Have you read the Kaiser’s speeches?  If you have not a copy I advise you to buy one; they will soon be out of print, and you will not have many more of the same sort. [Laughter and applause.] They are full of the glitter and bluster of German militarism—­“mailed fist,” and “shining armor.”  Poor old mailed fist!  Its knuckles are getting a little bruised.  Poor shining armor!  The shine is being knocked out of it. [Applause.] There is the same swagger and boastfulness running through the whole of the speeches.  The extract which was given in The British Weekly this week is a very remarkable product as an illustration of the spirit we have to fight.  It is the Kaiser’s speech to his soldiers on the way to the front:—­

Remember that the German people are the chosen of God.  On me, the German Emperor, the spirit of God has descended.  I am His sword, His weapon, and His viceregent.  Woe to the disobedient, and death to cowards and unbelievers.

Lunacy is always distressing, but sometimes it is dangerous; and when you get it manifested in the head of the State, and it has become the policy of a great empire, it is about time that it should be ruthlessly put away. [Loud applause.] I do not believe he meant all these speeches; it was simply the martial straddle he had acquired.  But there were men around him who meant every word of them.  This was their religion.  Treaties?  They tangle the feet of Germany in her advance.  Cut them with the sword!  Little nations?  They hinder the advance of Germany.  Trample them in the mire under the German heel!  The Russian Slav?  He challenges the supremacy of Germany and Europe.  Hurl your legions at him and massacre him!  Britain?  She is a constant menace to the predominancy of Germany in the world.  Wrest the trident out of her hand!  Christianity?  Sickly sentimentalism about sacrifice for others!  Poor pap for German digestion!  We will have a new diet.  We will force it upon the world.  It will be made in Germany—­[Laughter and applause]—­a diet of blood and iron.  What remains?  Treaties have gone.  The honor of nations has gone.  Liberty has gone.  What is left?  Germany!  Germany is left!—­“Deutschland ueber Alles!”

That is what we are fighting—­["Hear, hear!"]—­that claim to predominancy of a material, hard civilization, a civilization which if it once rules and sways the world, liberty goes, democracy vanishes.  And unless Britain and her sons come to the rescue it will be a dark day for humanity. [Applause.]

Have you followed the Prussian Junker and his doings?  We are not fighting the German people.  The German people are under the heel of this military caste, and it will be a day of rejoicing for the German peasant, artisan and trader when the military caste is broken.  You know its pretensions.  They give themselves the airs of demi-gods.  They walk the pavements, and civilians and their wives are swept into the gutter; they have no right to stand in the way of a great Prussian