not do—I will not say our share, but more than our share, as is the right of the eldest born, in the crisis where the fate of all the race is concerned. I am quite certain that all will be done that is needed, that the men that are wanted will come forward.
I have little patience—and I am glad that Mr. Bonar Law made his protest yesterday—I have little patience with those who fill our ears with cries that our people are backward. Considering how little their statesmen prepared them beforehand for this struggle, which some of us have seen approaching for twenty years and more, I think it is wonderful with what unanimity they have acted, and with what splendid enthusiasm they have come forward. I am certain—and I hope Mr. Samuel will take this message from Birmingham to London—that the Government can have whatever number of men they think necessary, if they will take us into their confidence, tell us bad news as well as good news, tell us what they need, ask for what they want. And I go further, and say that, without prejudging what is to be the future policy of this country—which cannot be settled until this struggle is fought out, and until we know what sort of a Europe confronts us at the end—there is no man of us who will not give the Government any powers that are needed to ensure the victory of our arms. Whatever be the effect of those powers on our liberties, we will not hesitate, if men are not forthcoming otherwise, to give them powers to take men as they need them.
I was born in this city. It is endeared to me by all the most sacred memories of my life. I watch its acts and its fortunes, with the sympathy that comes of a heart full of grateful memories, and with a pride that comes of the lesson I learned from the man to whom I owe everything of the part that it has played, and the spirit it has shown, in great national crises. And in this great struggle, the greatest not in numbers only, but in the issues which are hanging in the balance, in this great struggle, the greatest that the world has ever seen, I am jealous of the honour of my native city, I want it to be, my Lord Mayor, as you have been able to say it is, always in the forefront of our national life, not content unless it can set a shining example wherever the English language is spoken and the British name is held dear.
