With regard to the matter of treaty obligations generally, the German Chancellor excuses the breach of Belgian neutrality by military necessity--at the same time making a virtue of having respected the neutrality of Holland and Switzerland, and saying that it does not enter his head to touch the neutrality of the Scandinavian countries. A virtue which admittedly is only practiced in the absence of temptation from self-interest and military advantage does not seem greatly worth vaunting. To the Chancellor's concluding statement that "to the German sword" is intrusted "the care of freedom for European peoples and States," the treatment of Belgium is a sufficient answer. * * * * * MR. ASQUITH AT EDINBURGH. Speech in Usher Hall, Sept. 18. A fortnight ago today, in the Guildhall of the City of London, I endeavored to present to the nation and to the world the reasons which have compelled us, the people of all others which have the greatest interest in the maintenance of peace, to engage in the hazards and horrors of war. I do not wish to repeat tonight in any detail what I then said. The war has arisen immediately and ostensibly, as every one knows, out of a dispute between Austria and Servia, in which we in this country had no direct concern. The diplomatic history of those critical weeks--the last fortnight in July and the first few days of August--is now accessible to all the world. It has been supplemented during the last few days by the admirable and exhaustive dispatch of our late Ambassador at Vienna, Sir Maurice de Bunsen, a dispatch which I trust everybody will read, and no one who reads it can doubt that, largely through the efforts of my right honorable friend and colleague Sir Edward Grey [loud cheers] the conditions of a peaceful settlement of the actual controversy were already within sight when, on July 31, Germany [hisses] by her own deliberate act made war a certainty. The facts are incontrovertible. They are not sought to be controverted, except, indeed, by the invention and circulation of such wanton falsehoods as that France was contemplating, and even commencing, the violation of Belgian territory as a first step on her road to Germany. The result is that we are at war, and, as I have already shown elsewhere, and as I repeat here tonight, we are at war for three reasons--in the first place, to vindicate the sanctity of treaty obligations ["Hear, hear!"] and of what is properly called the public law of Europe, ["Hear, hear!";] in the second place, to assert and to enforce the independence of free States, relatively small and weak, against the encroachments and the violence of the strong, [cheers,] and, in the third place, to withstand, as we believe in the best interests not only of our own empire but of civilization at large, the arrogant claim of a single power to dominate the development of the destinies of Europe. [Cheers.] Meeting a Challenge.