This suggestion of Germany is not the only infamous proposal she has made to Great Britain. She has made them with a persistence worthy of a better cause. In February, 1912, Lord Haldane went to Berlin on behalf of the Cabinet in order to obtain the basis of a friendly understanding between the two countries. What transpired is made clear in a speech delivered by Mr. Asquith, at Cardiff, on October 2, 1914, when the Prime Minister said:-- "We laid down in terms, carefully approved by the Cabinet, and which I will textually quote, what our relations to Germany ought, in our view, to be. We said, and we communicated this to the German Government:-- 'Britain declares that she will neither make, nor join in, any unprovoked attack upon Germany. Aggression upon Germany is not the subject, and forms no part of any Treaty, understanding, or combination to which Britain is now a party, nor will she become a party to anything that has such an object.' "There is nothing ambiguous or equivocal about that. But that was not enough for German statesmanship. They wanted us to go further. They asked us to pledge ourselves absolutely to neutrality, in the event of Germany being engaged in war, and this, mind you, at a time when Germany was enormously increasing both her aggressive and defensive forces, and especially upon the sea. They asked us--to put it quite plainly--for a free hand, so far as we were concerned, if and when they selected the opportunity to overpower and dominate the European world. To such a demand one answer was possible, and that was the answer we gave."[83] FOOTNOTES: [81] _Great Britain and the European Crisis_, No. 101. [82] House of Commons, August 6, 1914. [83] _South Wales Daily News_, October 3, 1914. IF BRITAIN HAD REFUSED TO FIGHT. If, in view of all this evidence, Britain had refused to fight, what would have been her position? The Prime Minister, speaking at the Guildhall on September 4, 1914, said:-- "But let me ask you, and through you the world outside, what would have been our condition as a nation to-day if, through timidity, or through a perverted calculation of self-interest or through a paralysis of the sense of honour and duty, we had been base enough to be false to our word and faithless to our friends?