That is only a phase, a lurid and illuminating phase, in the contest to which we have been called by the mandate of duty and of honour to bear our part. The cynical violation of the neutrality of Belgium was after all but a step, the first step, in a deliberate policy of which, if not the immediate, the ultimate and not far distant aim was to crush the independence and the autonomy of the free States of Europe. First Belgium, then Holland and Switzerland—countries like our own imbued and sustained with the spirit of liberty—we were one after the other to be bent to the yoke, and these ambitions were fed and fostered by a body of new doctrines and new philosophy preached by professors and learned men. The free and full self-development which to these small States, to ourselves, to our great and growing Dominions over the seas, to our kinsmen across the Atlantic, is the well-spring and life-breath of national existence; that free self-development is the one capital offence in the code of those who have made force their supreme divinity and upon its altars are prepared to sacrifice both the gathered fruits and potential germs of the unfettered human spirit. I use this language advisedly. This is not merely a material, it is also a spiritual conflict. [Cheers.] Upon this issue everything that contains the promise and hope that leads to emancipation and fuller liberty for the millions who make up the masses of mankind will be found sooner or later to depend.
Let me now turn to the actual situation in Europe. How do we stand? For the last ten years, by what I believe to be happy and well-considered diplomatic arrangements, we have established friendly and increasingly intimate relations with two Powers—France and Russia—with whom in days gone by we have had in various parts of the world occasions for friction, and now and again for possible conflict. These new and better relations, based in the first instance upon business principles of give and take, matured into a settled temper of confidence and good will. They were never in any sense or at any time, as I have frequently said in this hall, directed against other Powers. [Cheers.] No man in the history of the world has ever laboured more strenuously or more successfully than my right hon. friend Sir Edward Grey [cheers] for that which is the supreme interest of the modern world—a general and abiding peace. It is a very superficial criticism which suggests that under his guidance the policy of this country has ignored, still less that it has counteracted
