And let me say right here that while in any event Australia would have made a sturdy response to Britain’s call, what Germany can put into its long-stemmed, china-bowled pipe and “smoke it,” is that were it not for the appalling, cowardly, barbarous crimes committed against the defenseless--the women and children of Belgium, there would never have been, as there has been, such tremendous outpouring of fighting men from splendid Australia; 400,000 of them out of a population of men, women and children numbering 5,000,000! All volunteers, you understand? It is the volunteer record of the war--not forgetting Canada’s mighty showing of 550,000 out of a population of 7,000,000! It was not until Germany gave atrocious evidences of her disregard of humanity, not until its army had stalked in its giant size, a red-stained, moral idiot, through little Belgium, crucifying old men and women and children to the doors of their homes, ravishing girls and women, murdering the parents who tried to protect them; not until this enormity of degeneracy had passed into the history of mankind, did Australia take fire. I know because at the very beginning of the war I was sent out to Sydney and Melbourne as a whip for enlistment--made scores of speeches daily in halls, parks, street corners and other public places. My hearers were many and they were earnest and thoughtful but deliberate as well. Enlistments came and numerously but not with anything approaching a rush. Your prospective soldier debated a good deal with his own personal interests, before he signed up. But after Belgium! The crowds I addressed took the arguments for enlistment away from me--made the talk themselves, swarmed to join. Social ranks broke completely and almost instantaneously. Everybody flocked to the army--artists, actors, lawyers, merchants, clerks, larrikins, miners and the men from the vast, open places of Australia. [Illustration: “British blood is calling British blood”] Brothers are these last in every degree of character to the American and Canadian miners, ranchers, trappers, cowboys; they are big, lean, brave, boyishly chivalrous men, shy of women but adoring them, willing to play romping dog any old time to win the smile of a child or the pat of its little hand. It must stand as one of the most picturesque features of the war--the great distances these men traveled to the centers of population to offer their services to avenge the slaughter of the helpless in Belgium and to fight for the honor, prestige and life of the Gray Mother of the Empire. Take for instance, John Wilson, gold prospector. He came out of the wilderness, fifteen hundred miles to Sydney, to join the colors; four hundred of it on horseback, one hundred of it literally hacking his way through a dense, trackless forest of giant gum and eucalyptus trees until he got to Bourke, whence, once a fortnight, a train leaves for Sydney. Thousands and thousands of John Wilsons made their way to the cities.