When Mr. Asquith, after an enthusiastic burst of applause, had sat down, Mr. Bonar Law rose, amid an equally enthusiastic demonstration of welcome, and said:
It would, indeed, be impossible for me to add anything to the force of the appeal which has just been addressed by the Prime Minister to our people. But I am glad to be here as representing one of our great political parties in order to show clearly that in this supreme struggle, and in everything connected with it until it is brought to a triumphant close, the head of our Government must speak not as the leader of a party but as the mouthpiece of a nation.
We are a peace-loving people, but never, I believe, in our history has the whole nation been so convinced as it is to-day that the cause for which we are fighting is righteous and just. We strove for peace by all means up to the last moment, but when, in spite of our efforts, war came, we could not stand aside. The honour and the interests of Great Britain-and believe me, they go together—alike forbade it. It was inevitable that we must be drawn into this world struggle, and the only question was whether we should enter it honourably or be dragged into it with dishonour.
This war is a great crime—one of the greatest in history. But it is a crime in which as a nation we have no share. Now, as always, for nearly a generation, the key of peace or war was in Berlin. The head of the German Government had but to whisper the word "Peace," and there would have been no war. He did not speak that word. He drew the sword, and may the accursed system for which he stands perish by the sword!
War has come, and we are fighting for our life as truly as Belgium or France, where the tide of battle, with all its horrors, is rolling on. As Cromwell said of his Ironsides we can say with equal truth to-day: "We know what we are fighting for, and we love what we know."
We are fighting for our national existence, for everything which nations have always held most dear. But we are fighting for something more—we are fighting for the moral forces of humanity. We are fighting for respect for public law, and for the right of public justice, which are the foundation of civilisation. We are fighting, as the Prime Minister has said, for Right against Might. I do not attempt what Burke has declared to be impossible—to draw up an indictment against a whole people—but this I do say, that the German nation has allowed itself to be organised as a military machine which recognises no law except the law of force, which knows no right except the right of the strongest. It is against that we are fighting to-day.
The spirit in which this war was entered into was shown clearly in the words addressed to our Ambassador at Berlin by the German Chancellor. "You are going to war," he said, "for a scrap of paper." (Cries of "Shame!")
Yes, but a "scrap of paper" with which was bound up the solemn obligation, and with that obligation the honour, of a great nation—a "scrap of paper" in which was involved also the right to independence, to liberty, the right even of existence, of all the small nations of the world. It is for that "scrap of paper" that the Belgian soldiers have fought and died, that the Belgian people, by what they have done, and by what they have endured, have won for themselves immortal fame. It is for that "scrap of paper," and all that it means, that we, too, have already watered with the blood of our sons the fair fields of France, and for which we shall conquer or perish.
Like Mr. Asquith, Mr. Bonar Law emphasised the fact that the war was a spiritual and not a materialistic conflict; and he denounced in no less vigorous terms the atrocities which had been perpetrated by the German Army on its way through a friendly country. After his reference to the "scrap of paper," he went on to say:
The words which I have quoted show not merely the spirit in which the war was entered into, but the spirit in which it is being conducted to-day. When reports first reached us of German atrocities in Belgium I hoped for the sake of our common humanity that they were untrue, or at least exaggerated. We can entertain that hope no longer. The destruction of Louvain has proclaimed to the world in trumpet tones what German methods are. It has fixed upon German honour an indelible stain, and the explanations which it has been attempted to give of it have only made that stain the deeper.
War at the best is terrible. It is not from the ordinary soldier, it is not from below, that restraint can be expected. It must come, if it come at all, from above. But here the outrages have come not from below but from above. They are not the result of accident, but of design. They are part of a principle—the principle by any means, at any expense of the lives of defenceless men or helpless women and children, to spread terror in the country and to facilitate the German arms. This is a moral and a spiritual conflict. Believe me, in the long run, the moral and the spiritual are stronger than the material forces.
The object of this meeting, and of the speech to which we have just listened, is to appeal to the manhood of our country to rally once again round the old flag. That appeal will not be made, is not being made, in vain. Our people had only to realise, as at first they did not quite realise, what were the issues at stake to come forward with all the spirit of their fathers. That lesson is being driven home now by influences stronger far than any speeches. It is being taught by the heroic steadfastness of the Belgian people. It is being taught now by the knowledge that but for the close shield of the Navy—the shield which if we fail to conquer cannot save us—our fate to-day would be the fate of Belgium. It is being taught, above all by the accounts, meagre though they are, of what has been done by our soldiers on the field of battle. With that mistaken estimate of themselves and of others, which is one of the explanations of this war, the Germans, before and after the outbreak, have spoken of us as a decadent nation. Do they say that to-day?
Let the long-drawn-out fight that began at Mons give the answer. There our troops, pitted against the choicest bodies of the German army, outnumbered by nearly three to one as I believe, were undefeated and unbroken. When the story of that fight comes to be written, it is my belief that it will form as glorious a page as is to be found in the whole annals of our history. The men will come.
There is no doubt of that. Everywhere I find the same spirit. Everyone is asking, "What can I do to help my country?" The men will come.
There is one thing more only which I should like to say. Many of those whom I am addressing are, like the Prime Minister and myself, unable to take our place in the fighting line. It is not right, it is not fair, that we should make an appeal for sacrifices to the patriotism of those only who are able and willing to fight our battles. An equal sacrifice is demanded of those who remain behind. Let us not as a Government merely, but as a nation, realise our obligation and make a vow and keep it, that no dependent of any man who is fighting our battles shall go hungry while we have bread to eat. And let us realise also, as we have not always realised in the past, that our soldiers are the children of the State, and that they have the first claim upon the resources of our nation.
When Mr. Balfour had supported the leader of the Unionist party there were loud calls for Mr. Churchill, who made a very brief but pointed speech on the Navy and its work:
My Lord Mayor and Citizens of London,—You may rely with good confidence upon the strength and efficiency of our naval defence. That defence will enable you to live and to work and draw the means of life and power from the utmost ends of the earth. It will give you the time, it will give you the means to create the powerful military force which this country must wield before this trouble is brought to its conclusion.
Certain I am of this, that you have only to endure to conquer.
You have only to persevere to save yourselves and to save all those who rely upon us. You have only to go right on, and at the end of the road, be it short or be it long, victory and honour will be found.
Apropos of the German atrocities at Liège, the brutal character of the German troops, and Mr. Bonar Law's reference to the fact that the outrages were instigated from above and were not to be blamed wholly on the soldiers themselves, a word may be added regarding one or two philosophical misconceptions which have arisen as to the origin of this modern trait in the character of the German people. It is often asserted that the philosophy of Nietzsche has been responsible for not merely encouraging but developing the German belief in physical power and brute force; and amid the host of "professors," on whom blame is cast for urging on the Teuton to develop his country at the expense of his neighbours, Nietzsche has frequently been singled out for special mention as a man in whose works the Kaiser has always taken an especial interest.
This belief is quite erroneous. Nietzsche, who poked bitter fun at the clumsiness and stupidity of his countrymen, who cracked jokes over the musicians and philosophers most dear to the German heart, and who, before all else, repudiated Prussianism lock, stock, and barrel, was certainly not a writer likely to appeal to the Kaiser or to any of the makers of modern Germany. The reader cannot fail to be impressed by the striking fact that the "professors" who have written in support of German development have one and all disclaimed any connection with Nietzsche or his teachings. The thinker who is really responsible, even more so than Treitschke, for Germany's attempt to burst her confines and to increase her possessions, is a man of a very different order.
A year or two ago there appeared the English translation of a book by Houston Stewart Chamberlain, "The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century." This was a book dealing generally, in so far as a connected thread ran through it, with racial problems, and the author's admiration for the Teutonic race was expressed without limits. Chamberlain came of English stock, but he developed German sympathies, lived in Germany, and wrote in German. For the Aryans, gradually turned into the Teutons and modern Germans, Chamberlain claimed all the virtues of mankind; and his net was spread wide. The Founder of the Christian Church was of Teutonic stock, according to the teachings of the Chamberlain school; and so was Dante. The Latin races, on the contrary, were held to be decadent—it was only a matter of time before they would have to disappear and make way for the strong, virile race from the North.