If, in a crisis like this, we run away from
those obligations of honor and interest as regards the Belgian treaty, I
doubt whether, whatever material force we might have at the end, it
would be of very much value in face of the respect that we should have
lost. And do not believe, whether a great power stands outside this war
or not, it is going to be in a position at the end of it to exert its
superior strength. For us, with a powerful fleet, which we believe able
to protect our commerce, to protect our shores, and to protect our
interests, if we are engaged in war, we shall suffer but little more
than we shall suffer even if we stand aside.
We are going to suffer, I am afraid, terribly in this war, whether we
are in it or whether we stand aside. Foreign trade is going to stop, not
because the trade routes are closed, but because there is no trade at
the other end. Continental nations engaged in war--all their
populations, all their energies, all their wealth, engaged in a
desperate struggle--they cannot carry on the trade with us that they are
carrying on in times of peace, whether we are parties to the war or
whether we are not. I do not believe for a moment that at the end of
this war, even if we stood aside and remained aside, we should be in a
position, a material position, to use our force decisively to undo what
had happened in the course of the war, to prevent the whole of the west
of Europe opposite to us--if that had been the result of the
war--falling under the domination of a single power, and I am quite sure
that our moral position would be such as to have lost us all respect.
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