Let me then ask for a moment what is this German culture, what is this
German spirit of which the Emperor's armies are at present the
missionaries in Belgium and in France? [Laughter.] Mankind owes much to
Germany, a very great debt for the contributions she has made to
philosophy, to science and to the arts; but that which is specifically
German in the movement of the world in the last thirty years has been,
on the intellectual side, the development of the doctrine of the supreme
and ultimate prerogative in human affairs of material forces, and, on
the practical side, taking of the foremost place in the fabrication and
the multiplication of the machinery of destruction.
To the men who have adopted this gospel, who believe that power is the
be all and end all of the State, naturally a treaty is nothing more than
a piece of parchment, and all the Old World talk about the rights of the
weak and the obligations of the strong is only so much threadbare and
nauseating cant, for one very remarkable feature of this new school of
doctrine is, whatever be its intellectual or its ethical merits, that it
has turned out as an actual code for life to be a very purblind
philosophy.
The German culture, the German spirit, did not save the Emperor and his
people from delusions and miscalculations as dangerous as they were
absurd in regard to the British Empire.
A Fantastic Dream.
We were believed by these cultivated observers [laughter] to be the
decadent descendants of a people who, by a combination of luck and of
fraud, [laughter,] had managed to obtain dominion over a vast quantity
of the surface and the populations of the globe.
This fortuitous aggregation [laughter and cheers] which goes by the name
of the British Empire was supposed to be so insecurely founded, and so
loosely knit together, that at the first touch of serious menace from
without it would fall to pieces and tumble to the ground. [Cheers.]
Our great dominions were getting heartily tired of the imperial
connection. India, [loud cheers,] it was notorious to every German
traveler, [laughter,] was on the verge of open revolt, and here at home
we, the people of this United Kingdom, were riven by dissension so deep
and so fierce that our energies, whether for resistance or for attack,
would be completely paralyzed.
What a fantastic dream, ["Hear, hear!"] and what a rude awakening!
[Laughter and cheers.] And in this vast and grotesque and yet tragic
miscalculation is to be found one of the roots, perhaps the main root,
of the present war.
But let us go one step more. It has been said, "By their fruits ye shall
know them," and history will record that when the die was cast and the
struggle began, it was the disciples of that same creed who revived
methods of warfare which have for centuries past been condemned by the
common sense as well as by the humanity of the great mass of the
civilized world. [Cheers.]
Branded on the Brow.
Louvain, Malines, Termonde--these are names which will henceforward be
branded on the brow of German culture. The ruthless sacking of the
ancient and famous towns of Belgium is fitly supplemented by the story
that reaches us only today from our own headquarters in France of the
proclamation issued less than a week ago by the German authorities, who
were for a moment, and happily for little more than a moment, in
occupation of the venerable city of Rheims.
Mr. Asquith then read the concluding paragraph of the proclamation which
appeared in these columns yesterday.
Do not let it be forgotten that it is from a power whose intellectual
leaders are imbued with the idea that I have described, and whose
Generals in the field sanction and even direct those practices--it is
from that power the claim proceeds to impose its culture, its spirit,
which means its domination, upon the rest of Europe. That is a claim, I
say to you, to all my fellow-countrymen, to every citizen and subject of
the British Empire whose ears and eyes my words can reach--that is a
claim that everything that is great in our past and everything that
promises hope or progress in our future summons us to resist to the end.
[Loud cheers.]
The task--do not let us deceive ourselves--will not be a light one. Its
full accomplishment--and nothing short of full accomplishment
[cheers]--is worthy of our traditions or will satisfy our resolve--will
certainly take months. It may even take years.
I have come here tonight not to ask you to count the cost, for no price
can be too high to pay when honor and freedom are at stake, but to put
before you, as I have tried to do, the magnitude of the issue and the
supreme necessity that lies upon us as a nation, nay as a brotherhood
and family of nations, to rise to its height and acquit ourselves of our
duty.
Our Favorable Position.
The war has now lasted more than six weeks. Our supremacy at sea [great
cheers] has not been seriously questioned. [Laughter.] Full supplies of
food and of raw materials are making their way to our shores from every
quarter of the globe. [Cheers.] Our industries, with one or two
exceptions, maintain their activities.
Unemployment is so far not seriously in excess of the average. The
monetary situation has improved, and every effort that the zeal and the
skill of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, [cheers,] with the
co-operation and expert advice of the bankers and business men of the
country, can devise--every effort is being made to achieve what is most
essential, the complete re-establishment of the foreign exchanges.
Meanwhile, the merchant shipping of the enemy has been hunted from the
seas [cheers] and our seaman are still patiently, or impatiently,
[laughter,] waiting for a chance to try conclusions with the opposing
fleet. Great and incalculable is the debt which we have owed during
these weeks, and which in increasing measure we shall continue to owe,
to our navy. [Cheers.] The navy needs no help, and as the months roll
on--thanks to a far-sighted policy in the past--its proportionate
strength will grow. [Cheers.]
Army's Glorious Record.
If we turn to our army [cheers] we can say with equal justice and pride
that during these weeks it has rivaled the most glorious records of its
past. [Cheers.] Sir John French [cheers] and his gallant officers and
men live in our hearts, as they will live in the memories of those who
come afterward. [Cheers,]
But splendid achievements such as these--equally splendid in retirement
and in advance ["Hear, hear!"]--cannot be won without a heavy
expenditure of life and limb, of equipment and supplies. Even now, at
this very early stage, I suppose there is hardly a person here who is
not suffering from anxiety and suspense. Some of us are plunged in
sorrow for the loss of those we love; cut off, some of them, in the
springtime of their young lives. We will not mourn for them overmuch.
One crowded hour of glorious life is worth an age without a name.
[Cheers.]
These gaps have to be filled. The wastage of modern war is relentless
and almost inconceivable. We have--I mean his Majesty's Government
have--since the war began dispatched to the front already considerably
over 200,000 men [cheers] and the amplest provision has been made for
keeping them supplied with all that was necessary in food, in stores,
and in equipment. They will very soon be reinforced by regular troops
from India, from Egypt, and the Mediterranean, and in due time by the
contingents which our dominions are furnishing with such magnificent
patriotism and liberality. [Cheers.]
Eager Territorials.
We have with us here our own gallant territorials, becoming every day a
fitter and a finer force, eager and anxious to respond to any call
either at home or abroad that may be made upon them. [Cheers.] But that
is not enough. We must do still more. Already, in little more than a
month, we have 500,000 recruits for the four new armies which, as Lord
Kitchener told the country yesterday, he means to have ready to bring
into the field. In a single day we have had as many men enlist as we
have been accustomed to enlist in the course of a whole year. It is not,
I think, surprising that the machinery has been overstrained, and there
have been many cases of temporary inconvenience and hardship and
discomfort. With time and patience and good organization these things
will be set right, and the new scale of allowances which was announced
in Parliament yesterday [cheers] will do much to mitigate the lot of
wives and children and dependents who are left behind. [Cheers.]
We want more men, and, perhaps most of all, the help for training them.
Every one in the whole of this kingdom who has in days gone by, as
officer or as non-commissioned officer, served his country never had a
greater or more fruitful opportunity for service than is presented to
him today. [Cheers.] We appeal to the manhood of the three kingdoms. To
such an appeal I know well, coming from your senior representative in
the House of Commons, that Scotland will not turn a deaf ear. [Cheers.]
Scotland is doing well, and, indeed, more than well, and no part of
Scotland I believe, in proportion, better than Edinburgh. I cannot say
with what pleasure I heard the figures given out by the Lord Provost and
those which have been supplied to me by the gallant gentleman who has
the Scottish command [cheers,] which show, indeed, as we expected, that
Scotland is more than holding her own. In that connection let me repeat
what I said two weeks ago in London. We think it of the highest
importance that so far as possible, and subject to the accidents of war,
people belonging to the same place, breathing the same atmosphere,
having the same associations, should be kept together.
Our recruits come to us spontaneously, under no kind of compulsion,
[cheers,] of their own free will to meet a national and an imperial
need. We present to them no material inducement in the shape either of
bounty or bribe, and they have to face the prospect of a spell of hard
training from which most of the comforts and all the luxuries that any
of them have been accustomed to are rigorously banished. But then, when
they are fully equipped for their patriotic task, they will have the
opportunity of striking a blow, it may be even of laying down their
lives, not to serve the cause of ambition or aggression, but to maintain
the honor and the good faith of our country, to shield the independence
of free States, to protect against brute force the principles of
civilization and the liberties of Europe. [Loud cheers.]
* * * * *