and Servia than the Government and country of France. [Loud cheers.] They are involved in it because of their obligations of honour [cheers] under a definite alliance with Russia. It is only fair to state to the House that those obligations of honour cannot apply in the same way to us. [Ministerial cheers.] We are not a party to the Franco-Russian Alliance; we do not even know the terms of that Alliance. Now so far I have, I think, faithfully and completely cleared the ground with regard to the question of obligation.
I now come to what we think the situation requires of us. We have had for many years a long-standing friendship with France. [Cheers.] I remember well the feeling in the House—my own feeling, for I spoke on the subject, I think, when the late Government made their agreement with France—the warm and cordial feeling resulting from the fact that these two nations, who had had perpetual differences in the past, had cleared those differences away. [Cheers.] I remember saying, I think, that it seemed to me that some benign influence had been at work to produce the cordial atmosphere which had made that possible. But how far that friendship entails obligation—and it has been a friendship of the nations [cheers] and ratified by the nations—let every man look into his own heart and his own feelings and construe the extent of the obligation for himself. [Cheers.] I construe it myself as I feel it, but I do not wish to urge upon anyone else more than their feelings dictate as to what they should feel about the obligation. The House individually and collectively may judge for itself.
But now I speak personally for myself from the point of view of feeling.
The French Fleet is now in the Mediterranean. [Cheers.] The northern and western coasts of France are absolutely undefended. When the French Fleet comes to be concentrated in the Mediterranean, there is a very different situation from what it used to be because the friendship which grew up between the two countries had given them a sense of security that there was nothing to be feared from us. Her coasts are absolutely undefended, her Fleet is in the Mediterranean, and has been for some years concentrated there, because of the feeling of confidence and friendship which has existed between the two countries.
My own feeling is this, that if a foreign Fleet, engaged in a war which France had not sought and in which she had not
