Page:Secrets of Crewe House.djvu/278

208 the settlement because its importance might not have been explained or understood in time. Next to the actual work of fighting the enemy on land and sea, there was no more important work than this; and the joint intelligence and energy of all Departments of the Government were required to accomplish it successfully. For this reason the suggestion that this council of representatives of the Government Departments chiefly concerned should be formed had been warmly welcomed, in order that there might be less dispersion of effort, less overlapping, and greater mutual comprehension of the work which each Department was striving to do, and fuller co-ordination in the direction of all those efforts to one single end.

As the war approached its end, enemy propaganda must gradually pass into peace offensives and counter-offensives. The British War Mission therefore had already in existence an organisation to collect and collate various suggestions, territorial, political, economic, and so forth, that had been made by the different sections and parties in Allied, neutral, and enemy countries. A step in this direction was the report on the Propaganda Library, issued by the War Office early in 1917, by Captain