RT. HON. F. E. SMITH
[Speech at a great public meeting held in the London Opera House on September 11, 1914.]
Mr. Chairman, My Lords, and Gentlemen:— I rise to second the resolution which has been so eloquently put before this meeting, and which symbolizes an Empire united to-day as it has never been united before, because we have a profound conviction that in engaging in this great war we are in the right. [Cheers.] The causes and justifications of the war are threefold. I put the obligations of this country in the first place on our plighted word. [Cheers.] In dealing with Europe and with the world, it has always been one of our most priceless possessions that the word of England was the bond of England. [Cheers.] If, when we were invited to become parties to a treaty, which affected the very existence of a small and harmless State like Belgium, it meant nothing, why were we and other nations asked to set our hands to it? We were asked to set our hands to it because, with all the honour and responsibility of a great nation, we certified to that small State that never should her neutrality be violated, and never should she be exposed to the ravages and horrors of war—[cheers]—because it was felt by the statesmen of those days that the international security of the neutrality of Belgium would be likely to discourage aggressive schemes which were conjectured even then, and were perfectly realized to-day. One of those great nations, who were equally bound in honour with ourselves to insure that the integrity of Belgium should be preserved inviolate, has now torn up the instrument of which, equally with ourselves, they were the inspirers and guarantors. The defence put forward by the German Chancellor for this grave breach of international obligation that after all this treaty was only a scrap of paper was, to say the least, a little inadequate. [Hear, hear.] We were told in effect that the most solemn international obligation of honour might be broken if a powerful nation thought that they might
268
