England cannot afford that her weaker neighbours should become less prosperous or less independent than they are.  So far as the long arm of naval power reaches, England is bound to give them whatever help she can.  From motives of self-preservation, if on no other ground, she could not tolerate their subordination to such a power as Germany aspires to found.  Her quarrel is not with the German people, but with the political system for which the German Empire, in its present temper, stands.  That system England is bound to resist, no matter by what power it is adopted.

English sympathies and English traditions are here at one with English interests.  England is proud to recollect how she befriended struggling nationalities in the nineteenth century.  She did not support Greece and Italy for the sake of any help that they could give her.  The goodwill of England to Holland, to Switzerland, to the Scandinavian states, is largely based upon their achievements in science and art and literature.  They have proved that they can serve the higher interests of humanity.  They have contributed to the growth of that common civilization which links together the small powers and the great with bonds more sacred and more durable than those of race, of government, of material interest.  In this fraternity each nation has a duty to the rest.  If we have harped on England’s interest, it must not for a moment be supposed that we have forgotten England’s duty.  But England stands to-day in this fortunate position, that her duty and her interest combine to impel her in the same direction.

APPENDIX I

GERMANY’S REASONS

FOR

WAR WITH RUSSIA

How Russia and her Ruler betrayed Germany’s confidence and thereby made the European War.

WITH THE ORIGINAL TELEGRAMS
AND NOTES.

Druck und Verlag:  Liebheit & Thiesen, Berlin.

Foreign Office,
Berlin, August 1914.

On June 28th the Austro-Hungarian successor to the throne, Arch-Duke Franz Ferdinand, and his wife, the Duchess of Hohenberg, were assassinated by a member of a band of servian conspirators.  The investigation of the crime through the Austro-Hungarian authorities has yielded the fact that the conspiracy against the life of the Arch-Duke and successor to the throne was prepared and abetted in Belgrade with the cooperation of Servian officials, and executed with arms from the Servian State arsenal.  This crime must have opened the eyes of the entire civilized world, not only in regard to the aims of the Servian policies directed against the conservation and integrity of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, but also concerning the criminal means which the pan-Serb propaganda in Servia had no hesitation in employing for the achievement of these aims.

The goal of these policies was the gradual revolutionizing and final separation of the south-easterly districts from the Austro-Hungarian monarchy and their union with Servia.  This direction of Servias policy has not been altered in the least in spite of the repeated and solemn declarations of Servia in which it vouchsafed a change in these policies toward Austria-Hungary as well as the cultivation of good and neighborly relations.