ing for victory without regarding the means by which they will get it. It is no time to boast, but after all we have already every reason to be proud of what, as a nation, we have done. We have every reason to feel that at this stage the war has gone from our point of view better than at the outset we had a right to expect. And we can say now with confidence that, whether it be long or short, of the result there can and will be no doubt. [Cheers.]
It is still less a time to talk of peace, but I see that people already are saying that Germany must not be humiliated. We have no desire to humiliate the German people. I have it as little as any man. Even now, in the midst of the war, I am not ashamed to say that I have always been fond of German literature, and I have loved the old German spirit of which that literature is the expression. Only this year, at the beginning of it, I took one of my sons to Germany to learn their language and their literature, and he got back in time, but only in time. We have no desire to humiliate the German people, but we are determined that this war, with all the cruel suffering that it has entailed and will entail, shall not be fought in vain. [Cheers.] We are determined that in our time and that of our children never again shall that dread spectre which has haunted us as a nightmare have the power to frighten us. We have put our hands to the plough, and we shall not turn back until we have made sure that the law not of might, but of right, that the law not of force, but of humanity and justice, is the law which must govern the world. [Loud and prolonged cheers.]
