And so on, and so on. Little Belgium--her gallant soldiers and her laborious peasants alike--has been mashed to a bloody pulp where the heel of the Prussian, shod with iron and with this damnable philosophy, has passed. And all the time the Belgians kept on asking in hope, in despair, “Where are the English? Where are the French?” Can you wonder if in the end they began to ask it in anger? Would it be a contradiction of all the laws of human nature to suppose that the panic terror which swept over the undefended land may have penetrated through the steel blinds of the forts of Namur, taken the heart out of the troops, impelled to surrender? Let us examine our consciences. What have we done to show our appreciation of Belgium? There was the Royal message. There was Lord Sydenham’s noble letter in _The Times_ which has been quoted everywhere. There is a subscription on foot. There is the promised loan. So far so good. But it is not enough. The stunned sense of having been delivered to Armageddon is noticeable everywhere, but especially in Flanders. The Flemish journals such as the _Laatste Nieuws_ are full of violent anti-French, and in a less degree of anti-English articles. Germanophiles are harping on the kinship of the Flemish tongue, the Flemish stock and manners, to Germany. People sneer at the loan. My Flemish barber said to me on Sunday: “Oh! you are a fine people, you English. You look for business among the corpses. You will kindly lend us money at a good, whacking rate of interest. You philanthropists!” What, then, is needed? War means blood and treasure. That faded phrase has been lit up suddenly, and we know what it means. The proof of blood the gallant soldiers of the two great Western Allies have already given at Mons and along the Sambre. I am convinced that the United Kingdom would be acting with fruitful generosity if Parliament were not to sanction a loan, but to vote a free grant. Conjoined with that I hope and assume that Sir Edward Grey will renew the solemn pledges already given that, come what may, we mean to see Belgium through. The fear is general that the Germans may be allowed to get such a footing in Belgium as to have some plausible case in international law for proclaiming annexation. Let Parliament announce--and these dramatic cries and gestures of diplomacy are necessary--that so long as there is one shot left and one soldier to fire it, the Allies will never allow one foot of Belgian soil to remain under German domination.