My Lord Mayor, from both points of view—that of our domestic interest as a kingdom and an empire, and of our settled attitude and policy in the counsels of Europe, a war such as this, which injures the one and frustrates the other, was and could only be regarded as among the worst of catastrophes—among the worst of catastrophes, but not the worst. [Hear, hear.] Four weeks ago, speaking at the Guildhall in the City of London, when the war was still in its early days, I asked my fellow-countrymen with what countenance, with what conscience, had we basely chosen to stand aloof, we could have watched from day to day the terrible unrolling of events—public faith shamelessly broken, freedom of a small people trodden in the dust, the wanton invasion of Belgium and then of France by hordes who leave behind them at every stage of their progress a dismal trail of savagery, of devastation, of desecration—[hear, hear]—worthy of the blackest annals in the history of barbarism. [Hear, hear.] That was four weeks ago. The war has now lasted for sixty days, and every one of those days has added to the picture its share of sombre and repulsive traits. We now see clearly, written down in letters of carnage and spoliation, the real ends and methods of this long-prepared and well-organized scheme against the liberties of Europe. [Applause.] I say nothing of other countries. I pass no judgment upon them. But if we here in Great Britain had abstained and remained neutral, forsworn our word, deserted our friends, paltered and compromised with the plain dictates of our duties—nay, if we had not shown ourselves ready to strike with all our force at the common enemy of civilization and of freedom, there would have been nothing left for us and for our country but to veil her face in shame and be ready in her turn—for her turn would have come—to be ready in her turn to share the doom which she would have richly deserved, and go, after centuries of glorious life, down to her grave "unwept, unhonoured, and unsung." [Hear, hear.] My Lord Mayor, let us gladly acknowledge what becomes clearer and clearer every day, that the world is just as ready as it ever was—and no part of it readier than the British Empire—to understand and to respond to moral issues. [Cheers.] The new school of German thought has been teaching for a generation past that in the affairs of nations there is no code of ethics. According to them force, and nothing but force, is at once the test and the measure of right. As the events which are going on before our eyes have
