"The Transvaal and Orange River Colonies have taken their place among
the other self-governing Colonies of the Empire. They are prosperous,
contented and loyal, and they will not be the last, I think, to come to
the help of the Mother Country in such a crisis as this. But, sir, I do
not think that I should be fulfilling the duties of the responsible
position which I have the honour to occupy if I did not remind this
House, and through this House the citizens of the British Empire, that
the present crisis is infinitely more serious than that with which we
were faced in 1899. Then we were waging a war in another hemisphere, six
thousand miles away. Our unconquered, and, as I hope it will prove,
unconquerable Navy, kept the peace of the world, and policed the ocean
highways along which it was necessary for our ships to travel. It is
true that there were menaces and threats heard in many quarters, but
they never passed beyond the region of insult and calumny.

"Our possible enemies then, our actual enemies now, were in those days
willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike. To-day, they have lost their
fear in the confidence of combination. To-day the war cloud is not six
thousand miles away in the southern hemisphere; it is here, in Europe,
and a strip of water, twenty-one miles broad, separates us from the
enemy, which, even as I am speaking, may already be knocking at our
gates. Even now, the thunder of the guns may be echoing along the shores
of the English Channel.

"This, sir, is a war in which I might venture to say the most ardent
member of the Peace Society would not hesitate to engage. For it
involves the most sacred duty of humanity, the defence of our country,
and our homes.

"We remember, sir, the words which Francis Drake wrote, and which have
remained true from his day until now: 'The frontiers of an island
country are the coasts of its possible enemies.' We remember also that
when the great Napoleon had massed nearly half a million men on the
heights above Boulogne, and more than a thousand pontoons were waiting
to carry that force to the Kentish shore, there was only one old English
frigate cruising up and down the Straits of Dover.

"Sir, there is on the heights of Boulogne a monument, built to
commemorate the assembly of the Grand Army, and collectors of coins
still cherish those productions of the Paris Mint, which bear the
legend, 'Napoleon, Emperor, London, 1804.' But, sir, the statue of
Napoleon