that throughout all this business Germany knew very well what she was about!
But we have, I venture to think, to consider, not only our obligations to Belgium, but our obligations to another country. What of our obligations to France? [Hear, hear.] We were not bound to France by any written engagement, but there are engagements between honourable men and honourable nations which are just as binding, though they are unwritten, as if they were formally engrossed upon any number of sheets of paper. And it was by such engagements that we were bound to France.
I need not remind you that, ten years ago, the Government of this country made an arrangement with the French Republic for the settlement of a number of outstanding differences between us—an arrangement which, during the years that have since passed, has ripened and become more intimate, and which has, I venture to think, on more than one occasion stood this country, and not only this country, but the whole of Europe, in very good stead. And I say that, with the knowledge that we were bound to France by honourable engagements of this kind, it would have been impossible for us to sit still while France was crushed, robbed, and humiliated. [Cheers.]
Well, there are our obligations to Belgium, and our obligations to France, but, if you want really to understand this problem, I think it is necessary to probe a little more deeply. I venture to tell you that if there had been no Belgian difficulty, if there had been no Entente Cordiale with France, this crisis, which has been forced upon us by Germany, would have had to be faced, sooner or later. [Cheers.]
Her conduct, her diplomacy, the speeches of her public men, the teaching of her schools and Universities, leave no doubt of the aspirations with which she was inspired. We know what her aim was—to establish a great military despotism, extending from the North Sea to the Mediterranean and the Adriatic. The means which she was ready to use were to be found in an aggressive and unscrupulous diplomacy based upon a complete disregard of treaty obligations whenever those treaty obligations happened to be inconvenient to herself. That policy was, as we know, to be supported by military and naval preparations upon a vast scale directed with scarcely any concealment against this country.
Germany is a great continental Power. We never grudged
