The Prime Minister had not waited for the prorogation to leave for Edinburgh, where he spoke at a meeting of 3,500 persons, primarily consisting of those eligible for the new Army, on September 18. Great crowds were unable to enter, and were addressed either by him at an overflow meeting or by speakers outside. Lord Provost Inches, who presided, mentioned that Edinburgh had enlisted 11,000 men in the new Army. Mr. Asquith began by referring to the origin of the war, and to Sir Maurice de Bunsen's despatch (p. 215), as showing that, largely through Sir Edward Grey's efforts, a peaceful settlement was already in sight when, on July 31, Germany deliberately made war a certainty. The only attempt to controvert the facts was by circulating such wanton falsehoods as that France was beginning to violate Belgian territory. England was at war (1) to vindicate the sanctity of treaty obligations and the public law of Europe; (2) to assert the independence of small States; (3) to withstand in the interest of civilisation the claim of a single Power to dominate Europe. Rebutting the German charge that England had never cared for treaties save in her own interest, he quoted Pitt's speech in 1793 on the French annulment of the treaties guaranteeing to Holland the navigation of the Scheldt, and cited Mr. Gladstone's action regarding Belgium in 1870 and his vindication of it at Edinburgh in 1880. The Germans practically did not contest the British statement that their aim was to dominate Europe. They avowedly believed that the supremacy of German culture was best for the world. Mankind owed much to Germany, but her specific share in the movement of the past thirty years had been intellectually the development of the doctrine of the prerogative of material forces, and, practically, primacy in the fabrication and multiplication of means of destruction. To those accepting this gospel treaties were merely pieces of parchment, and talk about the rights of the weak and the obligations of the strong merely threadbare and nauseating cant. Their creed had proved a purblind philosophy; they had miscalculated the strength of the British Empire, the feelings of the Colonies and India, the state of Great Britain. The fruits of this culture were seen in their action in Belgium and France--Louvain, Malines, Termonde, their proclamation at Reims. The British task might take months or years, but the economic, monetary, and military and naval position was encouraging; but more men were needed, and he eloquently appealed for them, reminding them of their hardships and dangers, and of their noble opportunity.