might and right. [Cheers.] The issue has passed out of the domain of argument into another field.
But let me ask you, and through you the world outside, what would have been our condition as a nation to-day if we had been base enough, through timidity or through a perverted calculation of self-interest, or through a paralysis of the sense of honour and duty [cheers], to be false to our word and faithless to our friends? [Cheers.] Our eyes would have been turned at this moment with those of the whole civilized world to Belgium—a small State which has lived for more than seventy years under a special and collective guarantee, to which we, in common with Prussia and Austria, were parties—and we should have seen, at the instance and by the action of two of these guaranteeing Powers, her neutrality violated, her independence strangled, her territory made use of as affording the easiest and most convenient road to a war of unprovoked aggression against France. [Cheers.] We, the British people, should at this moment have been standing by with folded arms and with such countenance as we could command, while this small and unprotected State, in defence of her vital liberties, made a heroic stand against overweening and overwhelming force. We should have been watching as detached spectators the siege of Liège, the steady and manful resistance of a small Army, the occupation of the capital, with its splendid traditions and memories, the gradual forcing back of the patriotic defenders of their native land to the ramparts of Antwerp, countless outrages suffered by, and buccaneering levies exacted from, the unoffending civil population, and finally the greatest crime committed against civilization and culture since the Thirty Years' War—the sack of Louvain. [Cries of "Shame."] With its buildings, its pictures, its unique library, its unrivalled associations, a shameless holocaust of irreparable treasures lit up by blind barbarian vengeance. [Cheers.]
What account should we, the Government and the people of this country, have been able to render to the tribunal of our national conscience and sense of honour if, in defiance of our plighted and solemn obligations, we had not done our best to prevent, yes, and to avenge, these intolerable wrongs? [Cheers.]
For my part, I say that sooner than be a silent witness, which means in effect a willing accomplice of this tragic triumph of force over law and of brutality over freedom, I would see this country of ours blotted out of the page of history. [Prolonged cheers.]
