in various ways that information supplied by
spies one week may be quite valueless the next. Not that it is
advisable to underrate the spy peril or the value of the German system,
but at the same time it is equally unwise to overrate the possibilities
of the system. Were another Stieber forthcoming, Germany might yet
accomplish all that it set out to do with the assistance of its secret
service; but, under present conditions, such success is extremely
unlikely.