ich the Government could make certain at the present moment of keeping
outside this war, and that would be that it should immediately issue a
proclamation of unconditional neutrality. We cannot do that. We have
made the commitment to France that I have read to the House which
prevents us doing that. We have got the consideration of Belgium which
prevents us also from any unconditional neutrality, and, without these
conditions absolutely satisfied and satisfactory, we are bound not to
shrink from proceeding to the use of all the forces in our power. If we
did take that line by saying, "We will have nothing whatever to do with
this matter" under no conditions--the Belgian treaty obligations, the
possible position in the Mediterranean, with damage to British
interests, and what may happen to France from our failure to support
France--if we were to say that all those things mattered nothing, were
as nothing, and to say we would stand aside, we should, I believe,
sacrifice our respect and good name and reputation before the world, and
should not escape the most serious and grave economic consequences.

My object has been to explain the view of the Government, and to place
before the House the issue and the choice. I do not for a moment
conceal, after what I have said, and after the information, incomplete
as it is, that I have given to the House with regard to Belgium, that
we must be prepared, and we are prepared, for the consequences of having
to use all the strength we have at any moment--we know not how soon--to
defend ourselves and to take our part. We know, if the facts all be as I
have stated them, though I have announced no intending aggressive action
on our part, no final decision to resort to force at a moment's notice,
until we know the whole of the case, that the use of it may be forced
upon us. As far as the forces of the Crown are concerned, we are ready.
I believe the Prime Minister and my right honorable friend the First
Lord of the Admiralty have no doubt whatever that the readiness and the
efficiency of those forces were never at a higher mark than they are
today, and never was there a time when confidence was more justified in
the power of the navy to protect our commerce and to protect our shores.
The thought is with us always of the suffering and misery entailed, from
which no country in Europe will escape by abstention, and from which no
neutrality will save us. The amount of harm that can be done by an e