When it was announced that the Rt. Hon. David Lloyd George would visit Canada arrangements were made by the leaders of the Brotherhood Movement to have him address a great gathering of its members in Toronto in October. As his plans would not permit of his delivering more than one additional speech in Toronto, arrangements had to be made through a committee to distribute tickets to the various clubs and associations in proportion to their membership and the seating capacity of Massey Hall. On October 10th he addressed the Brotherhood at 11 o’clock a.m., and at 4 o’clock p.m., the general meeting. As many of the members of the Empire Club were members of the Brotherhood, both of his speeches are reported for the Club Year Book.
At the Brotherhood meeting, Sir Robert Borden in fitting terms introduced the speaker who said
Sir Robert Borden, Ladies and Gentlemen,–I am deeply sorry that owing to climatic accidents I have come here in a crippled condition; and when I visit the city that made the finest contribution to the great European struggle ever made in the Dominion of Canada, I am unable to adequately express the feelings of the British people at the moment. Sir Robert Borden, my old comrade in the War Cabinet (applause) has been very much too kind in the sentiments to which he has given expression. He could not tell you how much of the soundness of the direction of the war was attributable to his calm and undaunted sagacity. The experiment was then tried for the first time, because the men the Dominions sent across from Canada, from Australia, from New Zealand, and from South Africa were men who each and all made a contribution that was invaluable in coming to decisions upon which the fate of the Empire, the fate of humanity and of human freedom depended; and we feel deep gratitude to those who were associated with us throughout the whole of that struggle.
This is a meeting, I understand, in connection with the Brotherhood Movement. I am an old Brotherhood speaker. I see here a friend of mine, Mr. Ward, of the British Brotherhood, who crossed the Atlantic–I hope he had a more pleasant time in crossing than I had (laughter) for the Atlantic gave me quite a mixed reception, nothing like the wonderful reception that the City of Toronto has given me, but rather the opposite. He is associated with and has taken a leading part in the Brotherhood Movement in Great Britain, and he knows perfectly well–no one knows better–what a great part that Movement is playing in educating the young people under the right auspices for the consideration of the great problems of the day. This is an age of problems. It is an age when problems are affecting our lives more than ever. It is an age when men and women are groping in the fog to find their way; and there are dangers on the right, there are perils on the left, and they do not find their way. They want to go forward, but they are not sure of the direction, and they are discussing the problems–labour problems, social problems, moral problems, political problems, religious problems. It is well that you can discuss them under auspices of the most elevating, the most exalting, chastening and purifying character. That is what the Brotherhood supplies in our country. (Applause)
I do not know the strength of the Movement on this side of the Atlantic. I know its strength on the other side, and I hope it will grow and prosper here. There are movements which you hesitate about-not whether they are good, but whether they are worth the effort. This is a Movement I never had the slightest doubt about at all. You may therefore go forward in the spirit of confidence that whatever you do to promote this great movement is a work which will be a great boon to humanity and honouring to God.
One word before I conclude, about a note struck by my friend, Sir Robert Borden, at the start. It was struck in the concluding words of the address which was read in your City Hall by the ex-service men at one of the most remarkable gatherings I have ever been privileged to attend-that Canada only came forward to do her duty in the last war, and that if Canada were called upon again to defend human rights, human freedom throughout the world, she would be as ready tomorrow as she was yesterday. (Loud applause)
I am an old watcher on the tower, and I can see great perils, great anxieties, great perplexities, great disasters,–Ah, I wonder! That depends largely on the British Empire. (Hear, hear) You answered the call, but you have not answered the last call yet in this world. The trumpet shall sound. It is a mistake to imagine that the Archangel’s trumpet lies in rust till the last day. It is brought out now and again, and its clarion sounds ring through the earth. We heard them in 1914, and they who slept in comfort, in sloth, in indifference, in selfishness, heard from the shores of the German Ocean right across the Atlantic and through the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific. It may sound again. When? God knows. The trumpet is not going to rest or rust. When it sounds, when the sound falls on our ears, the men of Canada who love liberty, who love right, who love justice, who love humanity, must stand with the men in England, in Africa, in Australia, in New Zealand, in South Africa, yea, even in India; and it will be one Empire standing for truth, justice, and for God. (Loud applause, continued, the audience rising and cheering)
At the afternoon meeting, Mayor Maguire presided and introduced the Rt. Hon. David Lloyd George, who was received with loud applause, the great audience standing and cheering. He said
Mr. Mayor, Ladies and Gentlemen,–I have first of all to apologize to you that I am suffering from a very bad cold, and I am afraid I will make myself heard with very great difficulty, but I am sure you will extend to me sympathetic indulgence on that account. You have treated me so well since I have come to Toronto that I make an appeal of that kind with every confidence that it will be responded to.
My first appearance in Toronto was twenty-five years ago. In fact, the first Cabinet meeting I ever attended w as in Toronto (laughter) and I remember being invited to attend a Cabinet meeting that was sitting at the time, the first appearance I ever put in at a Cabinet. I have seen a good many since then. (Laughter) Soon after, I believe, that Cabinet was dead, so I had a double lesson; the first was a lesson as to how Cabinets conduct their business, and the second was as to the precariousness of the lives of Cabinets-and I have experienced both a good deal since then. (Laughter)
I have been delivering a good many speeches since I arrived on this side of the Atlantic, and I have devoted most of them to giving the impression created on our side of the Atlantic by the magnificent effort of Canada in the great war. I should like to devote the time which I propose to occupy this afternoon to dwell rather on the effort of the Empire as a whole and I have a special reason for doing that. It is not that you do not appreciate it; it is not that you do not understand it; but there are vast numbers of people, I find, throughout the world who have not the slightest notion of what the British Empire did between 1914 and 1918; and I propose to do my best not merely today, but on future occasions, to enlighten them.
I think it was Carlyle who said of the English people that they could do great things, but could not describe them. Whether that is true or not, it is undoubtedly a fact that the British as a whole have not the gift which other races undoubtedly possess of making it clear how great their achievements are. It is a great error, it is a weakness of character which I hope they will not take the slightest trouble to cure. (Laughter)
What did the British Empire do? Statistics are vain things, but there they are. With very little imagination you can see a good deal in statistics. I remember that three or four years before the war there was trouble on the Continent of Europe. Germany had seized a part of Morocco, and war seemed to impend, and I remember meetings of the Committee on Imperial Defence,–I was then Chancellor of the Exchequer-and Sir Henry Wilson, who afterwards became Field Marshal, and whose tragic death you no doubt know of, came there to explain what was the part of the British Army if there were a great irruption through Belgium into France with the view of destroying the liberties of those two countries. The utmost effort the French expected of us, the utmost effort the French asked of us-for, recollect, Sir Henry Wilson had come straight from the French General Staff where he had been making arrangements for the assistance which Great Britain was to give-the utmost effort they ever expected of us was six divisions. Well, I am not a military man myself, but, roughly speaking, I suppose six divisions would be under 120,000 men. Canada alone sent three times as many men as that when the hour came. (Applause) Great Britain raised for land, for sea and the air, Great Britain alone, 6,000; 000 men. (Loud applause) The last two years of the war the biggest fighting in France was done by the armies of the British Empire. The greatest share of the fighting, the heaviest burden of the struggle, and the heaviest casualties during the last two years of the war on the soil of France are on the records and the casualty lists of the British Empire. (Loud applause)
That is statistically what had been done; but that is not all. The British Empire lost 900,000 lives. The total casualties of the British Army were 3,000,000. We spent £10,000,000,000 Sterling. Now, what is that in dollars, the dollars fluctuate so much that I never like to quote these things; and I am very glad I have not to reckon it in Marks (great laughter); you would need a mathematical prodigy to do that. I think that amounts to–what? I think it is $50,000,000,000. It is a long time since I have been at school. Just before I started from England somebody sold me 100,000 marks and I have been reflecting ever since that I have been cheated, because they are only worth a hapenny. (Laughter)
Now, that is the effort of the British Empire–6,000,000 men from Great Britain; one-in-seven of our population. Don’t overlook the cubs. The Dominions sent 1,000,000–Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Africa. We were told India was in revolt; that so far from getting help from India we were to pour troops into India to keep her down; but as soon as war was declared every Indian Prince rallied to the Flag of the Empire (applause) and India sent 1,200,000 men to the Flag to help us. (Applause) Every little colony sent its contingent. Englishmen got in, Welshmen and Irishmen-some Irishmen rallied from the uttermost ends of the earth when they heard the sound of the trumpet and heard that the old Motherland was in danger. There was not a country under the sun where we did not have appeals from men, as to how they were to come home to join the Flag–6,000,000 from Britain, 1,000,000 from the Dominions, 1,200,000 from India; the British Empire put over 8,000,000 of real men into the battle line when the fight came; and there are people who think that the British Empire did nothing in the war. (Cheers) Casualties, terrible losses, ghastly; was it worth the price? Is there any man here can answer another question-What is the price of liberty! Then I can answer the first.
That was the effort that was put forth, but that is not all. I am talking mostly of the effort on land; but the British Navy held the Seas. (Cheers) What would have happened if the British Fleet had stayed at home, for a year, for half a year, ah, for six weeks; what would have happened if the British Empire had kept her fleet in the harbour? I will tell you. France would have been completely isolated. Her own African Army, which was a very gallant one -and fought very well, could never have landed on r the shores of France to aid that country. The part of France that produced food was cut off, devastated, the grain-producing provinces of France, and France had to depend for food from across the sea. Not a shipload could ever have reached her people, even if she had not collapsed within the first few weeks, because there was not British aid, no aid from her own African Army, and she would have been starved in a year or two if it had not been for the British Fleet. (Applause)
In the second half year of the war Italy came in with 2,000,000 or 3,000,000 men, brave men. The way they fought with very wretched equipment shows that they still inherited the traditions of valour that made Italy the centre of Empire for 800 years. But Italy could not have come in had it not been for the British Fleet: The German fleet was the second in the world, and the German fleet and the Austrian fleet together would have had Italy at their mercy. Russia would have been completely isolated. Russia collapsed, as you know, because she could not get an adequate supply of munitions of war. We could not get through the Black Sea because of the treachery of the Turks in slamming the gates of the Dardanelles in our faces. There were only two ways by which anything could get in, that was by Archangel and Murmansk, and Vladivostock on the East. Russia was kept alive by injections through Vladivostock and Archangel. But for the British Fleet not a single boatload would ever have reached the Russians. It was the British Fleet that made it possible for the Allies to keep up the fight at all. (Loud applause) I do wish, I do yearn, for one word of appreciation of that fact in lands which today would have been vassal States but for the British Fleet. (Loud applause)
The contribution made by the British Empire was a gigantic one. It surpassed anything that the most sanguine believer in Empire would have thought possible before the war; and the world had better know that what the British Empire could do once she can do again, and she will do it if freedom is imperilled. (Tremendous applause)
I have in another place been saying something about the contribution of Canada, and I do not want to enlarge any further upon it. The fine army which you sent across, the fine records which it won, how it took a leading part in the four if not five of the decisive battles of the war-the second battle of Ypres, the capture of Vimy Ridge, the breaking of the German line on the 8th of August, 1918, the breaking through of the great Hindenburg fortress that had defied allied efforts for two or three years, and the turning of the flank of the great German army at Cambrai, and rolling it back, helter skelter, towards the Rhine-those are great and undying achievements which you can put into the bank of Canada and draw upon. These things are part of the credit of Canada. Don’t you imagine that only the man who was born with a silver spoon in his mouth is the man whom his parents leave cash to. The man who has got a golden spoon in his mouth is the man who belongs to a nation that has demonstrated its manhood by great deeds. (Loud applause)
It is part of the credit of the race; it is part of the character of the race, thank God, and henceforth you can dwell with pride on it; you can draw with confidence upon that cash in the Bank of Nations which you own and your young men made between 1914 and 1918. And they fought their way through to Nationhood for you.
The things you fight for in life are not the biggest things you win by fighting. You fight for something which is true, which is right, which is just, which is upright, and you gain something which is bigger than the thing that you were fighting for. (Applause) You went forth for the liberty of a smaller nation across the Atlantic because you were free yourselves, but in fighting for the independence of another nation you established your own nationhood for ever on the register of the nations of the earth. (Loud applause)
I was just referring casually at another meeting, which I think was held here this morning–for this is the second appearance I have put in in Massey Hall–and may I say as an old speaker that I congratulate you on this Hall. There are many halls which look very nice, but I would advise every speaker to shun them; but this is an admirable hall to speak in, and I have no doubt it will be found a very good one to sing in too, but I would rather take the authority of Dame Clara Butt upon that. (She was present and seated on the platform).
I said this morning how you received your certificate of Nationhood. It was a great sight. I see my friend Sir Robert Borden here. (Loud applause) We went through very trying times together–and he is a good man to go tiger-hunting with and even to hunt daschunds (laughter) and I recall at the end of the war, when we were framing the Treaty of Peace, there was a great gathering in a historical gallery, the Palais de Glace at Versailles, the great gallery where the German Empire was founded by Bismarck–a great figure, great towering figure, and a man who would have built permanently had it not been that he had forgotten that right is the only foundation, sure foundation, enduring foundation of a great empire. (Applause)
In that particular Hall you had a gathering of all the greatest nations of earth through their representatives. There was only one nation that was absent, and that was poor Russia, which had not recovered from a very bad fever, and she was in the very throes of it at that time. But all the other great nations of the earth were there, friend and foe, and we all marched up as the official representatives of our nations, to sign the scroll which founded the League of Nations, which contained the principles upon which the construction of Europe may depend for generations. The President of the United States was called by the President of the Conference, and he marched up to the table and signed on behalf of that great democracy. France signed through M. Clemenceau, Italy marched up to the table, and also signed as a great nation. Great Britain was called up, and she signed. Who came next? Canada, (loud applause) Ah, I forgot; Germany had signed. Before we signed that document we thought we would like to see the other signature on it first. (Laughter) Germany, Italy, France, Great Britain; there were others-Rumania, Poland, Czecho-Slovakia, and others. Poland had just risen from the dead, and only just cast off her grave clothes. Further there were many nations, and in that gathering of nations Canada signed as an equal-not as a partner, but as an equal with other great nations of the earth; and Sir Robert Borden walked off with a certificate of Nationhood signed by all the great nations of earth. (Loud applause)
Yes, of Nationhood; not concession, but an acknowledgment of Nationhood, won by the gallantry of your sons; yes, and by the agony of mothers. Too often we just stop short at the full sacrifice of war, at the greatest sacrifice of war, that is, the great sacrifice of those who were at home waiting for either the glad or the sad news; and what the mothers of the British Empire may have suffered, only the Recording Angel can tell when he opens out the books in the Great Day. Then men and women of Empire in Canada won by their gallantry by their sacrifice, by their suffering; they won a certificate of Nationhood that can never be wrenched from your hands forever. (Loud applause) You got the full status, the full panoply, the full responsibility of Nationhood. You are a Nation in a League of Nations-the one effective League of Nations in the world, the British Empire. (Loud applause) The other League of Nations will succeed when it accomplishes what the British League of Nations has already achieved; and you got your position by your own efforts.
Now, I am sorry I am detaining you, and I am not sure that you are hearing me at all. The task of the British Empire is not over. It has to keep watch, to keep ward. Are wars done with? I wish to God I could say yes. I wish I could, but you cannot tell. I had hoped that the end of this war would have taught nations the futility as well as the wickedness of force. Force has no conscience, and you cannot win permanent right in the end from it. Is the world tired of force? I wish it were. I see nations in Europe arming, filling their arsenals with the weapons that devastated Europe four years ago. They signed the Covenant of the League of Nations, but they are arming. When you see a man who has had a spree, who happened to get drunk-of course you must go to other Provinces to see that-but if you see a man who has taken too much to drink, has fallen downstairs, broken his skull, fractured his arm, bruised himself all over, and you go to him and say, "Here, my good man, you must sign the pledge." You would expect him to say, "Bring me the pen," if he could hold it at all, but if he could just put a mark, he would mean it. But if you saw that man with the sticking plaster beginning to come off, the bruises beginning to heal, and if you heard that he was beginning to fill his cellar with the choicest of wines and with the strongest whiskies, you would say, "That man means to have another burst soon." (Laughter)
I don’t quite like the look of Europe four years after the spree. When she limped along into the Palais de Glace, hobbling on her crutches, she was willing to sign any covenant. She signed a solemn pledge that she would have no more war. But now she is mended, and she is filling her cellars with the deadliest and most destructive explosives, and I am afraid that unless something intervenes there may be in the world again a catastrophe-not like the last-no, not like the last. The last was terrible; the last was full of horror; the last devastated and disrupted, but it was nothing to what will happen if there is another war. Human ingenuity is expending the whole of its diabolical power in inventing and perfecting and developing the machinery of destruction. The next war might well destroy civilization unless something or somebody intervenes. That is why I want to see the British, Empire strong and mighty, so that when her arms go up and when she cries "Halt!" these deadly weapons of war will fall down. (Loud applause)
But they say, "What business is that of ours? Let us look after our own fields and cultivate our own estates, and look after our own counting houses; let us make money; let us prosper; listen to Britain? What have I to do with that?" It is a dangerous thing for a country or an Empire to close its ears to a call. Destiny writes if off–writes it off. It says, "There is a Nation that failed; there is a Nation that we depended upon, and it broke like a reed. What is the liberty of Belgium to us? What is the independence of France to us? What is the peace of Europe to us? Am I my brother’s keeper?" Ah, don’t send the British Empire to the world with that brand on her brow. See that the British Empire is an Empire that will carry out its destiny. You have here shown, at one of the greatest moments of your history, that you are capable of hearing the Divine call of justice ringing down, and that you are prepared to answer it. Sixty thousand of your young men went, and went with your heart with them to the war. Whatever the history of Canada may be–and it will be a great one–believe me that your children and your children’s children will read the story of what you did in August, 1914, when you declined to take the attitude of Cain, and helped Brotherhood throughout the world at freedom’s call. Regard it as the most precious inheritance in a land of vast treasure. (Loud applause)
The proceedings closed with the National Anthem led by Dame Clara Butt, in which the audience heartily joined.
