fluences at work, which are retarding the progress of recruiting. I read a day to two ago a speech made by a public man, who claims to be a special representative of the workers of this country, in which he told a large gathering of working men that the only reason we became so interested in Belgian neutrality was that we wanted an excuse for our country to go to war. ["Shame."] He told them this war, and all the treaties and all the private compacts and ententes behind them, were nothing more than a conspiracy on the part of the Government and the millionaires of England. [Laughter.]
Ladies and gentlemen, I don't want to mention the cur's name. [Laughter, cheers, and cries of "Traitor," "Shame," and "Keir Hardie."] I will only say this: that a man who uses such words at such a time as this—[cries of "Traitor" and "The Tower"]—and takes the Nation's money as a member of the King's Parliament, ought not to be at large; he is a public danger. [Hisses and cries: "Shoot him," "Clear them out," etc.] I will only say this further, that, if I were a member of responsible government of this country, a member of Parliament who used such language as that would have very short shrift indeed, and his future speeches would have to be delivered to a much more limited and select audience than those he is in the habit of addressing. [Applause.]
Well, ladies and gentlemen, these are the sort of things that are keeping recruiting back. We want to make it clear to the manhood of this country that this is a life and death struggle between the Anglo-Saxon race and the Teutonic races; the Teutonic is still as brutal, as barbarous, and as base as it has been throughout the whole of its history. I, personally, think the civilization of Germany to-day—despite all its literature and spiritual attractions—[hear, hear]—belongs to a period of a thousand years ago. [Hear, hear.] When I find eminent statesmen telling us that their "spiritual home is in Germany"—[laughter]—I say, first of all that there is no accounting for taste, and, secondly, as a student of psychic matters, I say this: it is a dangerous thing to divorce your astral body from your physical one; and the man whose spiritual home is in Berlin should either call back his spirit as quickly as possible, or transfer its physical encasement there without delay. [Laughter and cheers.]
I was reading the other day—I am not going to read it to-night—the diary of Lady Shelley, who went over the battleground where the Prussians had fought before Waterloo, and
