Page:The drama of three hundred and sixty-five days.djvu/44

THE DRAMA OF 365 DAYS the invisible forces confound the plans of men that the crowning proof of this came two days later—on August 3, in the Commons—when our Foreign Minister defined the British position, and practically declared for war.

It is not idle rumour that the Government went down to the House that day expecting to be resisted. The sequel was a startling surprise. Sir Edward Grey's speech was far from a great oration. It gave the effect of being unprepared as to form, so loosely did the vehicle hang together, the sentences sometimes coming with strange inexactitude for the tongue of one whose written word in dispatches has a clarity and precision that have never been excelled. But it had the supreme qualities of manifest sincerity and transparent honesty, and it derived its overwhelming effect from one transcendent characteristic of which the speaker himself may have been quite unconscious. It spoke to the British Empire as to a British gentleman. "You can't stand by and do nothing while the friend by your side is being beaten to his knees. You can't let a mischievous and unprincipled buccaneer tread into the dust the neighbour whom he has joined with you in swearing to protect?" There was no resisting that. Our own interest might leave us cold; we might even be sceptical of our danger. But we were put on our honour, and every man in the House with the instincts 40