How the Nations Waged War. J. M. Kennedy
and why it was that we intervened.
"It was only when we were confronted with the choice between keeping and breaking solemn obligations, between the discharge of a binding trust and of shameless subservience to naked force, that we threw away the scabbard.
"We do not repent our decision.
"The issue was one which no great and self-respecting nation, certainly none bred and nurtured as ourselves in this ancient home of liberty could, without undying shame, have declined. We were bound by our obligations, plain and paramount, to assert and maintain the threatened independence of a small and neutral State. Belgium had no interest of her own to serve, save and except the one supreme and over-riding interest of every State, great or little, which is worthy of the name, the preservation of her integrity and of her national life.
"History tells us that the duty of asserting and maintaining the great principle, which is, after all, the well-spring of civilisation and of progress, has fallen once and again at the most critical moment in the past to States relatively small in area and in population, but great in courage and resolve, to Athens and Sparta, the Swiss cantons, and not least gloriously three centuries ago to the Netherlands. Never, sir, I venture to assert, has the duty been more clearly and bravely acknowledged, and never has it been more strenuously and heroically discharged than during the last weeks by the Belgian King and the Belgian people.
"They have faced without flinching, and against almost incalculable odds, the horrors of an irruption, devastation, of spoliation, and of outrage. They have stubbornly withstood and successfully arrested the inrush, wave after wave, of a gigantic and overwhelming force. The defence of Liège will always be the theme of one of the most inspiring chapters in the annals of liberty. The Belgians have won for themselves the immortal glory which belongs to a people who prefer freedom to ease, to security, even to life itself. We are proud of their alliance and their friendship. We salute them with respect and with honour. We are with them heart and soul, because by their side and in their company we are defending at the same time two great causes—the independence of small States and the sanctity of international covenants—and we assure them, as I ask the House in this Address to do, in the name of this United Kingdom and of the whole Empire, that they may count to the end on our whole-hearted and unfailing support."
The reception which this speech met with was unmistakable; and the motion was voted unanimously.
Mr. Bonar Law, in seconding, spoke with great feeling of the shameful atrocities committed upon the Belgian people by the German soldiery, and, in the Upper House, Lord Crewe, referring to the same theme, observed that no country ever outraged humanity without sooner or later paying for it: "It must be our part to see that the sword is not sheathed till these great wrongs are redressed to the full."
Lord Lansdowne spoke of the "incalculable value" of the two or three weeks gained by the heroic defence of Belgium; and Mr. Redmond, in a few glowing sentences, bore witness to the generous enthusiasm which had been excited in Ireland. There was no sacrifice, he said, which Ireland was not willing to make for Belgium, and he suggested that, instead of the loan of £10,000,000 which had been proposed, the Belgian people should be asked to receive the money as a gift.
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