he village painter. Only
yesterday I heard him complain that the war was making it difficult
for him to get sufficient oil to mix his paint."

I was at a loss for words. "When one compares such terrible
untruths with our German White Book," declared Frau Lang, "it is
indeed difficult for the American people to understand the true
situation."

I felt that it would be useless for me at that moment to explain
certain very important omissions in the German White Book.
Anything would look _white_ in comparison with the yellow journal I
had just read. But I knew, and tried to explain that the
particular newspaper combination which printed such rubbish was
well known in America for its inaccuracies and fabrications, and
although it was pro-German, it would sacrifice anything for
sensation. But the good woman, being a German, and consequently
accustomed to standardisation, could not dissociate this newspaper
from the real Press.

CHAPTER X

SUBMARINE MOTIVES

The German submarines are standardised. The draughts and blue
prints of the most important machinery are multiplied and sent, if
necessary, to twenty different factories, while all the minor
stampings are produced at one or other main factory. The
"assembling" of the submarines, therefore, is not difficult.
During the war submarine parts have been assembled at Trieste,
Zeebrugge, Kiel, Bremerhaven, Stettin, and half a dozen other
places in Germany unnecessary to relate. With commendable
foresight, Germany sent submarine parts packed as machinery to
South America, where they are being assembled somewhere on the west
coast.

The improvement, enlargement, and simplification of the submarine
has progressed with great rapidity.

When I was in England after a former visit to Germany I met a
number of seafolk who pooh-poohed extensive future submarining, by
saying that, no matter how many submarines the Germans might be
able to produce, the training of submarine officers and crew was
such a difficult task that the "submarine menace," as it was then
called in England, need not be taken too seriously.

The difficulty is not so great. German submarine officers and men
are trained by the simple process of double or treble banking of
the crews of submarines on more or less active service. Submarine
crews are therefore multiplied probably a great deal faster than
the war destroys them. These double or treble crews, who rarely go
far away from German water