[Hisses.] She avows it with cynical contempt for every
principle of justice. She says: "Treaties only bind you when it is your
interest to keep them." [Laughter.] "What is a treaty?" says the German
Chancellor, "A scrap of paper." Have you any five-pound notes about you?
[Laughter and applause.] I am not calling for them. [Laughter.] Have you
any of those neat little Treasury one-pound notes? [Laughter.] If you
have, burn them; they are only scraps of paper. [Laughter and
applause.] What are they made of? Rags. [Laughter.] What are they worth?
The whole credit of the British Empire. [Loud applause.] Scraps of
paper! I have been dealing with scraps of paper within the last month.
One suddenly found the commerce of the world coming to a standstill. The
machine had stopped. Why? I will tell you. We discovered--many of us for
the first time, for I do not pretend that I do not know much more about
the machinery of commerce today than I did six weeks ago, and there are
many others like me--we discovered that the machinery of commerce was
moved by bills of exchange. I have seen some of them, [laughter,]
wretched, crinkled, scrawled over, blotched, frowsy, and yet those
wretched little scraps of paper move great ships laden with thousands of
tons of precious cargo from one end of the world to the other.
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