During the whole nine weeks, except for
the short controversy in Copenhagen over
Litvinoff's hotel, and for the unfortunate
escapade which ended in my arrest and imprisonment
in a detention camp, called a
“ Quarantine Station,” in Finland, my relationships
with everyone were most cordial.
I was treated as an honoured guest by
Socialists and non-Socialists ; I received the
confidences of Ministers, and of one Prime
Minister. The Customs Houses, Passport
Offices, and Secret Police, were a very great
trial and inconvenience, but they were all safely
negotiated—although at times it seemed as
if the very devil himself were engaged in
spoking my wheels.
I learned one thing which is indelibly fixed on my mind. It is this : all Governments from the greatest to the least are ruled by fear. It is fear which has created the British vSecret Police under Sir Basil Thomson, and it is fear which has linked this department up with the Secret Police of other countries. So powerful, so widespread, is the net which Sir Basil Thomson and his secret agents are weaving, that even the domain of ordinary diplomacy is not free of them. When James O’Grady went to Denmark to negotiate the
