forces which are arrayed against us; but it would be equally foolish and equally indefensible to belittle our own resources, whether for resistance or attack. Belgium has shown us—by a memorable and glorious example [cheers]—what can be done by a relatively small State when its citizens are animated and fired by the spirit of patriotism. In France and Russia we have as allies two of the greatest Powers in the world, engaged with us in a common cause, who do not mean to separate themselves from us any more than we mean to separate ourselves from them. [Cheers.] We have upon the seas the strongest and most magnificent Fleet which has ever been seen. The Expeditionary Force which left our shores less than a month ago has never been surpassed [cheers], as its glorious achievements in the field have already made clear [renewed cheers], not only in material equipment, but in the physical and moral quality of its constituent parts.
As regards the Navy, I am assured by my right hon. friend Mr. Churchill, whom we are glad to see here [cheers], that there is happily little more to be done. I do not flatter it when I say that its superiority is equally marked in every department and sphere of its activity. We rely upon it with the most absolute confidence, not only to guard our shores against the possibility of invasion, not only to seal up the gigantic battleships of the enemy in the inglorious seclusion of their own ports [laughter and cheers], whence from time to time he furtively steals forth to sow the sea with the murderous snares which are more full of menace to neutral shipping than to the British Fleet—our Navy does all this, and while it is thirsting, I do not doubt, for a trial of strength in a fair and open fight, which is so far prudently denied it, it does a great deal more. It has hunted the German mercantile marine from the high seas. [Cheers.] It has kept open our own sources of food supplies and largely curtailed those of the enemy; and when the few German cruisers which still infest the more distant ocean routes have been disposed of, as they will be very soon [cheers], it will have achieved for British and neutral commerce, passing backwards and forwards from and to every part of our Empire, a security as complete as it has ever enjoyed in the days of unbroken peace. [Cheers.] Let us honour the memory of the gallant seamen who, in the pursuit of one or other of these varied and responsible duties, have already laid down their lives for their country. [Cheers.]
In regard to the Army, there is call for a new, a continuous,
