Of the commentators upon this speech the greater part were Liberals, and these condemned his utterances with unanimity in somewhat violent language. Official Unionism was dubious, uncomfortable, and disapproving: it remained for the most part dumb. A few voices were raised from this quarter in open reprobation; a few others proclaimed their independence of party discipline and hastened to approve his sentiments. There was no doubt of one thing--Lord Roberts's speech had at last aroused public interest. For the first time during the National Service agitation {333} blood had been drawn. This was mainly due to the object-lesson in the consequences of military unpreparedness, which the first Balkan War was just then unfolding before the astonished eyes of Europe. In addition, those people, who for a year past had been puzzling their heads over the true meaning of the Agadir crisis, had become impressed with the urgent need for arriving at a clear decision with regard to the adequacy of our national defences. [Sidenote: NEED FOR NATIONAL SERVICE] The speech was a lucid and forcible statement of the need for compulsory military training. It was interesting reading at the time it was delivered, and in some respects it is even more interesting to-day. It was compactly put together, not a thing of patches. A man who read any part of it would read it all. Yet in accordance with custom, controversy raged around three isolated passages. The _first_ of these runs as follows: "In the year 1912, our German friends, I am well aware, do not--at least in sensible circles--assert dogmatically that a war with Great Britain will take place this year or next; but in their heart of hearts they know, every man of them, that--just as in 1866 and just as in 1870--war will take place the instant the German forces by land and sea are, by their superiority at every point, as certain of victory as anything in human calculation can be made certain. Germany strikes when Germany's hour has struck. That is the time-honoured policy of her Foreign Office. That was the policy relentlessly pursued by Bismarck and Moltke in 1866 and 1870. It has been her policy decade by decade since that date. It is her policy at the present hour." {334} The _second_ passage followed upon the first: "It is an excellent policy. It is or should be the policy of every nation prepared to play a great part in history. Under that policy Germany has, within the last ten years, sprung, as at a bound, from one of the weakest of naval powers to the greatest naval power, save one, upon this globe."