Page:Great Speeches of the War.djvu/86

 escape shut up by a ring of flame from Prussian cannon. There was one way of escape. What was that? By violating the neutrality of Belgium. What did they do? The French on that occasion preferred ruin, humiliation, to the breaking of their bond.

The French Emperor, French Marshals, 100,000 gallant Frenchmen in arms preferred to be carried captive to the strange land of their enemy rather than dishonour the name of their country. It was the last French army defeat. Had they violated Belgian neutrality the whole history of that war would have been changed. And yet it was the interest of France to break the treaty. She did not do it.

It is the interest of Prussia to break the treaty, and she has done it. Why? She disavowed it with cynical contempt for every principle of justice. She says treaties only bind you when it is to your interest to keep them. "What is a treaty?" says the German Chancellor; "a scrap of paper."

Have you any five-pound notes about you? [Laughter.] I am not calling for them. [Renewed laughter.] Have you any of those neat little Treasury £1 notes? [Laughter.] If you have, burn them; they are only "scraps of paper." [Applause.] What are they made of? Rags. [Laughter.] What are they worth? The whole credit of the British Empire. [Applause.] "Scraps of paper!"

I have been dealing with scraps of paper within the last month. We suddenly found the commerce of the world coming to a standstill. The machine had stopped. Why? I will tell you. We discovered, many of us for the first time—I don't pretend to say that I do not know much more about the machinery of commerce to-day than I did six weeks ago, and there are a good many men like me—we discovered the machinery of commerce was moved by bills of exchange. I have seen some of them—[laughter]—wretched, crinkled, scrawled over, blotched, frowsy, and yet these wretched little scraps of paper moved great ships, laden with thousands of tons of precious cargo, from one end of the world to the other. [Applause.] What was the motive power behind them? The honour of commercial men. [Applause.] Treaties are the currency of international statesmanship. [Applause.]

Let us be fair. German merchants, German traders had the reputation of being as upright and straightforward as any traders in the world. [Hear, hear.] But if the currency of German commerce is to be debased to the level of that of