utalities has been rudely
dispelled by the events of the last few weeks. ["Shame!"]

Shameful and Cynical Desecration.

The German invasion of Belgium and France contributes, indeed, some of
the blackest pages to its sombre annals. Rarely has a non-combatant
population suffered more severely, and rarely, if ever, have the
monuments of piety and of learning and those sentiments of religion and
national association, of which they are the permanent embodiment, even
in the worst times of the most ruthless warriors, been so shamefully and
cynically desecrated; and behind the actual theatre of conflict with its
smoke and its carnage there are the sufferings of those who are left
behind, the waste of wealth, the economic dislocation, the heritage, the
long heritage of enmities and misunderstanding which war brings in its
train. Why do I dwell upon these things? It is to say this, that great
indeed is the responsibility of those who allow their country--as we
have done--to be drawn into such a welter; but there is one thing much
worse than to take such a responsibility, and that is, upon a fitting
occasion, to shirk it. [Cheers.] Our record in the matter is clear. We
strove up to the last moment for peace [cheers] and only when we were
satisfied that the price of peace was the betrayal of other countries
and the dishonor and degradation of our own we took up the sword.
[Prolonged cheers.] I should like, if I might for a moment, beyond this
inquiry into causes and motives, to ask your attention and that of my
fellow-countrymen to the end which in this war we ought to keep in view.
Forty-four years ago, at the time of the war of 1870, Mr. Gladstone used
these words. He said: "The greatest triumph of our time will be the
enthronement of the idea of public right as the governing idea of
European politics." Nearly fifty years have passed. Little progress, it
seems, has yet been made toward that good and beneficent change, but it
seems to me to be now at this moment as good a definition as we can have
of our European policy. The idea of public right; what does it mean when
translated into concrete terms? It means, first and foremost, the
clearing of the ground by the definite repudiation of militarism as the
governing factor in the relation of States, and of the future molding of
the European world. It means, next, that room must be found and kept for
the independent existence and the free development of the smaller
nationalities, [