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REMARKS OF RIGHT HON. A. J. BALFOUR

have been modeled either upon your practice or upon ours, or upon both combined.

Mr. Speaker, the compliment paid to the mission from Great Britain by such an assembly and upon such an occasion is one not one of us is ever likely to forget, but there is something, after all, even deeper and more significant in the circumstances under which I now have the honor to address you, than any which arise out of the interchange of courtesies, however sincere, between two great and friendly nations. We all, I think, feel instinctively that this is one of the great moments in the history of the world and that what is now happening on both sides of the Atlantic represents the drawing together of great and free peoples for mutual protection against the aggression of military despotism. [Prolonged applause and cheers.]

I am not one of those and none of you are among those who are such bad democrats as to say that democracies make no mistakes. All free assemblies have made blunders; sometimes they have committed crimes. Why is it, then, that we look forward to the spread of free institutions throughout the world, and especially among our present enemies, as one of the greatest guaranties of the future peace of the world? I will tell you, gentlemen, how it seems to me. It is quite true that the people and the representatives of the people may be betrayed by some momentary gust of passion into a policy which they ultimately deplore, but it is only a military despotism of the German type which can, through generations if need be, pursue steadily, remorselessly, unscrupulously, the appalling object of dominating the civilization of mankind. [Applause.] And mark you, this evil, this menace under which we are now suffering, is not one which diminishes with the growth of knowledge and the progress of material civilization, but on the contrary it increases with

REMARKS OF RIGHT HON. A. J. BALFOUR 323

them. When I was young we used to flatter ourselves that progress inevitably meant peace, and that growth of knowledge was always accompanied, as its natural fruit, by the growth of good will among the nations of the earth. Unhappily we know better now, and we know there is such a thing in the world as a power which can with unvarying persistency focus all the resources of knowledge and of civilization into the one great task of making itself the moral and material master of the world. It is against that danger that we, the free peoples of western civilization, have banded ourselves together. [Applause.] It is in that great cause that we are going to fight and are now fighting this very moment side, by side. [Applause.] In that cause we shall surely conquer [applause], and our children will look back to this fateful date as the one day from which democracies can feel secure that their progress, their civilization, their rivalry, if need be, will be conducted, not on German lines, but in that friendly and Christian spirit which really befits the age in which we live.

Mr. Speaker, ladies, and gentlemen, I beg most sincerely to repeat again how heartily I thank you for the cordial welcome which you have given us to-day, and to repeat my profound sense of the significance of this unique meeting. [Great applause.]

The members of the English commission took their places at the right of the Speaker's rostrum and the Members of the House were presented to them, the President of the United States accompanying the Members.

The distinguished visitors were then escorted from the Hall of the House,

Autographs of Members

of the

House of Representatives.