Speech by David Lloyd George, Chancellor of the Exchequer, at Queen's
Hall, London, Sept. 19.
My Lords, Ladies and Gentlemen: I have come here this afternoon to talk
to my fellow-countrymen about this great war and the part that we ought
to take in it. I feel my task is easier after we have been listening to
the greatest war song in the world ("The March of the Men of Harlech").
[Applause.]
Why Our National Honor Is Involved.
There is no man in this room who has always regarded the prospect of
engaging in a great war with greater reluctance and with greater
repugnance than I have done throughout the whole of my political life.
["Hear, hear!"] There is no man either inside or outside of this room
more convinced that we could not have avoided it without national
dishonor. [Great applause.] I am fully alive to the fact that every
nation who has ever engaged in any war has always invoked the sacred
name of honor. Many a crime has been committed in its name; there are
some being committed now. All the same, national honor is a reality,
and any nation that disregards it is doomed. ["Hear, hear!"] Why is our
honor as a country involved in this war? Because, in the first instance,
we are bound by honorable obligations to defend the independence, the
liberty, the integrity, of a small neighbor that has always lived
peaceably. [Applause.] She could not have compelled us; she was weak;
but the man who declines to discharge his duty because his creditor is
too poor to enforce it is a blackguard. [Loud applause.] We entered into
a treaty--a solemn treaty--two treaties--to defend Belgium and her
integrity. Our signatures are attached to the documents. Our signatures
do not stand alone there; this country was not the only country that
undertook to defend the integrity of Belgium. Russia, France, Austria,
Prussia--they are all there. Why are Austria and Prussia not performing
the obligations of their bond? It is suggested that when we quote this
treaty it is purely an excuse on our part--it is our low craft and
cunning to cloak our jealousy of a superior civilization--[Laughter]--that
we are attempting to destroy. Our answer is the action we took in 1870.
["Hear, hear!"] What was that? Mr. Gladstone was then Prime Minister.
[Applause.] Lord Granville, I think, was then Foreign Secretary. I have
never heard it laid to their charge that they were ever Jingoes.
France and Belgium in 1870.
What did they do in 1870? That treaty bound us then. We called upon the
belligerent powers to respect it. We called upon France, and we called
upon Germany. At that time, bear in mind, the greatest danger to Belgium
came from France, and not from Germany. We intervened to protect Belgium
against France, exactly as we are doing now to protect her against
Germany. [Applause.] We proceeded in exactly the same way. We invited
both the belligerent powers to state that they had no intention of
violating Belgian territory. What was the answer given by Bismarck? He
said it was superfluous to ask Prussia such a question in view of the
treaties in force. France gave a similar answer. We received at
that time the thanks of the Belgian people for our intervention in a
very remarkable document. It is a document addressed by the Municipality
of Brussels to Queen Victoria after that intervention, and it reads:
The great and noble people over whose destinies you preside have
just given a further proof of its benevolent sentiment toward our
country.... The voice of the English nation has been heard above
the din of arms, and it has asserted the principles of justice and
right. Next to the unalterable attachment of the Belgian people to
their independence, the strongest sentiment which fills their
hearts is that of an imperishable gratitude. [Great applause.]
That was in 1870. Mark what followed. Three or four days after that
document of thanks a French army was wedged up against the Belgian
frontier, every means of escape shut out by a ring of flame from
Prussian cannon. There was one way of escape. What was that? Violating
the neutrality of Belgium. What did they do? The French on that occasion
preferred ruin and humiliation to the breaking of their bond. [Loud
applause.] The French Emperor, the French Marshals, 100,000 gallant
Frenchmen in arms, preferred to be carried captive to the strange land
of their enemies rather than dishonor the name of their country.
[Applause.] It was the last French army in the field. Had they violated
Belgian neutrality the whole history of that war would have been
changed, and yet, when it was the interest of France to break the treaty
then, she did not do it.
"A Scrap of Paper."
It is the interest of Prussia today to break the treaty, and she has
done it. [Hisses.] She avows it with cynical contempt for every
principle of justice. She says: "Treaties only bind you when it is your
interest to keep them." [Laughter.] "What is a treaty?" says the German
Chancellor, "A scrap of paper." Have you any five-pound notes about you?
[Laughter and applause.] I am not calling for them. [Laughter.] Have you
any of those neat little Treasury one-pound notes? [Laughter.] If you
have, burn them; they are only scraps of paper. [Laughter and
applause.] What are they made of? Rags. [Laughter.] What are they worth?
The whole credit of the British Empire. [Loud applause.] Scraps of
paper! I have been dealing with scraps of paper within the last month.
One suddenly found the commerce of the world coming to a standstill. The
machine had stopped. Why? I will tell you. We discovered--many of us for
the first time, for I do not pretend that I do not know much more about
the machinery of commerce today than I did six weeks ago, and there are
many others like me--we discovered that the machinery of commerce was
moved by bills of exchange. I have seen some of them, [laughter,]
wretched, crinkled, scrawled over, blotched, frowsy, and yet those
wretched little scraps of paper move great ships laden with thousands of
tons of precious cargo from one end of the world to the other.
[Applause.] What is the motive power behind them? The honor of
commercial men. [Applause.] Treaties are the currency of international
statesmanship. [Applause.] Let us be fair--German merchants, German
traders, have the reputation of being as upright and straightforward as
any traders in the world, ["Hear, hear"] but if the currency of German
commerce is to be debased to the level of that of her statesmanship, no
trader from Shanghai to Valparaiso will ever look at a German signature
again. [Loud applause.] This doctrine of the scrap of paper, this
doctrine which is proclaimed by Bernhardi, that treaties only bind a
nation as long as it is to its interest, goes under the root of all
public law. It is the straight road to barbarism. ["Hear, hear!"] It is
as if you were to remove the magnetic pole because it was in the way of
a German cruiser. [Laughter.] The whole navigation of the seas would
become dangerous, difficult, and impossible; and the whole machinery of
civilization will break down if this doctrine wins in this war. ["Hear,
hear!"] We are fighting against barbarism, [applause,] and there is only
one way of putting it right. If there are nations that say they
will only respect treaties when it is to their interest to do so, we
must make it to their interest to do so for the future. [Applause.]
Germany's Perjury.
What is their defense? Consider the interview which took place between
our Ambassador and the great German officials. When their attention was
called to this treaty to which they were parties, they said: "We cannot
help that. Rapidity of action is the great German asset." There is a
greater asset for a nation than rapidity of action, and that is honest
dealing. [Loud applause.] What are Germany's excuses? She says Belgium
was plotting against her; Belgium was engaged in a great conspiracy with
Britain and France to attack her. Not merely is it not true, but Germany
knows it is not true. ["Hear, hear!"] What is her other excuse. That
France meant to invade Germany through Belgium. That is absolutely
untrue. ["Hear, hear!"] France offered Belgium five army corps to defend
her if she were attacked. Belgium said: "I do not require them; I have
the word of the Kaiser. Shall Caesar send a lie?" [Laughter and
applause.] All these tales about conspiracy have been vamped up since. A
great nation ought to be ashamed to behave like a fraudulent bankrupt,
perjuring its way through its obligations. ["Hear, hear!"] What she says
is not true. She has deliberately broken this treaty, and we were in
honor bound to stand by it. [Applause.]