AUSZUG AUS EINER REDE

Deutsche Stacheldraht-Post, Issue 56, 10 April 1943, Page 3

AUSZUG AUS EINER REDE

DBS ASQUITH KURZ LACH BKGIANDS XRISK -ERKLARUNG AN DEUTSCHLAKD, U JARRE 19141

M Ae have refused to do, to-day, what Dr. Gladstone told us in 1870 honour and conscience forbade us to do. We have refused

•quietly to stand by and witness the perpetration of the direst crime that ever stained the pages of history, and thus become parti* cipators in the sin. * We are fighting now to save save a flourishing constitutional kingdom which has constantly deserved and en-

joyed our friendship against a wrong no independent tato could tolerate without the loss of all of its raoet essential liberties. %e are going into the war that is forced upon us as the defenders of the weak and the champions of the liberties of Europe. We are drawing the sword in the same cause for which we drew it against Philip 11. ♦ against XIV., and against Napoleon. It Is the cause of right and honour, but it is also the cause of our own vital and immediate interests. The Netherlands and Belgium largely owe their independant existence to the instinct we have ever felt and ever acted on — that on no account whatever can England suffer the coasts of the North Sea and of the narrow seas over against her own to be at the command of a great military monarchy, be that monarchy which it may. $e cannot rely in such a matter upon undertakings, or obligations, or assurances. Would Germany, when she had •dispellec our distrust, ’ respect them better than she has respected her guaranties of Luxemburg and of Belgium ? Her action at this moment is the clearest object-lesson we could desire of the wisdom and the imperious necessity of our traditional policy.“

i ieser typische englische .Srguss, der uns heute gar bekannt anmutet, bedarf koines woiteron Konimentars. e e