not have avoided it without national
dishonour. I am fully alive to the fact that whenever a nation has
been engaged in any war she has always invoked the sacred name of
honour. Many a crime has been committed in its name; there are some
crimes being committed now. But, all the same, national honour is a
reality, and any nation that disregards it is doomed.

Why is our honour as a country involved in this war? Because, in the
first place, we are bound in an honourable obligation to defend the
independence, the liberty, the integrity of a small neighbour that has
lived peaceably, but she could not have compelled us, because she was
weak. The man who declines to discharge his debt because his creditor
is too poor to enforce it is a blackguard. We entered into this
treaty, a solemn treaty, a full treaty, to defend Belgium and her
integrity. Our signatures are attached to the document. Our signatures
do not stand alone there. This was not the only country to defend the
integrity of Belgium. Russia, France, Austria, and Prussia--they are
all there. Why did they not perform the obligation? It is suggested
that if we quote this treaty it is purely an excuse on our part. It is
our low craft and cunning, just to cloak our jealousy of a superior
civilization we are attempting to destroy. Our answer is the action we
took in 1870. What was that? Mr. Gladstone was then Prime Minister.
Lord Granville, I think, was then Foreign Secretary. I have never
heard it laid to their charge that they were ever jingo.

What did they do in 1870? That Treaty Bond was this: We called upon
the belligerent Powers to respect that treaty. We called upon France;
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. We are proceeding exactly in 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 the thanks at that time from the Belgian people for our
intervention in a very remarkable document. This is the document
addressed by the municipality of Brussels to Queen Victoria after that
intervention:

The great and noble people over whose des