Every step we
took we took with that vision before our eyes, and with a sense of
responsibility which it is impossible to describe. Unhappily, if--in
spite of all our efforts to keep the peace, and with that full and
overpowering consciousness of the result, if the issue be decided in
favour of war,--we have, nevertheless, thought it to be the duty as
well as the interest of this country to go to war, the House may be
well assured it was because we believe, and I am certain the country
will believe, we are unsheathing our sword in a just cause.
If I am asked what we are fighting for, I reply in two sentences.
In the first place to fulfil a solemn international obligation, an
obligation which, if it had been entered into between private persons
in the ordinary concerns of life, would have been regarded as an
obligation not only of law but of honour, which no self-respecting man
could possibly have repudiated. I say, secondly, we are fighting to
vindicate the principle,--which in these days when force, material
force, sometimes seems to be the dominant influence and factor in the
development of mankind,--we are fighting to vindicate the principle
that small nationalities are not to be crushed, in defiance of
international good faith, by the arbitrary will of a strong and
overmastering Power. I do not believe any nation ever entered into a
great controversy--and this is one of the greatest history will ever
know--with a clearer conscience and stronger conviction that it is
fighting, not for aggression, not for the maintenance even of its own
selfish interest, but that it is fighting in defence of principles,
the maintenance of which is vital to the civilization of the world.
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