The expeditionary force which left our shores less than a
month ago has never been surpassed, as its glorious achievements in the
field have already made clear, not only in material and equipment but in
the physical and the moral quality of its constituents. [Cheers.]
Work of the Navy.
As regards the navy, I am sure my right honorable friend (Mr. Winston
Churchill) will tell you there is happily little more to be done. I do
not flatter it when I say that its superiority is equally marked in
every department and sphere of its activity. [Cheers.] We rely on it
with the most absolute confidence, not only to guard our shores against
the possibility of invasion, not only to seal up the gigantic
battleships of the enemy in the inglorious seclusion of his own ports
[laughter] whence, from time to time, he furtively steals forth to sow
the seeds of murderous snares, which are more full of menace to neutral
ships than to the British fleet. Our navy does all this, and while it is
thirsting, I do not doubt, for that trial of strength in a fair and open
fight, which is so far prudently denied it, it does a great deal more.
It has hunted the German mercantile marine from the high seas. It has
kept open our own sources of food supply and has largely curtailed
those of the enemy, and when the few German cruisers which still infest
the more distant ocean routes have been disposed of, as they will be
disposed of very soon, [cheers,] it will achieve for British and neutral
commerce passing backward and forward, from and to every part of our
empire, a security as complete as it has ever enjoyed in the days of
unbroken peace.
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