"Just listen to the speech now going on. The Leader of the Opposition is speaking.
"'Mr Speaker, I am broadly astonished at the statements of the hon. member for Alarmville, who has just painted the international horizon in tints of Indian ink. I cannot imagine where he takes his tints from. Does he want to pose as a political Tintoretto?'
"(Much applause—most members send for the Encyclopædia Imperialis to find out what Tintoretto means.)
"'The horizon, as everybody knows, is only an imaginary line, and each man has his own horizon. If therefore the horizon of the hon. member be as black as jet, I have not much to say against it, and will send him my condolences. But why should he obtrude his horizon on that of all the rest of peace-loving humanity? I also have my horizon.'
"(The hon. member: 'Horizons, if you please.')
"'Horizons? More than one horizon? Perhaps; it probably needs more than one to descend to that of the hon. member.'
"(Opposition members: 'Deucedly clever, by Jove!')
"'On my horizon I see no cloud, no vapours, no foundations of any belief in storms or tempests of any kind. What conceivable reason should the Germans have for attacking us? I fail, I utterly fail to see it. I know that my adversaries say that whatever reasons Germany may or may not have to attack us, we, these people say, we have a plethora of motives to attack them. This point, this argument is so devoid of point or argument, that I cannot waste the time of the House in refuting it. It refutes itself. Why should we attack the Germans? Because we have no reasons to do so. That is all that one can advance. Do we want their colonies? Why, we are eternally obliged to them for having taken them and so rid us of a sterile investment. Do we want part of Germany? Neither parts nor the whole of it. Have we not ceded to them Heligoland? Sir, it is, as I said, impossible to detect a single argument in favour of our attacking Germany. The minds that counsel such a violent measure are influenced by apprehensions arising out of future developments. They are anticipative souls to whom the secrets of the future have been revealed by the timorousness of the present. I respect souls; I respect timorousness; but I refuse to attribute to it any oracular wisdom. The future is dark, three shades darker than the present, which is impenetrable enough as it is.
"'There remains, then, only the other alternative: Germany seriously means to attack us. Well, sir, let us analyse this statement. What earthly good would such an attack do to the Germans? I hear they covet Denmark and Holland, as the natural outlets of their Empire which at present is like a muffled head; and since England cannot permit their taking possession of Denmark and Holland, the Germans must fight England. This argument, sir, lacks all the elements of truth. It lacks geographical force, historical momentum, political sense. Denmark, we all know, is quite in the east of Germany between the Elbe river and the Lake of Baikal.'