JOHN BULL: “COME ON, MICHAEL, I’M AWAKE NOW”
Reading edition
Rightly or wrongly, we have in the past devoted our energies and our intelligence, not to preparations for war, but to that social progress which makes for the happiness and contentment of the mass of our people. And this, no doubt, is the reason why other nations imagine that we, as a nation of shopkeepers, are too indolent and apathetic to fight for and maintain these priceless liberties won by the men who laid the foundation of our vast empire.
But they are entirely mistaken in forming any such estimate of the temperament or determination of our people. Great Britain hates war, and no nation enters more reluctantly upon its horrible and devastating operations; but at the same time no nation, when it is driven to war by the machinations of its foes who desire to filch from it or from its co-champions of liberty any portion of their inherited freedom, is more resolved to see the matter through, at whatever cost, to a successful issue.
Sir Edward Carson, British Attorney-General. Statement on first twelve months of war.
