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