onrush of organized barbarism.

 

Have no illusions. We are dealing with a strong and magnificently equipped

enemy, whose avowed aim is our complete destruction. The violation of Belgium,

the attack on France and the defense against Russia, are only steps by the way.

The German's real objective, as she always has told us, is England, and

England's wealth, trade and worldwide possessions.

 

If you assume, for an instant, that the attack will be successful, England will

not be reduced, as some people say, to the rank of a second rate power, but we

shall cease to exist as a nation. We shall become an outlying province of

Germany, to be administered with that severity German safety and interest

require.

 

We are against such a fate. We enter into a new life in which all the facts of

war that we had put behind or forgotten for the last hundred years, have

returned to the front and test us as they tested our fathers. It will be a long

and a hard road, beset with difficulties and discouragements, but we tread it

together and we will tread it together to the end.

 

Our petty social divisions and barriers have been swept away at the outset of

our mighty struggle. All the interests of our life of six weeks ago are dead. We

have but one interest now, and that touches the naked heart of every man in this

island and in the empire.