RT. HON. D. LLOYD GEORGE
[London Welshmen crowded the Queen's Hall on September 19, 1914, when the Chancellor delivered one of the most memorable speeches of his career in support of the recruiting campaign. The occasion was marked by scenes of extraordinary enthusiasm. The hall, packed with young men ready to join the colours, resounded with the stirring strains of the Welsh National Anthem, Land of my Fathers, and the Welsh battlesong, Men of Harlech; great multitudes assembled outside the building, unable to secure admission.]
I have come here this afternoon to talk to my fellow-countrymen about the great war and the part we ought to take in it. I feel my task is easier after we have been listening to the greatest battlesong in the world. [Cheers.]
There is no man in this room who has always regarded the prospects of engaging in a great war with greater reluctance, with greater repugnance, than I have done throughout the whole of my political life. [Cheers.] There is no man either inside or outside of this room more convinced that we could not have avoided it without national dishonour. [Cheers.] I am fully alive to the fact that whenever a nation was engaged in any war she has always invoked the sacred name of honour. Many a crime has been committed in its name; there are some crimes being committed now. [Hear, hear.] But nevertheless, national honour is a great reality, and any nation that disregards it is doomed. [Hear, hear.]
Why is our honour as a country involved in this war? Because in the first place we are bound in an honourable obligation to defend the independence, the liberty, the integrity of a small neighbour, that has lived peaceably. She could not have compelled us, because she was weak; but the man who declines to discharge his debt because his creditor is too poor to enforce it is a blackguard. [Cheers.]
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