It is only by an accident, or a series of accidents, for which no man here has the right to take credit, that British women on British soil are not now enduring the horrors endured by the women of France, the women of Belgium, and the women of Serbia. The least that men can do is that every man of fighting age should prepare himself to redeem his word to women, and to make ready to do his best, to save the mothers, the wives, and the daughters of Great Britain from outrage too horrible even to think of.
We have the right to say to the men, "Fight for your country, defend the shores of this land of ours. Fight for your homes, for the women, and for the children." We have the right if that was the only reason, but in these days, when women are taking larger views of their duty to the State, we go further than that; we claim the right to hold recruiting meetings and ask men to fight for bigger reasons than are advanced ordinarily. We say to men, "In this war there are issues at stake bigger even than the safety of your homes and your own country. Your honor as a nation is at stake."
We have our duties in this war. First of all, this duty begins at home—this duty to our home, because I always feel that if we are not ready to do our duty to those nearest to us we are not fit to do our duty far away. And so the first duty is to ourselves and to our homes. Then there is the duty to protect those who, having made a gallant fight for self-defense—and by that I mean the country of Belgium—what we owe to Belgium we can never repay, because now the whole German plan of campaign is perfectly plain to all those who are not prejudiced, and who are not affected by pan-Germanism; and, unfortunately, in their methods of warfare—and their methods of warfare are many—they not only fight physically, but they fight mentally and morally as well, and in this country and in France, and in every country in Europe, long before the war broke out, in fact, ever since the year 1870, they have been preparing by subtle means to take possession of Europe, and I believe their ambitions are not limited by that, they want to rule the whole world. The whole thing is clear to any unprejudiced observer.
It is very difficult for your attacking bully to imagine that a small State—I mean small numerically, and weak physically—will ever have the courage to stand up and resist the bully when he prepares to attack. The Germans did not expect Belgium to keep them at bay while the other countries involved prepared, but there is absolutely no doubt that the plan was to press through Belgium, to take possession of Paris, and then, having humiliated and crippled France, to cross the Channel and defeat us. There is no doubt that was the plan; it is perfectly clear. And that being so, we owe—civilization owes—to Belgium a debt which it can never repay.
Then we have our duty to our ally, France. How much democracy owes to France! France is the mother of European democracy. There is no doubt about her claim to that. If there had been nothing else worth fighting for in this war, in my opinion that alone would have been worth fighting for, to preserve that spirit and that democracy—which France has given to the world, and which would perish if France were destroyed. The people of France are a people who never have been, and I believe never will be, corrupted in the sense of thinking that material things are of more value than spiritual things. The people of France have always been ready to sacrifice themselves for ideals. They have been ready to sacrifice life, they have been ready to sacrifice money, they have been ready to sacrifice everything for an ideal.
You know the old saying, that men should work and women should weep? That is not true, for it is for all of us to work and for all of us to weep when there is occasion to do so. Therefore, it is because in the French Nation you have splendid qualities combined in both sexes, because the history of the French Nation is so magnificent, because the French Nation has contributed so much to civilization, and so much in art, beauty, and in great qualities, it is our duty to stand by France, and to prevent her being crushed by the oversexed, that is to say, overmasculine, country of Germany.
It is our duty as women to do what we can to help our country in this war, because if the unthinkable thing happened, and Germany were to win, the women's movement, as we know it in Europe, would be put back fifty years at least; there is no doubt about it. Whether it ever could rise again is to my mind extremely doubtful. The ideal of women in Germany is the lowest in Europe. Infantile mortality is very high, immorality is widespread, and, in consequence, venereal disease is rampant. Notice, too, the miserable and niggardly pittance that is being paid to the wives and families of German soldiers, while nothing whatever is being paid to unmarried wives and their children. True security for women and children is for women to have control over their own destiny. And so it is a duty, a supreme duty, of women, first of all as human beings and as lovers of their country, to co-operate with men in this terrible crisis in which we find ourselves.
If all were trained to contribute something to the community, both in time of peace and in time of war, how much better it would be.
What bitterness there was in the hearts of many women when they saw work and business going on as usual, carried on by men who ought to be in the fighting line. There were thousands upon thousands of women willing, even if they were not trained, to do that work and release men, and we have urged the authorities to take into account the great reserve force of the nation, the women who are or might be quite capable to step into the shoes of the men when they were called up to fight.
The Board of Trade issued its appeal to women just before Easter to register their names as willing to do national service in any capacity during the course of the war. I want to tell you tonight that I am very proud of the women of the country. When the first recruiting appeals were made to men, the hoardings were covered with placards and appeals and they were making efforts by recruiting bands, in places of pleasure—everywhere in the columns of the newspapers there were recruiting appeals to men. Then the time came when the Board of Trade wished to know to what extent it could depend upon the services of the women of the country, and what was done in the case of women? There were no posters for us; there were no recruiting meetings for us; there were no appeals from great names to us; no attractive pictures, "Your King and Country Want You"—nothing of that kind. And yet, in spite of that, in one week 34,000 women sent in their names as volunteers for a national service. [Loud applause.]