we to get in return for the betrayal of our friends and the dishonour of our obligations? What are we to get in return? A promise--nothing more; a promise as to what Germany would do in certain eventualities; a promise, be it observed--I am sorry to say it, but it must be put upon record--given by a Power which was at that very moment announcing its intention to violate its own treaty, and inviting us to do the same. I can only say, if we had dallied or temporized, we, as a Government, should have covered ourselves with dishonour, and we should have betrayed the interests of this country, of which we are trustees. After quoting and eulogizing the telegraphic despatch of Sir Edward Grey to Sir E. Goschen, dated July 30, 1914, Mr. Asquith proceeded as follows:-- That document, in my opinion, states clearly, in temperate and convincing language, the attitude of this Government. Can any one who reads it fail to appreciate the tone of obvious sincerity and earnestness which underlies it; can any one honestly doubt that the Government of this country in spite of great provocation--and I regard the proposals made to us as proposals which we might have thrown aside without consideration and almost without answer--can any one doubt that in spite of great provocation the right hon. gentleman, who had already earned the title--and no one ever more deserved it--of Peace Maker of Europe, persisted to the very last moment of the last hour in that beneficent but unhappily frustrated purpose. I am entitled to say, and I do so on behalf of this country--I speak not for a party, I speak for the country as a whole--that we made every effort any Government could possibly make for peace. But this war has been forced upon us. What is it we are fighting for? Every one knows, and no one knows better than the Government the terrible incalculable suffering, economic, social, personal and political, which war, and especially a war between the Great Powers of the world must entail. There is no man amongst us sitting upon this bench in these trying days--more trying perhaps than any body of statesmen for a hundred years have had to pass through, there is not a man amongst us who has not, during the whole of that time, had clearly before his vision the almost unequalled suffering which war, even in just cause, must bring about, not only to the peoples who are for the moment living in this country and in the other countries of the world, but to posterity and to the whole prospects of European civilization. Every step 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