Todd war diary, 3 August 1914-29 February 1916 / Arthur Todd - Page 144
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[Page 144]
No doubt we often were often defeated by ships having false manifests and cargoes not what they they were represented. It would have been easy to have a quantity of contraband stowed away under honest goods but the difficulties of search on the High Seas were such that a cursory examination had to suffice. Still these same ships outward bound for Europe were mostly bailed up again around the North of Scotland or in the English Channel and then taken to harbour & thoroughly overhauled.
So probably the end result from our point of view was pretty good.
Enemy powers undoubtedly received more material suitable for warlike purposes than they should have but the writer thinks that this was not so much the fault of the Navy as a quixotic benevolence on the part of our Government.
Naturally enough it was not policy to offend neutrals and as neutrals stood to lose so much in a mercantile sense if a stringent blockade were enforced the Government often erred perhaps on the side of too much tolerance.