BRITAIN AND THE LIBERTIES OF EUROPE

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2273, 6 October 1914, Page 5

BRITAIN AND THE LIBERTIES OF EUROPE

SPEECH BY MR. ASQUITH

INTERESTING LIGHT ON PAST DIPLOMACY

London, .October 4. The Prime Minister (Mr. 'Asquith), addressing a meeting of ten thousand people in Cardiff, said that in 1912 the Cabinet had laid down the terms of Britain's relations with Germany, and communicated the following declaration to her: "Britain declares that she will neither make nor join in any unprovoked attack upon Germany. Aggression upon Germany forms no part of any treaty or understanding of any combination to which Britain is now a party; nor will she become party to anything having such an object." Mr. Asquith added: "There is nothing ambiguous or equivocal about that, yet Germany asked for a pledge of neutrality when she herself was enormously increasing her aggressive resources. She asked us to bind ourselves absolutely to neutrality in the event of war. We asked for a free hand. When they selected the opportunity to overbear and dominate the European-world, only one answer was possible. That answer we gave. Now. we see, written in letters of carnage and spoliation, the signs and methods of Germany's longprepared scheme against the liberties of Europe." After referring to the sanctity of treaties and the right of small ae well as large nationalities to live, Mr. Asquith said that was the reason they had brought the Indians to Marseilles and extracted from the most distant overseas Dominions the best of their manhood. At the end of the war he l&oked forward to seeing Europe safeguarded for ever against a recrudescence of the era of blcod and iron. Had England forsworn her word, deserted her friends, and compromised her plain dictates of duty there would have been nothing loft for the'country but'to veil her face in shame and be ready for her turn to share the doom so richly deserved; to go , down, after centuries of a glorious life, to the grave, unwept, unhrinoured, and unsung. . ■ .