.] I may, perhaps,
preface what I have to say by the observation that it does not come upon
us as a surprise. [Cheers.] This war began on the part of Germany with
the cynical repudiation [cheers] of a solemn treaty on the avowed
grounds that when a nation's interests required it, right and good faith
must give way to force. ["Hear, hear!"] The war has been carried on,
therefore, with a systematic--not an impulsive or a casual--but a
systematic violation of all the conventions and practices by which
international agreements had sought to mitigate and to regularize the
clash of arms. [Cheers.] She has now, I will not say reached a climax,
for we do not know what may yet be to come, but she has taken a further
step without any precedent in history by mobilizing and organizing not
upon the surface but under the surface of the sea a campaign of piracy
and pillage. [Prolonged cheers.]

Are we--can we--here I address myself to the neutral countries of the
world--are we to or can we sit quiet as though we were still under the
protection of the restraining rules and the humanizing usages of
civilized warfare? [Cheers.] We think we cannot. [Cheers.] The enemy,
borrowing what I may, perhaps, for this purpose call a neutral flag from
the vocabulary of diplomacy, describe these newly adopted measures by a
grotesque and puerile perversion of language as a "blockade."
[Laughter.] What is a blockade? A blockade consists in sealing up the
war ports of a belligerent against sea-borne traffic by encircling their
coasts with an impenetrable ring of ships of war. [Cheers.]

Where are these ships of war? [Cheers.] Where is the German Navy?
[Cheers.] What has become of those gigantic battleships and cruisers on
which so many millions of money have been spent and in which such vast
hopes and ambitions have been invested? I think, if my memory serves
me, they have only twice during the course of these seven months been
seen upon the open sea. Their object in both cases was the same--murder,
[cheers,] civilian outrage, and wholesale destruction of property in
undefended seaside towns, and on each occasion when they caught sight of
the approach of a British force they showed a clean pair of heels, and
they hurried back at the top of their speed to the safe seclusion of
their mine fields and their closely guarded forts.

_Lord R. CECIL_--Not all. [Laughter.]

_Mr. ASQUITH_--No; some had misadventures on the way. ["Hear, hear!" and
laughter.] T