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 military 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 civilisation of the world. With a full conviction, not only of the wisdom and justice, but of the obligations which lay upon us to challenge this great issue, we are entering into the struggle. The German Government refusing to order their army to retire from the Belgian territory it had violated, at midnight, 4th to 5th August, 1914, the whole British Empire was at war with the whole German Empire. Surely, there is not the slightest necessity to argue any more that in the terrific war raging for the last four years, Justice and Right are on the side of England and her Allies. No war was ever more just, waged with equal honour for the triumph of Liberty and Civilization, for the protection of Humanity against the onslaught of barbarism developed to the cruelty of the darkest ages of History. CHAPTER III. THE CALL TO DUTY IN CANADA. Every one knows how the news of the State of War between the British and German Empires were received in our great Canadian Dominion, after the days of anxious waiting which culminated in the rallying of England to the defence of the cause of Freedom and Civilization. When the call for duty was sounded in the Capital of the British Empire, it rolled over the mighty Atlantic, spreading over the length and breadth of Canada, being re-echoed with force in our Province of Quebec.