[Loud cheers.] What better
or higher cause, my Lord Mayor, whether we succeed or fail? [Cries of
"No failure."] We are going not to fail, but to succeed. [Enthusiastic
cheers.] What higher cause than to arouse and enlist the best qualities
of a free people, than to be engaged at one and the same time in the
vindication of international good faith, in the protection of the weak
against the violence of the strong, [cheers,] and in the assertion of
the best ideals of all the free communities in all the ages of time and
in every part of the world against the encroachments of those who
believe and who preach and who practice the religion of force? It is
not--I am sure you will agree with me--it is not necessary to
demonstrate once more that of this war Germany is the real and the
responsible author. [Cheers.] The proofs are patent, manifold and
overwhelming. [Cheers.] Indeed, on the part of Germany herself we get
upon this point, if denial at all, a denial only of the faintest and the
most formal kind. For a generation past she has been preparing the
ground, equipping herself, both by land and sea, fortifying herself with
alliances, and, what is perhaps even more important, teaching her youth
to seek and to pursue as the first and the most important of all human
things the supremacy of the German power and the German spirit, and all
that time biding her opportunity.
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