House of Commons on foreign policy, and the speech of some idiot
there gave him his cue. He declared that he had been heart and soul
with the British at the start, but that he was reluctantly compelled
to change his views. He said our blockade of Germany had broken
all the laws of God and humanity, and he reckoned that Britain was
now the worst exponent of Prussianism going. That letter made a
fine racket, and the paper that printed it had a row with the Censor.
But that was only the beginning of Mr Blenkiron's campaign. He
got mixed up with some mountebanks called the League of Democrats
against Aggression, gentlemen who thought that Germany
was all right if we could only keep from hurting her feelings. He
addressed a meeting under their auspices, which was broken up by
the crowd, but not before John S. had got off his chest a lot of
amazing stuff. I wasn't there, but a man who was told me that he
never heard such clotted nonsense. He said that Germany was right
in wanting the freedom of the seas, and that America would back
her up, and that the British Navy was a bigger menace to the peace
of the world than the Kaiser's army. He admitted that he had once
thought differently, but he was an honest man and not afraid to
face facts. The oration closed suddenly, when he got a brussels-
sprout in the eye, at which my friend said he swore in a very
unpacifist style.

After that he wrote other letters to the Press, saying that there
was no more liberty of speech in England, and a lot of scallywags
backed him up. Some Americans wanted to tar and feather him,
and he got kicked out of the Savoy. There was an agitation to get
him deported, and questions were asked in Parliament, and the
Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs said his department had the
matter in hand. I was beginning to think that Blenkiron was carrying