The United States and Great Britain

The United States and Great Britain A Speech Delivered in the Senate Chamber of the United States By the Right Hon. Arthur James Balfour, British Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs The distinguished speaker was introduced by the Vice Pres- ident, who said: Senators, for more than a century and a quarter the one great reason for the existence of this body has been to preserve the equality of all men before the law. A few days since we had the pleasure of greeting the rep- resentatives of that people whose shibboleth is "fraternity." Today we honor, and in turn are ourselves honored, by receiving the representatives of that people whose forbears cnturies ago, in an age of almost universal absolutism, compelled their King, anointed though he was with the holy oil of consecration, to give to them the Great Charter of human liberty. It were mere prophecy to say that without that Great Charter the Republic either of France or of America would be or have a hope of being. May I express the hope that at the end of this most horrible warfare, when the representatives of liberty, fraternity, and equality shall take their seats at the council table of the nations, they will not arise therefrom until they shall, so far as human ingenuity can do so, guarantee to every people the right to be free from the fear of assault from without or oppression from within [applause] until they shall write this legend in the firmament, above the sun rising for a newer and, if not a better, at least a safer, civilization, "I shine only for the wise; they are not wise who are not just"? In the words of one woman lawyer, for whom I have profound respect, the wise Portia, to Antonio, Bassanio's best friend: "Sir, you are very welcome to our house; It must appear in other ways than words, Therefore I scant this breathing courtesy." I have the honor and the great pleasure of presenting to you the fore- most champion of Magna Charta, the Right Hon. Arthur James Balfour, British secretary of state for foreign affairs. [Applause.] Address of Right Hon. Arthur James Balfour Mr. President and gentlemen of the Senate: You, Mr. President, have in graceful and pregnant sentences brought to our recollection the common origin of those liberties which, whether in France, in Britain, or in the United States of Amer- ict, we all rejoice in and are all determined to defend. [Ap- plause.] You have also in warm words of welcome spoken kindly of the mission of which I have the honor to be the head and to which you are now paying the rare, the very rare, honor of welcoming within your walls. Gentlemen, on their behalf not less than on my own I most sincerely thank you for your

THE UNITED STATES AND GREAT BRITAIN 787 welcome. I know well that it is not a welcome to individuals. The kindness which each one of us as individuals has received since we came to this great city will never be forgotten by any one of us. It has been kindness, abundant, overflowing, gener- ous, unlimited; but, gentlemen, behind that kindness paid by individuals to individuals, behind the expression of a hos- pitable and generous feeling to guests within your gates, there is, after all, something much deeper, something much more im- portant, something which is, after all, the animating spirit which brings this great assembly here today. The original object of our mission, if I may so express it, was mainly a purely business one. We came here to discuss matters of the deepest moment for the conduct of that great war in which both our nations are involved. We came here to explain to your leaders and statesmen what were the needs from which the allies mainly suffered, and to lay freely at the disposal of those responsible for the conduct of your affairs the results of our own experience, the consequences, perhaps I ought to say, in some cases of our own errors and blunders during two years and a half of strenuous and sanguinary fighting. That was the original object; that was the business side of our mis- sion. But the reception which you have given us here, the treatment which we have received from the President, from the Cabinet, from the House of Representatives, from the Senate — that treatment raises the whole level of our mission from a purely business operation to a great incident in the common life of two great and free peoples. Gentlemen, I do not think the importance of that is easy to overrate. I believe that the consequences will not be meas- ured by any mere record of the transactions that may take place between our various Governments, nor will the effects of it vanish when we ourselves, in consequence of the calls of duty elsewhere, leave your hospitable city. No, gentlemen, this mis- sion and the French mission which is associated with it, mark a new epoch in the relations of our three countries, and I believe that in the alliance thus cemented lie secure some of the great- t st hopes, some of the proudest expectations, which we dare to entertain about the future of civilization. [Applause.] Gentlemen, it is not, however, your kindness of heart alone which has given this significance to contemporary events. That significance is forced upon our notice whether we be citizens of America or citizens of France or citizens of Britain; but I speak especially at this moment of citizens of America and citizens of Britain. It is forced upon ovir notice by the unwearied efforts of aa unconscionable German propaganda. Whether we live on the other side of the Atlantic or on this side of th? Atlantic, we English-speaking peoples have never organized ourselves for

788 IMPROVEMENT ERA military purposes; we have never been military States; and, when the war broke out, undoubtedly the Germans looked around the world, estimated the value (from their point of view) of the nations with whom they might be concerned, and, profoundly contemptuous of our views of civilization, whether they were British or American views, they decided that neither Britain nor America counted in the struggle by which they hoped to obtain the domination of the world. They found us unprepared; they found us unmilitary; and because we were unprepared and because we were unmilitary, they jumped rashly to the conclusion, firstly, that we were afraid to fight, and, secondly, that if we fought we would be wholly negligible quantities. I think they are beginning, possibly, to find out their mistake. [Great applause.] How, gentlemen, did that mistake ever arise? It arose from the utter incapacity of the German ruling class — and it is only of the German ruling class that I speak today — to estimate value except in terms of drilled men and military preparation. They saw that England and America were prosperous, were un- varlike, were immersed in the arts of peace and involved in the industrial interests incident to a peaceful civilization, and they drew from that two conclusions: They drew from it, in the first place, the conclusion that because we were commercial we were therefore material; that we were incapable of high ideals or great sacrifices; and the further conclusion that even if we determined late in the day to pursue those high ideals and to make those great sacrifices we should be so utterly incompetent in the arts to which they had devoted so much of their attention that our interference in the war would be a thing which they could leave wholly on one side. On that miscalculation have been wrecked, and will be wrecked, all their hopes. [Ap- plause.] It was their fatal blunder, a blunder from which they will never recover, but a blunder which has saved civilization. Gentlemen, I speak with confidence about the issue of this great struggle, a confidence which is redoubled since you have thrown in your lot with those who have been fighting since 1914. [Great applause.] I see, indeed, suggestions that Germany, in- capable of winning by arms, is going to win through the ille- gitimate weapon of submarine warfare. I believe it not. I do not at all minimize, I do not wish to minimize, the gravity of the submarine menace. After all, in the two years and a half during which the war has been going on, more than one dif- ficulty of like magnitude has met us and more than one dif- ficulty of like magnitude has been overcome. The question of munitions is a case in point. I do not wish to detain you on such an occasion with details, but at the be- ginning of the war it became evident that Germany had rec-

THE UNITED STATES AND GREAT BRITAIN 78V ognized the importance of the munitions question, had been preparing for this war through years of peace by having at her disposal a supply of ammunition greater than all the rest of the world put together, and at one time it almost looked as if the cause of civilization and liberty were to be crushed under the multitude of shells and the weight of artillery. We have sur- mounted that difficulty. It was a very great one. I do not deny that the submarine difficulty is a very great one. I do not deny that it will require every effort made, either in Britain or here, successfully to overcome it; but that those efforts will be made, that this menace will be overcome, that the United States of America, like Great Britain and her dominions, will throw themselves into the task with ungrudging efforts, and that those efforts will be crowned with success, I do not doubt for a moment. [Great applause.] This war is not going to be settled by the sinking of helpless neutrals or by sending women and children to the bottom by torpedos or gunfire. It is to be settled by hard fighting; and when it comes to hard fighting, neither America nor Britain nor France need fear measuring themselves at any moment against those who have risen up against all that we hold dear for the future. I therefore, gentlemen, look forward — not, of course, in a spirit of light and easy and unthinking confidence, but with firm faith — to the future of this war. It requires every man and woman on this side of the Atlantic as on the other side of the Atlantic, to throw their united efforts into the scale of right. That effort unquestionably will be made, is being made, will be made yet further, and, being made, I doubt not that it will be crowned with success, and that posterity will look back upon the union of these peoples, symbolized by such meetings as that which I am now addressing, as marking a new epoch in the history of the world; an epoch in which all the civilized nations roused themselves in unity to deal with one of their number which has forgotten its responsibilities, forgotten its duties, and which, in unscrupulous lust for universal domination, has brought the greatest of known calamities upon the world. Gentlemen, I have detained you too long, but I was led ctway by my subject. On my own behalf and on behalf of my friends around me, I beg to thank you for the unique honor which you have paid to us, and, through us, to our country, to our cause, which is your cause, and to the future of civiliza- tion, which is yours as much as ours. — The Congressional Rec- ord, May 8, 1917.