A SAFE INVESTMENT.

EXTRACTS FROM A SPEECH DELIVERED AT THE GUILDHALL, AT A MEETING HELD TO LAUNCH THE VICTORY WAR LOAN, JANUARY 11TH, 1917.

The German Trap.

THE German Kaiser a few days ago sent a message to his people that the Allies had rejected his peace offer. He did so in order to drug those whom he can no longer dragoon. Where are those offers? We have asked for them. We have never seen them. We were not offered terms; we were offered a trap baited with fair words. They tempted us once, but the lion has his eyes open now. We have rejected no terms that we have ever seen. Of course it would suit them to have peace at the present moment on their own terms. We all want peace; but when we get it, it must be a real peace. The Allied Powers separately, and in council together, have come to the same conclusion. Knowing well what war means, knowing especially what this war means in suffering, in burdens, in horror, they have decided that even war is better than peace-peace at the Prussian price of domination over Europe. We made that clear in our reply to Germany; we made it still clearer in our reply to the United States of America. Before we attempt to rebuild the temple of

peace we must see now that the foundations are solid. They were built before upon the shifting sands of Prussian faith; henceforth, when the time for rebuilding comes, it must be on the rock of vindicated justice.

Determination of the Allies.

I have just returned from a Council of War of the four great Allied countries upon whose shoulders most of the burden of this terrible war falls. I cannot give you the conclusions: there might be useful information in them for the enemy. There were no delusions as to the magnitude of our task; neither were there any doubts about the result. All felt that if victory were difficult, defeat was impossible. There was no flinching, no wavering, no faintheartedness, no infirmity of purpose. There was a grim resolution that at all costs we must achieve the high aim with which we accepted the challenge of the Prussian military caste and rid Europe and the world of its menace for ever. No country could have refused that challenge without loss of honour. No one could have rejected it without impairing national security. No one could have failed to take it up without forfeiting something which is of greater value to every free and self-respecting people than life itself.

Spirit of the Rome Conference.

These nations did not enter into the war lightheartedly. They did not embark upon this enter

prise without knowing what it really meant. They were not induced by the prospect of an easy victory. Take this country. The millions of our men who enrolled in the Army enlisted after the German victories of August, 1914, when they knew the accumulative and concentrated power of the German military machine. That is when they placed their lives at the disposal of their country. What about other nations? They knew what they were encountering, that they were fighting an organisation which had been perfected for generations by the best brains of Prussia, perfected with one purpose the subjugation of Europe. And yet they faced it. Why did they do it? I passed through hundreds of miles of the beautiful lands of France and of Italy, and as I did so I asked myself this question: Why did the peasants leave by the million these sunny vineyards and cornfields in France-why did they quit these enchanting valleys in Italy, with their comfort and their security and their calm-in order to face the dreary and wild horrors of the battlefield? They did it for one purpose and one purpose only. They were not driven to the slaughter by kings. These are great democratic countries. No Government could have lasted twenty-four hours that had forced them into an abhorrent war. Of their own free will they embarked upon it, because they knew a fundamental issue had been raised which no country could have shirked without imperilling all that has been won in the centuries of the past and all that remains to be won in the ages of the

future. That is why, as the war proceeds, and the German purpose becomes more manifest, the conviction has become deeper in the minds of these people that they must break their way through to victory in order to save Europe from unspeakable despotism. That was the spirit which animated the Allied Conference at Rome last week.

"Looking to Great Britain."

But I will tell you one thing that struck me, and strikes me more and more each time that I visit the Continent and attend these Conferences. That is the increasing extent to which the Allied peoples are looking to Great Britain. They are trusting to her rugged strength, to her great resources. To them she looks like a great tower in the deep. She is becoming more and more the hope of the oppressed and the despair of the oppressor, and I feel more and more confident that we shall not fail the people who put their trust in us. When that arrogant Prussian caste flung the signature of Britain to a treaty into the waste-paper basket as if it were of no account, they knew not the pride of the land they were treating with such insolent disdain. They know it now. Our soldiers and sailors have taught them to respect it.

You have heard the eloquent account of the Chancellor of the Exchequer of the achievements of our soldiers. Our sailors are gallantly defending the honour of our country on the high seas of the world. They have strangled the enemy's com

merce, and will continue to do so, in spite of all the piratical devices of the foe. In 1914 and 1915, for two years, a small, ill-equipped army held up the veterans of Prussia with the best equipment in Europe. In 1916 they hurled them back, and delivered a blow from which they are reeling. In 1917 the armies of Britain will be more formidable than ever in training, in efficiency, and in equipment, and you may depend upon it that if we give them the necessary support they will cleave a road to victory through all the dangers and perils of the next few months.

A Bombardment of Cheques.

But we must support them. They are worth it. Have you ever talked to a soldier who has come back from the front? There is not one of them who will not tell you how he is encouraged and sustained by hearing the roar of the guns behind him. This is what I want to see: I want to see cheques hurtling through the air, fired from the City of London, from every city, town, village, and hamlet throughout the land, fired straight into the entrenchments of the enemy. Every well-directed cheque, well loaded, properly primed, is a more formidable weapon of destruction than a 12inch shell. It clears the path of the barbed wire entanglements for our gallant fellows to march through. A big loan helps to ensure victory. A big loan will also shorten the war. It will help to save life; it will help to save the British Em