"A SCRAP OF PAPER"

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2328, 9 December 1914, Page 5

"A SCRAP OF PAPER"

WHY BRITAIN MADE WAR

SERM©N BY REV; E; H. HOBDAY

In the Vivian Street Baptist. Church on Sunday last, the Eev. \ Herbert Hobday preached a sermon the topic of which was the reason for the present action of Britain in the war. A piece of paper, relegated to the scrapheap by Germany, had been recovered by British integrity, he said, and was to-day a memorial of Germany's indelible shame.- "Just for a word— 'neutrality'— -a. word whioh in war time had been 60 often disregarded, just for a scrap of paper. Great Britain was going to make war.'' As Dr. Dillon observes, that significant comment by the German Chancellor on Great Britain's determination to uphold the •neutrality of Belgium, was destined to stick to the memory of its authors, until such time as the militarism which originated it had been consumed without residue. That paltry piece of parchment which Germany had sought to reduce to nothingness had become imperishable. With that bit of paper in evidence against her, Germany 6tood convicted before the bar of the nations of a crime unparalleled in history. They should make no mistake about the enormity of the offence. Treaties should not be signed if the signatures were not going to be respected. "Necessity," says: Germany, "knows no law. Open lust for power can brook no barriers. We must hack our way through. Parchments to the devil; we must get to 'Paris/' The inconsequential piece of parchment which Germany, affected to despisa was nothing less than a solemn treaty to respect and protect the integrity of Belgium. It was signed by Russia, France, Austria. ( and Prussia. Fad FiJance during the J ranco-Prussian War chpsen to violate that treaty the whole history of the war would have been changed.- Yet. rather than dishonour lier Word she surrendered her army, 100,000 strong. They could have escaped 'into Belgium, but they preferred, <fjo their everlasting honour, -to go as prisoners to Berlin. - But Germany had not only invaded Belgium, ;she had desolated, her. When all -exaggerations had been taken into account, *the evidence of, trustworthy witnesses convicts her beyond the shadow of a qoubt of murdering civilians, violating women,/ butchering children, shooting hostages, and firing on ambulances, to talk! about the unspeakable (Turk; this time we talked about • the Sunspeakable German. Concluding, preacher said that one thing was .pertain: no treaty would be enough to; iterminato war with a nation, which repudiated her treaties. There must be some more substantial guarantee. Unlesil the blood of our brothers shall have ljeen shed in vain, we n)ust require soniething more' binding than parchment. ■ We should wrong both the living and the'dead were we to conclude peace until "Prussia has been reduced to political, military, and naval imp'otency."' In-.the-'name'of justice that was the irreducible minimum. In the name of humanity it mu6t be no less. If we cannot rely on a nation's promise, then, for the sake of hravo men, helpless. women and innocent children, we must render that nation powerless, irrespective of promises. And that we shall be , able to exact such' terms was hot to be doubted. And for this reason—not because of the might of our armies, nor; because of the strength of our navies, but because <f something which the Kaiser, in his contempt for treaties, forgot, because, as Jamos Russell Lowell so magnificently put it, "The Ten Commandments will not budge."'-