Speech in the Skating Rink, Oct. 2.
In the course of the last month I have addressed meetings in London,
Edinburgh, and Dublin, and now in the completion of the task which I set
myself and which the kindness of our great municipalities has allowed me
to perform I have come to Cardiff. [Cheers.] England, Scotland, and
Ireland have each of them a definite and a well-established capital
city, but I have always understood that there was some doubt where the
capital of the Principality of Wales was to be found on the map.
[Laughter.] Wales is a single and indivisible entity with a life of its
own, drawing its vitality from an ancient past, and both, I believe, in
the volume and in the reality of its activity, never more virile than it
is today. [Cheers.] But I do not know that there is any general
agreement among Welshmen as to where their capital is to be found,
[laughter, and a voice, "Here,"] and without attempting as an outsider
to differentiate or to reconcile competing claims I stand here tonight
on what I believe to be a safe coign of vantage under the hospitality
and the authority of the Lord Mayor of Cardiff.
Though I am not altogether a stranger to Wales, you may nevertheless ask
why I have requested your permission to address this great audience here
tonight. I am not altogether an idle man, and during the last few months
I can honestly say that there has hardly been a day, indeed there have
been very few hours, which have not been preoccupied with grave cares
and responsibility. But throughout them all I have been, and I am,
sustained by a profound and unshakable belief in the righteousness of
our cause [cheers] and by overwhelming evidence that in the pursuit and
the maintenance of that cause the Government have behind them, without
distinction of race, of party, or of class, the whole moral and material
support of the British Empire. [Cheers.] Let me take the opportunity to
acknowledge and to welcome the calm, reasoned, and dignified statement
of our cause which the Christian Churches of the United Kingdom,
through some of their most distinguished leaders and ministers, have
this week presented to the world. [Cheers.]
The United Voice of the Empire.
I will not repeat, and I certainly cannot improve upon it, and indeed I
am not here tonight to argue out propositions which British citizens in
every part of the world today regard as beyond the reach of controversy.
I do not suppose that in the history of mankind there has ever been in
such a vast and diverse community agreement so unanimous in purpose and
so concentrated, a corporate conscience so clear and so convinced,
co-operation so spontaneous, so ardent, and so resolute. [Cheers.] Just
consider what it means, here in this United Kingdom--England, Scotland,
Ireland, and Wales--to hear one plain, harmonious, great united voice
over the seas from our great dominions. [Cheers.] Canada, Australia,
South Africa, New Zealand, our crown colonies, swell the chorus.
In India [cheers]--where whatever we won by the sword we hold and we
retain by the more splendid title of just and disinterested rule by the
authority, not of a despot, but of a trustee [cheers]--the response to
our common appeal has moved all our feelings to their profoundest
depths, and has been such as to shiver and to shatter the vain and
ignorant imaginings of our enemies. [Cheers,] That is a remarkable and
indeed a unique spectacle.
What is it that stirred the imagination, aroused the conscience,
enlisted the manhood, welded into one compact and irresistible force the
energies and the greatest imperial structure that the world has ever
known? [Cheers.] That is a question which, for a moment at any rate, it
is well worth asking and answering. Let me say, then, first negatively,
that we are not impelled, any of us, by some of the motives which have
occasioned the bloody struggles of the past. In this case, so far as we
are concerned, ambition and aggression play no part. What do we want?
What do we aim at? What have we to gain?
We are a great, worldwide, peace-loving partnership. By the wisdom and
the courage of our forefathers, by great deeds of heroism and adventure
by land and sea, by the insight and corporate sagacity, the tried and
tested experience of many generations, we have built up a dominion which
is buttressed by the two pillars of liberty and law. [Cheers.] We are
not vain enough or foolish enough to think that in the course of a long
process there have not been blunders, or worse than blunders, and that
today our dominion does not fall short of what in our ideals it might
and it ought and, we believe, it is destined to be. But such as we have
received it and such as we hope to have it, with it we are content.
[Cheers.]
Why We Are at War.
We do not covet any people's territory. We have no desire to impose our
rule upon alien populations. The British Empire is enough for us.
[Laughter and cheers.] All that we wished for, all that we wish for now,
is to be allowed peaceably to consolidate our own resources, to raise
within the empire the level of common opportunity, to draw closer the
bond of affection and confidence between its parts, and to make it
everywhere the worthy home of the best traditions of British liberty.
[Cheers.] Does it not follow from that that nowhere in the world is
there a people who have stronger motives to avoid war and to seek and
ensue peace? Why, then, are the British people throughout the length and
breadth of our empire everywhere turning their plowshares into swords?
Why are the best of our ablebodied men leaving the fields and the
factory and the counting house for the recruiting office and the
training camp?
If, as I have said, we have no desire to add to our imperial burdens,
either in area or in responsibility, it is equally true that in entering
this war we had no ill-will to gratify nor wrongs of our own to avenge.
["Hear, hear!"] In regard to Germany in particular [groans] our
policy--repeatedly stated in Parliament, resolutely pursued year after
year both in London and in Berlin--our policy has been to remove one by
one the outstanding causes of possible friction and so to establish a
firm basis for cordial relations in the days to come.
We have said from the first--I have said it over and over again, and so
has Sir Edward Grey--we have said from the first that our friendships
with certain powers, with France, [cheers,] with Russia, and with Japan,
were not to be construed as implying cold feelings and still less
hostile purposes against any other power. But at the same time we have
always made it clear, to quote words used by Sir Edward Grey as far back
as November, 1911--I quote his exact words--"One does not make new
friendships worth having by deserting old ones." New friendships by all
means let us have, but not at the expense of the ones we have. That has
been, and I trust will always be, the attitude of those whom the Kaiser
in his now notorious proclamation describes as the treacherous English.
[Laughter and "Oh, oh!"]
Germany's Demand in 1912.
We laid down, and I wish to call not only your attention but the
attention of the whole world to this, when so many false legends are now
being invented and circulated, in the following year--in the year
1912--we laid down in terms carefully approved by the Cabinet, and which
I will textually quote, what our relations with Germany ought in our
view to be. We said, and we communicated this to the German Government,
"Britain declares that she will neither make nor join in any unprovoked
attack upon Germany. Aggression upon Germany is not the subject and
forms no part of any treaty, understanding, or combination to which
Britain is now a party, nor will she become a party to anything that has
such an object." There is nothing ambiguous or equivocal about that.
["Hear, hear!"]
But that was not enough for German statesmanship. They wanted us to go
further. They asked us to pledge ourselves absolutely to neutrality in
the event of Germany being engaged in war, and this, mind you, at a
time when Germany was enormously increasing both her aggressive and
defensive resources, and especially upon the sea. They asked us, to put
it quite plainly, for a free hand, so far as we were concerned, when
they selected the opportunity to overbear, to dominate the European
world.
To such a demand but one answer was possible, and that was the answer we
gave. [Cheers.] None the less we have continued during the whole of the
last two years, and never more energetically and more successfully than
during the Balkan crisis of last year, to work not only for the peace of
Europe but for the creation of a better international atmosphere and a
more cordial co-operation between all the powers. [Cheers.] From both
points of view, that of our domestic interests as a kingdom and an
empire, and that of our settled attitude and policy in the counsels of
Europe, a war such as this, which injures the one and frustrates the
other, was and could only be regarded as among the worst of
catastrophes--among the worst of catastrophes, but not the worst.
[Cheers.]
"The Blackest Annals of Barbarism."
Four weeks ago, speaking at the Guildhall, in the City of London, when
the war was still in its early days, I asked my fellow-countrymen with
what countenance, with what conscience, had we basely chose to stand
aloof, we could have watched from day to day the terrible unrolling of
events--public faith shamelessly broken, the freedom of a small people
trodden in the dust, the wanton invasion of Belgium and then of France
by hordes who leave behind them at every stage of their progress a
dismal trail of savagery, of devastation, and of desecration worthy of
the blackest annals in the history of barbarism. [Cheers.] That was four
weeks ago. The war has now lasted for sixty days, and every one of those
days has added to the picture its share of sombre and repulsive traits.
We now see clearly written down in letters of carnage and spoliation the
real aims and methods of this long-prepared and well-organized scheme
Against the liberties of Europe. [Cheers.]
I say nothing of other countries. I pass no judgment upon them. But if
we here in Great Britain had abstained and remained neutral, forsworn
our word, deserted our friends, faltered and compromised with the plain
dictates of our duty--nay, if we had not shown ourselves ready to strike
with all our forces at the common enemy of civilization and freedom,
there would have been nothing left for our country but to veil her face
in shame and to be ready in her turn--for her time would have come--to
share the doom which she would have richly deserved, and after centuries
of glorious life to go down to her grave, unwept, unhonored, and unsung.
[Loud cheers.]
Let us gladly acknowledge what becomes clearer and clearer every day,
that the world is just as ready as it ever was, and no part of it
readier than the British Empire, to understand and to respond to moral
issues. [Cheers.] The new school of German thought has been teaching for
a generation past that in the affairs of nations there is no code of
ethics. According to their doctrine force and nothing but force is the
test and the measure of right. As the events which are going on before
our eyes have made it plain, they have succeeded only too well in
indoctrinating with their creed--I will not say the people of Germany;
like Burke, I will not attempt to draw up an indictment against a
nation--I will not say the people of Germany, but those who control and
execute German policy. [Cheers.]
But it is one of those products of German genius which, whether or not
it was intended exclusively for home consumption, [laughter,] has not, I
am happy to say, found a market abroad, and certainly not within the
boundaries of the British Empire. [Cheers.] We still believe here,
old-fashioned people as we are, in the sanctity of treaties, [cheers,]
that the weak have rights and that the strong have duties, that small
nationalities have every bit as good a title as large ones to life and
independence, and that freedom for its own sake is as well worth
fighting for today as it ever was in the past. [Cheers.] And we look
forward at the end of this war to a Europe in which these great and
simple and venerable truths will be recognized and safeguarded forever
against the recrudescence of the era of blood and iron. [Cheers.] Stated
in a few words that is the reason for our united front, the reason that
has brought our gallant Indian warriors to Marseilles, that is
extracting from our most distant dominions the best of their manhood,
and which in the course of two months has transformed the United Kingdom
into a vast recruiting ground. [Cheers.]
Greatest Emergency in Our History.
Now I have come here tonight not to talk but to do business. [Laughter
and cheers.] Before I sit down I want to say to you a few practical
words. We are confronted, as you all know and recognize, by the greatest
emergency in our history. Every part of the United Kingdom and every man
and every woman in every part of it is called upon to make his or her
contribution and to do his or her share, [cheers,] and our primary
business is to fill the ranks. There is, I find, in some quarters an
apprehension that the recruiting for the new army and the functions to
be assigned to that army when it is formed and trained may interfere
with or may in some way belittle or disparage the territorial force.
Believe me, no delusion could be more mischievous or more complete.
No praise could be too high for the patriotic and sustained efforts of
the county associations or for the quality and efficiency of the
territorial troops. It is a comparatively easy thing to make great
efforts and sacrifices under the stress and strain, which we are now
experiencing, of a supreme crisis. The territorials, without any such
stimulus in the piping times of peace, when war and the sufferings and
the struggles and glories of war were contingent and remote, these men
gave their time, sacrificed their leisure--not only in their annual
training, but in thousands of cases both officers and men devoted their
spare hours to preparing themselves in the study and the practice of the
art of war. They have now been embodied for two months, and I am
expressing the considered opinion of one of the most eminent Generals
when I say that the divisions now in camp in various parts of the
country, and improving every day in efficiency, have completely
justified their title to play any part that may be assigned to them,
either in home defense, in the manning of our garrisons, or in the
battle lines at the front. [Loud cheers.]
It is, then, no want of appreciation of the patriotism and of the
efficiency of the territorial forces that leads me to ask you tonight
for recruits for the regular army. We wish, so far as military
exigencies permit, that the new battalions and squadrons and batteries
should retain their local associations and their corporate and
distinctive national character. [Cheers.] Why, the freedom and the
autonomy of the smaller nationalities is one of the great issues of this
gigantic contest.
A Welsh Army Corps.
I went a week ago to Dublin to make an appeal to Ireland. I asked
Irishmen then, as I do now, on behalf of the Government and of the War
Office, to enlist in and to make up the complement of an Irish army
corps. I repeat that appeal tonight to the men of Wales. [Cheers.] We
want that. We want you to fill up the ranks of the Welsh army corps.
[Cheers.] We believe that the preservation of local and national ties,
of the genius of a people which has a history of its own, is not only
not hostile to or inconsistent with, but, on the contrary, fosters and
strengthens and stimulates the spirit of a common purpose, of, a
corporate brotherhood, of an underlying and binding imperial unity
throughout every section and among all ranks of the forces of the Crown.
[Cheers.]
Men of Wales, of whom I see so many thousands in this splendid
gathering, let me say one last word to you. Remember your past.
[Cheers.] Think of the villages and the mountains which in old days were
the shelter of the recruiting ground of your fathers in the struggles
which adorn and glorify your annals. Never has a stronger or a more
compelling appeal been made to you of all that you as a nation honor and
hold true. Be worthy of those who went before you, and leave to your
children the richest of all inheritances--the memory of fathers who in a
great cause put self-sacrifice before ease and honor above life itself.
[Loud cheers.]
Lord Plymouth moved a resolution pledging support to the Prime
Minister's appeal to the nation and to measures necessary for the
prosecution of the war to a victorious conclusion, whereby alone the
lasting peace of Europe could be assured.
Thomas Richards, M.P., seconded the resolution, which was carried with
enthusiasm. The meeting concluded with the singing of "Men of Harlech"
and the national anthem.
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