Head Master has also told me that of your masters six have already been taken, in one service or another, for the war, one of whom has been wounded. And in regard to the boys before me, as I might judge from your appearance and uniform, practically the whole school, except those who are disqualified for some good reason, have joined the Officers' Training Corps. Therefore it appears that you are already closely concerned in the war, whether you wish it or not. And I would like to say to anybody who may think that for some reason or other, by youth or otherwise, he is precluded from taking an active part, that he, too, has a duty to perform. It is to keep himself fit, and encourage others to do the same, to be cheerful about his work, and to maintain a high standard of courage, discipline and honour, and so to prepare himself for the ordeal when his turn shall come.
I have been asked to address you this evening about the war, and particularly about the circumstances in which it broke out. But I may state at once that I do not propose to say much about the origin of the war. So much has been written and circulated about it that there is probably not a single educated man, woman or boy, in this country at any rate, but is satisfied that we entered upon it with clean hands, and that we were compelled to do so by the dictates of what we value more than life itself. Not only are we satisfied as to this, but I believe the whole civilized world is fairly well satisfied also. In the month of July last no nation in the world was less anxious for war than England, and I might almost say less prepared for war. No Government less wished for war or was less likely to be drawn into war than the present advisers of the King. I gladly say this, though I belong to the opposite side in politics.
You may ask, then, how it came about. At the beginning people may have inquired why they should be fighting about a distant country like Servia. But no one thinks of that now. Servia had apologized for her offence, if indeed she had ever been guilty of it. She was ready to accept any humiliation short of the sacrifice of her national independence. No, it was not the murder of the Crown Prince of Austria that caused the war. It came about because there was one country in Europe bent on having war—the evidence is irresistible on that point. All had been pre-arranged—Russia was believed not to be ready, after her fight with Japan; England, with only a "contemptible little army," with a Liberal Ministry in power,
