and Holland provinces of the German Empire, and then to use their ports on the North Sea for the subjugation of Great Britain and the destruction of the free British Empire.
Belgium was the touchstone. A small nation, prosperous in the arts of peace, making no military pretensions, offering no shadow of offence, capable of no injury to Germany, whom Germany had plighted her word by treaty to protect—was her neutrality to be respected? We applied the touchstone to France and Germany very much as Mr. Gladstone did in 1870. France gave us an immediate and honourable answer. Germany refused. "Do not ask us for that pledge. Belgium is a necessary pawn in our great war game. You will not surely go to war with us," said the German Chancellor in a phrase which will live to the lasting humiliation of his country, "for a 'scrap of paper.'" What! were treaties, solemn obligations, rights of small nations to withstand the onward march of the military ambition of Germany? Their war plans were made—made long ago. Belgium was their easiest path, and Belgium must of course be sacrificed. They knew we loved peace and hated war—that our minds were set upon the higher work of social amelioration. They thought we were divided. They thought we would sacrifice everything—our glorious past and our great future—to avoid the contest, and they made the fatal blunder of misunderstanding the temper of the British people, which to-day is proving itself as ready, as determined as in any age of our history, to fight for that freedom and independence without which to us life itself were a debased and worthless thing. [Applause.] We are all determined to do our part, and we all have a part to play. New and sterner duties confront us. We are in a new world. It seems to me long years since the protracted and anxious deliberations of the Cabinet on Sunday, August 2, not six weeks ago.
The fact that five of the greatest Powers in Europe had declared war at once dislocated the machinery of civilization. The Government was faced by problems novel and unprecedented and of infinite complexity and difficulty. As they acknowledge with pride, they have been helped by the patriotic support and the personal assistance of leaders of all parties, and this meeting to-night and the men who stand on this platform together are an expression of the national unity. [Applause.] What are these problems? To re-establish the tottering system of finance, paralysed in every quarter of the
