Let me now just for a moment turn to the actual situation in Europe.  How do we stand?  For the last ten years, by what I believe to be happy and well-considered diplomatic arrangements, we have established friendly and increasingly intimate relations with the two powers, France and Russia, with whom, in days gone by, we have had in various parts of the world occasions for constant friction, and now and again for possible conflict.  Those new and better relations, based in the first instance upon business principles of give and take, matured into a settled temper of confidence and good-will.  They were never in any sense or at any time, as I have frequently said in this hall, directed against other powers.  No man in the history of the world has ever labored more strenuously or more successfully than my right honorable friend Sir Edward Grey [cheers] for that which is the supreme interest of the modern world, a general and abiding peace.  It is, I venture to think, a very superficial criticism which suggests that under his guidance the policy of this country has ignored, still less that it has counteracted and hampered, the concert of Europe.  It is little more than a year ago that under his Presidency, in the stress and strain of the Balkan crisis, the Ambassadors of all the great powers met here day after day curtailing the area of possible differences, reconciling warring ambitions and aims, and preserving against almost incalculable odds the general harmony.  And it was in the same spirit and with the same purpose, when a few weeks ago Austria delivered her ultimatum to Servia, that our Foreign Secretary put forward the proposal for a mediating conference between the four powers who were not directly concerned—­Germany, France, Italy, and ourselves.  If that proposal had been accepted actual controversy would have been settled with honor to everybody, and the whole of this terrible welter would have been avoided. ["Hear, hear!”]

Germany’s Responsibility.

And with whom does the responsibility rest [cries of “The Kaiser!”] for this refusal and for all the illimitable suffering which now confronts the world?  One power and one power only, and that power—­Germany. [Loud hisses.] That is the fount and origin of this worldwide catastrophe.  We are persevering to the end.  No one who has not been confronted as we were with the responsibility of determining the issues of peace and war can realize the strength and energy and persistency with which we labored for peace.  We persevered by every expedient that diplomacy could suggest, straining almost to the breaking point our most cherished friendships and obligations, even to the last making effort upon effort, and hoping against hope.  Then, and only then, when we were at last compelled to realize that the choice lay between honor and dishonor, between treachery and good faith, when at last we reached the dividing line which makes or mars a nation worthy of the name, it was then, and then only, that we declared for war. [Cheers.] Is there any one in this hall or in this United Kingdom or in the vast empire of which we here stand in the capital and centre who blames or repents our decision? [Cries of “No!”] For these reasons, as I believe, we must steel ourselves to the task, and in the spirit which animated our forefathers in their struggle against the domination of Napoleon we must and we shall persevere to the end. [Cheers.]