I was reading in the newspapers the other day that the German Emperor made a speech to some of his regiments in which he urged them to concentrate their attention upon what he was pleased to call “French’s contemptible little army.” [Laughter.] Well, they are concentrating their attention upon it [laughter and cheers] and that army, which has been fighting with such extraordinary prowess, which has revived in a fortnight of adverse actions the ancient fame and glory of our arms upon the Continent, [cheers,] and which tonight, after a long, protracted, harassed, unbroken, and undaunted rearguard action—­the hardest trial to which troops can be exposed—­is advancing in spite of the loss of one-fifth of its numbers, and driving its enemies before it—­that army must be reinforced and backed and supported and increased and enlarged in numbers, in power by every means and every method that every one of us can employ.

There is no reason why, if you set yourselves to it—­I have not come here to make a speech of words, but to point out to you necessary and obvious things which you can do—­there is no doubt that, if you set yourselves to it, the army which is now fighting so valiantly on your behalf and our allies can be raised from its present position to 250,000 of the finest professional soldiers in the world, and that in the new year something like 500,000 men, and from that again when the early Summer begins in 1915 to the full figure of twenty-five army corps fighting in line together.  The vast population of these islands and all the empire is pressing forward to serve, its wealth is placed at your disposal, the navy opens the way for the passage of men and everything necessary for the equipment of our forces.  Why should we hesitate when here is the sure and certain path to ending this war in the way we mean it to end? [Cheers.]

A Decisive Weight.

There is little doubt that an army so formed will in quality and character, in native energy, in the comprehension which each individual has of the cause for which he is fighting, exceed in merit any army in the world.  We have only to have a chance of even numbers or anything approaching even numbers to demonstrate the superiority of free-thinking, active citizens over the docile sheep who serve the ferocious ambitions of drastic Kings. [Cheers.] Our enemies are now at the point which we have reached fully extended.  On every front of the enormous field of conflict the pressure upon them is such that all their resources are deployed.  With every addition to the growing weight of the Russian Army, [cheers,] with every addition to the forces at the disposal of Sir John French, [cheers,] the balance must sag down increasingly against them.

Fixing a Term to the War.