WAR MEMOIRS OF DAVID LLOYD GEORGE 1917

VATICAN AND KUHLMANN PEACE MOVES 275
of a very simple answer — but to restore to Belgium, not the
pretence of liberty, but a complete, an unfettered and an absolute
independence. I should like to know the German Chancellor's
answer to that question — not the answer of the Reichstag.
I ask him now as far as I may. . . .
"Meantime, we should not be helping the advent of peace if
we were to give the impression that there is any halting in our
determination or any doubt of our ability to carry on, if need be,
the burden which we took up with a clear conscience for great
ends, and which we can only in honour lay down when we feel
sure that those ends are going to be achieved."
Mr. Wardle, the Labour Member for Stockport, in his
speech on the same Motion, associated himself "freely"
with what Mr. Asquith had said.
I myself was in France at the time of this debate in the
House of Commons and was therefore unable to take part
in it, but Mr. Bonar Law in replying said:
"Here we had for at least 20 years a great military Power,
controlled ultimately by one man, which hung as a shadow over
the world as a vast thunder cloud which might burst at any
moment. I say we are fighting for peace in the time to come.
If a patched-up peace comes now with that German military
machine still unbroken, still in the hands of the same people who
directed it for the 20 years before the War, have we any security?
I think we have the reverse. Have we any security that the same
danger which has ruined this generation will not ruin our children
when this war is over?"
And in referring to the resolution itself he said:
"There is one curious feature to be noticed in the terms of this
amendment. The honourable gentleman (Mr. Ramsay MacDonald)
gave us a full translation of that resolution, but in the
amendment based on the resolution there was one curious omission.
The resolution contains these words. 'One of the conditions