Next to this passage follows another which is equally honest
and equally luminous :—
" We must never forget, es we go through this war, that an offer was made to us to keep out of the war. We were asked by the German Government to engage to remain neutral on certain conditions. We were salted to condone the violation of the neutrality of Belgp---uni- because that was what the offer came to--though they were pledged by treaty to uphold it. And we were asked to give Germany a free hand to take whateVer she liked of the French Colonies. That is why I Say the' plan was not only to isolate us, but to discredit us. I would as any neutral to put it to himself. What would be the future of this country if the British Government had for a moment accepted such an offer ? We might have had an Army and a Navy, but there would have been no moral, no spirit in the nation. We should have had the contempt of the whole world. Tactics so gross as that did not succeed, and I need not recall what the reply of the British Government was, nor what the spirit of the nation was at the opening of the war."
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