EMPIRE'S CHARTER

Evening Post, Volume LXXXVIII, Issue 102, 27 October 1914, Page 3

EMPIRE'S CHARTER

SPEECHES OF THE WEEK THE SERE AND YELLOW LEAF LORD ROSEBERY'S ADDRESS. {IROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.) LONDON, 15th September. The following extracts from the speeches of the week give a fair idea of the views of the nation's leaders. Lord Rosebery : " When you go on building up armaments against each other there comes a time when -either the guns go off of themselves or else the people say, ' We can no longer bear this burden of suspense; we had better make an end of it and come to blows at once.' Ido not know whether there was some great organiser who deliberately planned this war. Without evidence I should be loth to lay such a burden on the head of any man, because whoever he be the curses of humanity will pursue him to the end. (Loud cheers.) Now suppose it had been possible for us to s'.and aside, at any rate for the moment, and to say that as Germany did not respect ncr word we would not Tespect ours. Suppose we had been able to maintain peace at the price of that degradation, how long should we have been able to maintain it? (Hear, hear.) Belgium is at this moment a welter of fire and blood and destruction, all wrought by one of the Powers that had sworn to protect her. How long would the British people have endured such a spectacle at their door 9 as that? "This, beyond all comparison, is the greatest war that the world has evor seen. The battle of Leipzig was called the battle of the nations; but it Was not the battle of the nations, though it was the battle of great armies. It was re--served for this war to be the battle of the nations, We have never demanded that every man should, bear arms for his country — though remember this, that by the common law of Great Britain every man capable of bearing arms is bound at the call of his country to do so. (Loud cheers.) You may say : 'That is all very well ; you are an elderly gentleman ,• you will not be called out ; you will sleep in your bed at night; you will have your meals; it is easy for you to come and exhort us who are younger and able to fight to go out to the war.' But I, after all, do not take it that the position of us elderly ones who have to dwell among, the sheep fold and listen to the bleating of the flock while you go out to_ war is much preferable to your position. It is an indication, at any rate, that we are in the decline of vigour and in the sere and yellow leaf. And do you suppose there is one single man of my ago who would not gjadly exchange with one of yours and go out to_ the front? (Cheers.) There is one thing that is perfectly clear : those who go to fight will go to fight in a righteous cause. (Loud cheers.) A nation that begins a great wai 1 by declaring that its foundation is wrong and that it is obliged to do wrong is likely to faro badly if there be a God in Heaven. (Great cheering.) Then we are not merely fighting for Belgium, France, and the sanctity of public law, but we are also fighting to secure our, own liberties against an oppression which would be intolerable. t We- have see.il wars in our time in which the loss of a province or two ended the war. We have seen wars in which an indemnity of money put an end to the war. That will not be so here. If you are beaten to your knees, if you are" compelled' to' submit, you will lose . infinitely more than province or money. Make no mistake, this is a fight to a finish. (Cheers.) If we were to sink to be a third-rate , Power in the position that I have described, 1 for on« would from my heart and soul rather that all our people as they now exist, were to pass into exile and into death, and leave this island vacant for some superior race. (Cheers.) Make no mistake about it. we shall win. (Cheers.) We are fighting with otrr back to the wall to prevent a shame and defeat such, as England has never sustained. (Loud cheers.) We are going to win because a nation and an Empire like ours cannot be extinguished by .any such warfare as this. We are going to win. because we have our people united as they have never been united before. (Cheers.) Above all we are going to win because we have a high, a pure, and a ju&t cause, and we can appeal with humble confidence to Him who, in the words of our beautiful old paraphrase, we recognise as the God of Bethel, by whose hand our people still are led." A BRIGHTER DAY. Sir Edward Gray to his constituents : " We were bound to make the observation of Belgian neutrality — a neutrality guaranteed by a treaty of long standing, to which we -were a paTty— one of the conditic-flB of our own neutrality. The GermaQ Government had asked us to waive that condition, and to condone a violation of a solemn and settled treaty to which Germany, as well as ourselves, was a party. There could be but on© honourable answer to isucli a Tequest. Subsequently came the appeal from Belgium, and tho gallant resistance made by the Belgians to an overwhelming force. Had we sat etill and/ ignored this appeal and this resistance, we should indeed have been detested by friends and despised by enemies. The progress of the war ha& Teyeaied what a terrible and immoral thing German militarism is. It is against German militarism that we must fight j .the whole of W«stem Europe would, fall under it if Germany were to be successful in this war But if, as a result of the war, the independence and integrity of tho smaller European States can be secured, a.nd Western Europe liberated from the menace of German militarism, and the German people itself freed from that militarism— for it is not the German, peoplo but Prussian , militarism which has driven Germany and Europo into this war— if that militarism can be overcome, indeed theTe will be a brighter and a freer day for Europe, which will compensate us for the awful sacrifices that war has made." THE PINCHBECK NAPOLEON. Lord Curzon, at Hull: "TheT» are now far graver- and far more serious and far-reaching issues at stake than were involved a centuTy ago. But the Pinchbeck Napoleon of this year has accomplished what his great prototype of a j hundred years ago never succeeded in ! doing. Re has United us all, man, woman, and child, in every part of this countiy, so much so that there is not one of us who is not prepared to go through this business, however long it lnets, until we have struck the new Napoleon and accursed system to the ground for ever. The Germans fight like fiends on land, in the air. and on the sea 1 . There is no element free from their atrocious inventions. But we are going on without panic and without apprphension, and when the final account is made up, insofar as we have anything to do with it, these crimes must be paid for to the uttermost farthing. (Cheers,) One of thf wisest Ftcps the Government has taken is their announced intention to bring Indian tTOops to fight in Europe. (Choere.) To my mind" it was an act of the 'highest statesmanship and of the highest wisdom. The Bast is going to send out a civilised soldiery to help to 6ave Europe from tho modern Huns. (Cheers.) When these men getch the battlefield* keep your eyes on

the turban and on the dark skin, and I think you will find that they will not dishonour you. I am- inclined to believe that it will probably be a long war We have an enemy of immense resources and of indomitable perseverance, but we must go -on with courage, unfaltering, and in the belief that the Tight -will ultimately prevail. Unless our faith runs high and our courage is undimmed, we have no right to appeal to the Lord of Heaven -with His right hand and His holy arm to give us victory." (Cheers.)