The facts are incontrovertible.  They are not sought to be controverted, except, indeed, by the invention and circulation of such wanton falsehoods as that France was contemplating, and even commencing, the violation of Belgian territory as a first step on her road to Germany.  The result is that we are at war, and, as I have already shown elsewhere, and as I repeat here tonight, we are at war for three reasons—­in the first place, to vindicate the sanctity of treaty obligations ["Hear, hear!”] and of what is properly called the public law of Europe, ["Hear, hear!";] in the second place, to assert and to enforce the independence of free States, relatively small and weak, against the encroachments and the violence of the strong, [cheers,] and, in the third place, to withstand, as we believe in the best interests not only of our own empire but of civilization at large, the arrogant claim of a single power to dominate the development of the destinies of Europe. [Cheers.]

Meeting a Challenge.

Since I last spoke some faint attempts have been made in Germany to dispute the accuracy and the sincerity of this statement of our attitude and aim.  It has been suggested, for instance, that our professed zeal for treaty rights and for the interests of small States is a newborn and simulated passion.  What, we are asked, has Great Britain cared in the past for treaties or for the smaller nationalities except when she had some ulterior and selfish purpose of her own to serve?  I am quite ready to meet that challenge, and to meet it in the only way in which it could be met, by reference to history.  And out of many illustrations which I might take I will content myself here tonight with two, widely removed in point of time, but both, as it happens, very apposite to the present case.

I will go back first to the war carried on first against the revolutionary Government of France and then against Napoleon, which broke out in 1793, and which lasted for more than twenty years.  We had then at the head of the Government in this country one of the most peace-loving Ministers who have ever presided over our fortunes—­Mr. Pitt.  For three years, from 1789 to 1792, he resolutely refused to interfere in any way with the revolutionary proceedings in France or in the wars that sprang out of them, and as lately, I think, as February in 1792, in a memorable speech in the House of Commons, which shows among other things the shortness of human foresight, he declared that there never was a time when we in this country could more reasonably expect fifteen years of peace.

And what was it, gentlemen, that, within a few months of that declaration, led this pacific Minister to war?  It was the invasion of the treaty rights guaranteed by ourselves of a small European State, the then States General of Holland. [Cheers.] For nearly 200 years the great powers of Europe had guaranteed to Holland the exclusive navigation of the River Scheldt.  The French revolutionary Government invaded what is now Belgium, and as a first act of hostility to Holland declared the navigation of the Scheldt to be open.  Our interest in that matter then, as now, was relatively small and insignificant, but what was Mr. Pitt’s reply?