Page:Great Speeches of the War.djvu/39

Rh has been, the greater the obligation on those who can help to help, the higher the obligation of duty and of honour on those of military age not to wait for a week or a month or six months, but to go now to fit themselves to take a hand in this great struggle, and to stand shoulder to shoulder by their countrymen who have done so well, and who are now fighting to bring this war to the only termination that we in this country can endure.

Remember that, alone among the great nations, we take no compulsory toll of service from any man in the long years of peace. Many joined in the old days the Volunteers, and to-day join the Territorials. All honour to them. It is a voluntary act. They are free to do it or not, but there is not a man who has done it who regrets it to-day. There is many a man who did not do it who wishes to-day he had had the training which those forces would have given him. Let him hesitate no longer if he has not gone already. It takes time to make a soldier, whatever your good will is. It is time to go now without waiting, so that you may be ready when the critical moments come. The less you have had to do in peace, the higher is your obligation when the need of war comes.

From across the seas, from the great British Dominions, come organized forces to our assistance. From India come her princes and her peoples to do battle with us for the honour of the King whom they call Emperor, and for the liberty and the justice that they have known under his reign and that of his great predecessors. From every little British community scattered up and down the world come volunteers in ones and twos and sixes and tens to take their places in the ranks, if no organized body is formed where they are, and the only complaint that I have seen from Britishers overseas has been the bitter complaint of those who have been told that duty held them to civil posts and that they could not be spared to fight at this great moment.

We are proud of them—British, Indians, men of every race and creed. We are proud of them. We shall not forget what they have done. But the more they have done, the more they do, the more we must do, for we should be shamed indeed if we, the Motherland of this vast Empire, we who guide and control its policy, we, the richest and by far the most populous portion of it as far as white men go, if we did