passion for peace when he sees the horrors of war—"But we ought to fight only in defence." But that is what we are doing. [Hear, hear, and cheers.] We are fighting in defence, and the only possible defence in this war is complete victory, complete conquest. [Loud cheers.] Now, of course, we must take into consideration all the chances of war. There is a chance, a reasonable chance, which has very often been presented to us of a raid—that is to say, that the Germans, who have any number of men at their disposal, and who have, besides, in strict seclusion a powerful fleet—[laughter]—might think it well to ask all these men, and I think the Germans, who are brave men, would willingly give their lives, in order by a raid to destroy and humiliate as much as they could of Great Britain. Well, you know what has happened in Belgium. Belgium has been devastated by the Power which guaranteed its existence, but what was done in Belgium would be a joke to what would be done in Scotland, if they got here. They were animated by no hatred of Belgium. They now speak as if they were exceedingly fond of Belgium, but they make no disguise of their hatred of us and be assured, gentlemen, in your reason, that whatever they did in Belgium would be multiplied one hundredfold, if they were so fortunate as to set foot in Scotland.
Another point—I shall not detain you much longer—[cries of "Go on," and cheers]—but there is another point. What we want after all, besides security, is peace; the promptest and most satisfactory peace that we can obtain. In fact, I think that we are determined that we will not lay down our arms until we have attained peace. [Cheers.] The only way to obtain peace is to have an overwhelming force in the field. [Cheers.] Make no mistake about the Germans. We have seen all sorts of things in the papers about their surrendering easily, and so forth. Every man who has met them in war, and in this war, is loud in praise of their courage, passive courage perhaps, but determined and unflinching courage. But when you are going to meet millions of men like that, in order to obtain security and peace you must have millions to oppose them. You will not with a very inferior force defeat the Germans. All that you will have will be this, that your war will go on dragging and straggling until all the parties to it are dead of exhaustion, and then they are forced to come to some sort of conventional arrangement, which may enable them sometime to live again. Before that time comes I
