We have got great powers to deal with drink, and we mean to use them. [Cheers.] We shall use them in a spirit of moderation, we shall use them discreetly, we shall use them wisely, but we shall use them fearlessly, [cheers,] and I have no doubt that, as the country’s needs demand it, the country will support our action and will allow no indulgence of that kind to interfere with its prospects in this terrible war which has been thrust upon us.

There are three things I want you to bear in mind.  The first is—­and I want to get this into the minds of every one—­that we are at war; the second, that it is the greatest war that has ever been fought by this or any other country, and the other, that the destinies of your country and the future of the human race for generations to come depend upon the outcome of this war.  What does it mean were Germany to win?  It means world power for the worst elements in Germany, not for Germany.  The Germans are an intelligent race; they are undoubtedly a cultivated race; they are a race of men who have been responsible for great ideas in this world.  But this would mean the dominance of the worst elements among them.  If you think I am exaggerating just you read for the moment extracts from the articles in the newspapers which are in the ascendency now in Germany about the settlement which they expect after this war.  I am sorry to say I am stating nothing but the bare, brutal truth.  I do not say that the Kaiser will sit on the throne of England if he should win.  I do not say that he will impose his laws and his language on this country as did William the Conqueror.  I do not say that you will hear the tramp, the noisy tramp of the goose step in the cities of the Empire. [Laughter.] I do not say that Death’s Head Hussars will be patrolling our highways.  I do not say that a visitor, let us say, to Aberdaron, will have to ask a Pomeranian policeman the best way to Hell’s Mouth. [Loud laughter.] That is not what I mean.  What I mean is that if Germany were triumphant in this war it would practically be the dictator of the international policy of the world.  Its spirit would be in the ascendant.  Its doctrines would be in the ascendant; by the sheer power of its will it would bend the minds of men in its own fashion.  Germanism in its later and worst form would be the inspiriting thought and philosophy of the hour.

Do you remember what happened to France after 1870?  The German armies left France, but all the same for years after that, and while France was building up her army, she stood in cowering terror of this monster.  Even after her great army was built France was oppressed with a constant anxiety as to what might happen.  Germany dismissed her Ministers.  Had it not been for the intervention of Queen Victoria in 1874 the French Army would never have been allowed to be reconstructed, and France would simply have been the humble slave of Germany to this hour.  What a condition for a country!  And now France is fighting not so much