A motion embodying the views so earnestly pressed by the British Government was unanimously carried.
On the fifth of March, 1907, only four months before the opening of the Second Hague Conference, Mr. Campbell-Bannerman, affirming the bounden duty of England to propose the restriction of armaments, said, in the British House of Commons:—
"Holding the opinion that there is a great movement of feeling among thinking people in all the nations of the world, in favor of some restraint on the enormous expenditure involved in the present system so long as it exists.... We have desired and still desire to place ourselves in the very front rank of those who think that the warlike attitude of powers, as displayed by the excessive growth of armaments is a curse to Europe, and the sooner it is checked, in however moderate a degree, the better."
Unfortunately, German hostility to reduced armaments prevented any good result from the second Hague Conference in the way of checking extravagant and ruinous military organization. There was sad disappointment in all the reasonable world and specially in England at this deplorable outcome. Mr. Campbell-Bannerman expressed it as follows:—
"We had hoped that some great advance might be made towards a common consent to arrest the wasteful and growing competition in naval and military armaments. We were disappointed."
Unshaken in her determination to do her utmost to protect Civilization against the threatening and ever increasing dangers of German militarism, England persisted with the most laudable perseverance in her noble efforts to that much desired end. But all her pleadings, however convincing, were vain. Germany was obdurate. Finally, on the 30th of March, 1911, speaking in the Reichstag, the German Imperial Chancellor threw off the mask, and positively declared that the question of reduced armaments admitted of no possible solution "as long as men were men and States were States."
A more brutal declaration could hardly have been made. It was a cynical challenge to the World. Times were maturing and Germany was anxiously waiting for the opportunity to strike the blow which would stagger Humanity.
Through all the great crisis of July and August, 1914, directly consequent upon the odious crime of Sarajevo, England exhausted all her efforts to maintain peace, but unfortunately without avail.
Knowing very well how much England sincerely wished the maintenance of peace, the German Government was to the last moment under the delusion that it could succeed in having Great Britain to remain neutral in a general European war. They were not ashamed to presume they could bribe England. Without blushing they made to the British Government the infamous proposition contained in the following despatch from Sir E. Goschen, the British Ambassador at Berlin, to Sir Edward Grey, the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs:—
Sir E. Goschen to Sir Edward Grey (Received July 29).