"Don't Let Them Down!"

There is great fighting in front of us. Our gallant soldiers will do their duty. There are men every day and every night who are going down to the sea in ships to defend our shores and the access to our shores, and our gallant sailors will not finish, whatever danger the deep may conceal for them. But I do beg for our sailors and our soldiers, don't let them down in the hour of battle. Support them with all we can and all we have. A big loan will shorten the war; a big number of subscribers will shorten it further. If you cannot give much, give what you can. It will swell the number of subscribers, it will encourage the Army, it will discourage the foe. Let the Army at the front know that at home there is an army behind the Army; and every man who has anything to give, I ask him to enlist in that army in order to do his share and to contribute his help to the winning of the war.

"Enlist Time."

There must be no hanging back, there must be no loitering, there must be no lingering. Time is a hesitating and perplexed neutral. He has not yet decided on which side he is going to swing his terrible scythe. For the moment that scythe is striking both sides with terrible havoc. The hour will come when it will be swung finally

on one side or the other. Time is the deadliest of all the neutral powers. Let us see that we enlist him among our Allies. The only way to win time is not to lose time. You must not lose time in the council chamber; you must not lose time in the departments which carry out the decrees of the council; you must not lose time in the field, in the factory, or in the workshop. Whoever tarries when he ought to be active-whether it is a statesman, a soldier, an official, a farmer, a worker, a rich man with his money-is simply helping the enemy to secure the aid of the most powerful factor in this war-time. Act and act in time. That is our appeal to you.

"A New Country."

In conclusion I would sum up the appeal which I am making to you in the Carnarvon Boroughs, men and women, and through you to the men and women of this land. Do these things for the sake of your country during the war. Do them for the sake of your country after the war. When the smoke of this great conflict has been dissolved in the atmosphere we breathe, there will reappear a new Britain. It will be the old country still, but it will be a new country. Its commerce will be new, its trade will be new, its industries will be new. There will be new conditions of life and of toil, for capital and for labour alike, and there will be new relations between both of them and for ever. But there will be new ideas, there will

be a new outlook, there will be a new character in the land. The men and women of this country will be burnt into fine building material for the new Britain in the fiery kilns of the war. It will not merely be the millions of men who, please God! will come back from the battlefield to enjoy the victory which they have won by their bravery. A finer foundation I would not want for the new country; but it will not be merely that. The Britain that is to be will depend also upon what will be done now by the many more millions who remain at home.

There are rare epochs in the history of the world when in a few raging years the character, the destiny, of the whole race is determined for unknown ages. This is one. The winter wheat is being sown. It is better, it is surer, it is more bountiful in its harvest than when it is sown in the soft springtime. There are many storms to pass through, there are many frosts to endure, before the land brings forth its green promise. But let us not be weary in well-doing, for in due season we shall reap if we faint not.

THE ENTRY OF AMERICA INTO THE WAR.

SPEECH DELIVERED AT THE AMERICAN LUNCHEON CLUB

(SAVOY HOTEL), APRIL 12TH, 1917.

I AM in the happy position, I think, of being the first British Minister of the Crown who, speaking on behalf of the people of this country, can salute the American nation as comrades in arms. I am glad. I am proud. I am glad not merely because of the stupendous resources which this great nation can bring to the succour of the Alliance, but I rejoice as a Democrat that the advent of the United States into this war gives the final stamp and seal to the character of the conflict as a struggle against military autocracy throughout the world.

"A Fight for Human Liberty.”

That was the note that rang through the great deliverance of President Wilson. It was echoed in your resounding words to-day, Sir. The United States of America have a noble tradition, never broken, of having never engaged in a war except for liberty, and this is the greatest struggle for liberty they have ever embarked upon. I am not at all surprised, when one recol

lects the wars of the past, that America took its time to make up its mind about the character of this struggle. In Europe most of the great wars of the past were waged for dynastic aggrandisements and for conquest. No wonder that when this great war started there were some elements of suspicion still lurking in the minds of the people of the United States of America. There were many who thought, perhaps, that kings were at their old tricks, and although they saw the gallant Republic of France fighting, some of them perhaps, regarded France as the poor victim of conspiracy and of monarchical swashbucklers. The fact that the United States of America has made up its mind finally makes it abundantly clear to the world that this is no struggle of that character, but a great fight for human liberty.

The Prussian Military Caste.

They naturally did not know at first what we had endured in Europe for years from this military caste in Prussia. It never reached as far as the United States of America. Prussia is not a democracy, but the Kaiser promises it will be a democracy after the war. I think he is right. But Prussia not merely was not a democracy; Prussia was not a State. Prussia was an army. It had great industries, highly developed. It had a great educational system. It had its universities. It developed its sciences. But all these were subordinate to the one great predominant