n not only of law but of honour, which no self-respecting man
could possibly have repudiated. I say, secondly, we are fighting to
vindicate the principle,--which in these days when force, material
force, sometimes seems to be the dominant influence and factor in the
development of mankind,--we are fighting to vindicate the principle
that small nationalities are not to be crushed, in defiance of
international good faith, by the arbitrary will of a strong and
overmastering Power. I do not believe any nation ever entered into a
great controversy--and this is one of the greatest history will ever
know--with a clearer conscience and stronger conviction that it is
fighting, not for aggression, not for the maintenance even of its own
selfish interest, but that it is fighting in defence of principles,
the maintenance of which is vital to the civilization of the world.
With a full conviction, not only of the wisdom and justice, but of the
obligations which lay upon us to challenge this great issue, we
are entering into the struggle. Let us now make sure that all the
resources, not only of this United Kingdom, but of the vast Empire of
which it is the centre, shall be thrown into the scale, and it is that
that object, may be adequately secured, that I am now about to ask
this Committee--to make the very unusual demand upon it--to give the
Government a Vote of Credit of L100,000,000. I am not going, and I am
sure the Committee do not wish it, into the technical distinctions
between Votes of Credit and Supplementary Estimates and all the
rarities and refinements which arise in that connexion. There is a
much higher point of view than that. If it were necessary, I could
justify, upon purely technical grounds, the course we propose to
adopt, but I am not going to do so, because I think it would be
foreign to the temper and disposition of the Committee. There is one
thing to which I do call attention, that is, the Title and Heading of
the Bill. As a rule, in the past Votes of this kind have been taken
simply for naval and military operations, but we have thought, it
right to ask the Committee to give us its confidence in the extension
of the traditional area of Votes of Credit so that this money which
we are asking them to allow us to expend may be applied not only
for strictly naval and military operations, but to assist the food
supplies, promote the continuance of trade, industry, business, and
communications,--whether by means of i