DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.49382#0016
9
CHAPTER I.
Sarojini Naidu has described the gifts of India to the British Empire
during the war with Germany—into which Great Britain was, by
force of circumstances, obliged to enter when she was neither
prepared nor willing to wage war. The reasons why Great Britain
found it incumbent upon her to take part in the war and the gigantic
nature of the undertaking were thus explained by the then Prime
Minister of England in the House of Commons when, on 6th August,
1914, he spoke in support of the motion for a vote of credit of
£100,000,000 : “ If I am asked what we are fighting for, I reply in
two sentences. In the first place to fulfil a solemn international
obligation, an obligation which, if it had been entered into between
private persons in the ordinary concerns of life, would have been
regarded as an obligation not only of law but of honour, which no
self-respecting man could possibly have repudiated. 1 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 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 of our cause, but of the obligations which lay
upon us to challenge this great issue, we are entering into the
striv-’-gle. Let us now make sure that all the resources, not only of
this United Kingdom, but of the vase, Empire of which it is the
centre, shall be thrown into the scale, and it is that this object may
be adequately secured, that I am now about to ask this Committee —
to make the very unusual demand upon it—to give to the Government
a Vote of Credit of £100,000,000.”
CHAPTER I.
Sarojini Naidu has described the gifts of India to the British Empire
during the war with Germany—into which Great Britain was, by
force of circumstances, obliged to enter when she was neither
prepared nor willing to wage war. The reasons why Great Britain
found it incumbent upon her to take part in the war and the gigantic
nature of the undertaking were thus explained by the then Prime
Minister of England in the House of Commons when, on 6th August,
1914, he spoke in support of the motion for a vote of credit of
£100,000,000 : “ If I am asked what we are fighting for, I reply in
two sentences. In the first place to fulfil a solemn international
obligation, an obligation which, if it had been entered into between
private persons in the ordinary concerns of life, would have been
regarded as an obligation not only of law but of honour, which no
self-respecting man could possibly have repudiated. 1 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 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 of our cause, but of the obligations which lay
upon us to challenge this great issue, we are entering into the
striv-’-gle. Let us now make sure that all the resources, not only of
this United Kingdom, but of the vase, Empire of which it is the
centre, shall be thrown into the scale, and it is that this object may
be adequately secured, that I am now about to ask this Committee —
to make the very unusual demand upon it—to give to the Government
a Vote of Credit of £100,000,000.”