This fortuitous aggregation [laughter and cheers] which goes by the name
of the British Empire was supposed to be so insecurely founded, and so
loosely knit together, that at the first touch of serious menace from
without it would fall to pieces and tumble to the ground. [Cheers.]
Our great dominions were getting heartily tired of the imperial
connection. India, [loud cheers,] it was notorious to every German
traveler, [laughter,] was on the verge of open revolt, and here at home
we, the people of this United Kingdom, were riven by dissension so deep
and so fierce that our energies, whether for resistance or for attack,
would be completely paralyzed.
What a fantastic dream, ["Hear, hear!"] and what a rude awakening!
[Laughter and cheers.] And in this vast and grotesque and yet tragic
miscalculation is to be found one of the roots, perhaps the main root,
of the present war.
But let us go one step more. It has been said, "By their fruits ye shall
know them," and history will record that when the die was cast and the
struggle began, it was the disciples of that same creed who revived
methods of warfare which have for centuries past been condemned by the
common sense as well as by the humanity of the great mass of the
civilized world.
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