It has pleased them to believe and to preach the belief that we are a decadent nation.  They proclaim it to the world, through their professors, that we are an unheroic nation skulking behind our mahogany counters, whilst we are egging on more gallant races to their destruction.  This is a description given to us in Germany—­’a timorous, craven nation, trusting to its fleet.’  I think they are beginning to find their mistake out already.  And there are half a million of young men of Britain who have already registered their vow to their King that they will cross the seas and hurl that insult against British courage against its perpetrators on the battlefields of France and of Germany.  And we want half a million more.  And we shall get them.

But Wales must continue doing her duty.  That was a great telegram that you, my Lord (the Chairman), read from Glamorgan.[2] I should like to see a Welsh army in the field.  I should like to see the race who faced the Normans for hundreds of years in their struggle for freedom, the race that helped to win the battle of Crecy, the race that fought for a generation under Glendower, against the greatest captain in Europe—­I should like to see that race give a good taste of its quality in this struggle in Europe; and they are going to do it.

I envy you young people your youth.  They have put up the age limit for the Army, but I march, I am sorry to say, a good many years even beyond that.  But still our turn will come.  It is a great opportunity.  It only comes once in many centuries to the children of men.  For most generations sacrifice comes in drab weariness of spirit to men.  It has come to-day to you; it has come to-day to us all, in the form of the glory and thrill of a great movement for liberty, that impels millions throughout Europe to the same end.  It is a great war for the emancipation of Europe from the thraldom of a military caste, which has cast its shadow upon two generations of men, and which has now plunged the world into a welter of bloodshed.  Some have already given their lives.  There are some who have given more than their own lives.  They have given the lives of those who are dear to them.  I honour their courage, and may God be their comfort and their strength.

But their reward is at hand.  Those who have fallen have consecrated deaths.  They have taken their part in the making of a new Europe, a new world.  I can see signs of its coming in the glare of the battlefield.  The people will gain more by this struggle in all lands than they comprehend at the present moment.  It is true they will be rid of the menace to their freedom.  But that is not all.  There is something infinitely greater and more enduring which is emerging already out of this great conflict; a new patriotism, richer, nobler, more exalted than the old.  I see a new recognition amongst all classes, high and low, shedding themselves of selfishness; a new recognition that the honour of a country does