What did they do in 1870?  That Treaty Bond was this:  We called upon the belligerent Powers to respect that treaty.  We called upon France; we called upon Germany.  At that time, bear in mind, the greatest danger to Belgium came from France and not from Germany.  We intervened to protect Belgium against France exactly as we are doing now to protect her against Germany.  We are proceeding exactly in the same way.  We invited both the belligerent Powers to state that they had no intention of violating Belgian territory.  What was the answer given by Bismarck?  He said it was superfluous to ask Prussia such a question in view of the treaties in force.  France gave a similar answer.  We received the thanks at that time from the Belgian people for our intervention in a very remarkable document.  This is the document addressed by the municipality of Brussels to Queen Victoria after that intervention: 

The great and noble people over whose destinies you preside have just given a further proof of its benevolent sentiments towards this country.  The voice of the English nation has been heard above the din of arms.  It has asserted the principles of justice and right.  Next to the unalterable attachment of the Belgian people to their independence, the strongest sentiment which fills their hearts is that of an imperishable gratitude to the people of Great Britain.

That was in 1870.  Mark what follows.

Three or four days after that document of thanks the French Army was wedged up against the Belgian frontier.  Every means of escape was shut up by a ring of flame from Prussian cannon.  There was one way of escape.  What was that?  By violating the neutrality of Belgium.  What did they do?  The French on that occasion preferred ruin, humiliation, to the breaking of their bond.  The French Emperor, French Marshals, 100,000 gallant Frenchmen in arms preferred to be carried captive to the strange land of their enemy rather than dishonour the name of their country.  It was the last French Army defeat.  Had they violated Belgian neutrality the whole history of that war would have been changed.  And yet it was the interest of France to break the treaty.  She did not do it.

It is now the interest of Prussia to break the treaty, and she has done it.  Well, why?  She avowed it with cynical contempt for every principle of justice.  She says treaties only bind you when it is to your interest to keep them.  ‘What is a treaty?’ says the German Chancellor.  ‘A scrap of paper.’  Have you any L5 notes about you?  I am not calling for them.  Have you any of those neat little Treasury L1 notes?  If you have, burn them; they are only ‘scraps of paper’.  What are they made of?  Rags.  What are they worth?  The whole credit of the British Empire.  ‘Scraps of paper.’  I have been dealing with scraps of paper within the last month.  It is suddenly found the commerce of the world is coming to a standstill.  The machine had stopped.