I would not say a word about the German people to disparage them.  They are a great people; they have great qualities of head, of hand, and of heart.  I believe, in spite of recent events, there is as great a store of kindness in the German peasant as in any peasant in the world.  But he has been drilled into a false idea of civilization,—­efficiency, capability.  It is a hard civilization; it is a selfish civilization; it is a material civilization.  They could not comprehend the action of Britain at the present moment.  They say so.  ‘France’, they say, ’we can understand.  She is out for vengeance, she is out for territory—­Alsace Lorraine.  Russia, she is fighting for mastery, she wants Galicia.’  They can understand vengeance, they can understand you fighting for mastery, they can understand you fighting for greed of territory; they cannot understand a great Empire pledging its resources, pledging its might, pledging the lives of its children, pledging its very existence, to protect a little nation that seeks for its defence.  God made man in His own image—­high of purpose, in the region of the spirit.  German civilization would re-create him in the image of a Diesler machine—­precise, accurate, powerful, with no room for the soul to operate.  That is the ‘higher’ civilization.

What is their demand?  Have you read the Kaiser’s speeches?  If you have not a copy, I advise you to buy it; they will soon be out of print, and you won’t have any more of the same sort again.  They are full of the clatter and bluster of German militarists—­the mailed fist, the shining armour.  Poor old mailed fist—­its knuckles are getting a little bruised.  Poor shining armour—­the shine is being knocked out of it.  But there is the same swagger and boastfulness running through the whole of the speeches.  You saw that remarkable speech which appeared in the British Weekly this week.  It is a very remarkable product, as an illustration of the spirit we have got to fight.  It is his speech to his soldiers on the way to the front:—­

Remember that the German people are the chosen of God.  On me, on me as German Emperor, the Spirit of God has descended.  I am His weapon, His sword, and His vizard!  Woe to the disobedient!  Death to cowards and unbelievers!

There has been nothing like it since the days of Mahomet.

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 when that should be ruthlessly put away.  I do not believe he meant all these speeches.  It was simply the martial straddle which he had acquired; but there were men around him who meant every word of it.  This was their religion.  Treaties?  They tangled 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.