offered their services, gone into training, and are now ready to go to fight the battles of the country. All honour to them. [Hear, hear.] But the young men who are left, and who have listened to the speeches of responsible Ministers of the country, and the negotiations between this country and Germany—and there is no peace-loving Welshman in Wales who will impartially study them and also what Mr. Asquith has told us what Great Britain did to secure peace but will say that we were thoroughly justified in everything the Government have done. [Cheers.]
And had we not, as the Premier told us in his Guildhall speech, stood by our friends, it would have been better for us to be wiped out of the pages of history. [Hear, hear.] I have lately read and I commend you all to read the work of General von Bernhardi on Germany and the Next War, and you will see that every penny we could subscribe and every drop of blood we could shed must protect this nation from what had become the ruling passion of the German military force. [Cheers.] War to them was as divinely necessary as eating. Massacres, burnings, and murders were all part of the game, and we were told to look at the massacres, burnings, and murders not like children, but like men. All these were necessary, according to Bernhardi, in order that Germany should expand; that it might spread its great culture to all the nations of the world, [Laughter and applause.] Right, according to that general, was might, and the spoil was to the victor. That was the teaching of the German professors, invaders of the villages of the Belgians and of France. The nations which did not prosecute these ideals would become effeminate and effete, Bernhardi, however, should now have to wipe out a part of his book at Mons—that feat of the glorious British army. [Cheers.] Yes, and to be up-to-date he would have the battle of the Aisne to write up. [Applause.] What were our soldiers protecting us against? Have you read as I have—to the neglect of my business I am afraid—of the noble deeds done at the front? I am no authority on military matters, but did you read of the incident which took place in the British trenches the other day, when our soldiers wanted to send a message to the French? A brave soldier raised his flag, and was shot down; it was no use endeavouring to signal, and so the commander said, "We must have a cyclist to carry the message," One went, and he was shot down; a second was sent, and he shared the same fate; but the third did not
