He said: "If
we had gone to war"--which he was prepared to do--"we should have gone
to war for freedom; we should have gone to war for public right; we
should have gone to war to save human happiness from being invaded by
tyrannous and lawless power." That is what I call a good cause, though I
detest war, and there are no epithets too strong if you will supply me
with them that I will not endeavor to heap upon its head.
So much for our own action in the past in regard to treaties and small
States. But faint as is this denial of this part of our case, it becomes
fainter still, it dissolves into the thinnest of thin air, when it has
to deal with our contention that we and our allies are withstanding a
power whose aim is nothing less than the domination of Europe. ["Hear,
hear!"]
It is, indeed, the avowed belief of the leaders of German thought--I
will not say of the German people--of those who for many years past have
controlled German policy, that such a domination, carrying with it the
supremacy of what they call German culture [laughter] and the German
spirit is the best thing that could happen to the world.
German "Culture."
Let me then ask for a moment what is this German culture, what is this
German spirit of which the Emperor's armies are at present the
missionaries in Belgium and in France? [Laughter.
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