I think our staying powers are better than the staying powers of our opponents. [Cheers.] You have, I dare say, noticed within the last few days a suggestion—I think of German origin—[laughter]—that the time has come when this war might be treated as a drawn game. [Renewed laughter.] Not quite, I think! [Cheers.] If you look at the matter as a sort of debtor and creditor account I don't think the conclusion that one would come to is that at this moment it looks like a drawn game. Belgium has been devastated, churches and cathedrals have been destroyed, but the smashing blow at the Allies has not yet been delivered, and we are holding our own well. [Cheers.] In the eastern theatre of war the advantage seems to be entirely on the side of the Allies.
I therefore venture to suggest to you that there is no question, so far as we are concerned, of declaring the innings closed just yet. [Cheers.] The game is a game worth winning, and under Providence we mean to win it. [Cheers.] I read the other day a pathetic account of what happened to an English officer who was badly wounded on the Belgian battle-field early in those hostilities. As he looked around him and saw the ravaged fields, the smoking rafters, the misery of the women and children, there rose to his lips the cry, "If these things were to happen in England!" We don't mean them to happen in England—[cheers]—and, therefore, we mean to win this game, conscious that our cause is a just cause, and that it is the cause not only of England, but the cause of civilization and of humanity. [Loud cheers.] I have the honour to move the first resolution:—
That this meeting of citizens of Nottingham, profoundly believing that we are fighting for a just cause, for the vindication of the rights of small States and the public law of Europe, pledges itself unswervingly to support the Government in all measures necessary for the prosecution of the war to a victorious conclusion, whereby alone the lasting peace of Europe will be achieved.
[Cheers.]
