Alike in times of peace and war the annual civic festival
we have observed to-day has been, by long custom, the occasion for a
speech at Guildhall by the Prime Minister upon foreign affairs. This
year our ancient Guildhall lies in ruins. Our foreign affairs are shrunken,
and almost the whole of Europe is prostrate under the Nazi tyranny. The war which Hitler began by invading Poland, and which now
engulfs the European Continent, has broken into the north-east of Africa,
and may well engulf the greater part of Asia-nay, it may soon spread
to the remaining portions of the globe. Nevertheless, in the same spirit
as you, my Lord Mayor, have celebrated your assumption of office with
the time-honoured pageant of Lord Mayor's Day, so I, who have the honour
to be your guest, will endeavour to play, though very briefly-for in
war-time speeches should be short-the traditional part assigned to those
who hold my office.
The condition of Europe is terrible in the last degree. Hitler's firing parties
are busy every day in a dozen countries-Norwegians, Belgians, Frenchmen,
Dutch, Poles, Czechs, Serbs, Croats, Slovenes, Greeks, and above all,
in scale, Russians are being butchered by thousands and by tens of thousands
after they have surrendered, while individual and mass executions in
all the countries I have mentioned have become part of the regular German
routine.
The world has been intensely stirred by the massacre
of the French hostages. The whole of France, with the exception of that
small clique whose public careers depend upon a German victory, has
been united in horror and indignation against this slaughter of perfectly
innocent people. Admiral Darlan's tribute to German generosity falls
unseasonably at this moment on French ears, and his plans for loving
collaboration with the conquerors and murderers of Frenchmen are quite
appreciably embarrassed.
Even the arch-criminal himself, the Nazi ogre Hitler,
has been frightened by the volume and passion of world indignation which
his spectacular atrocity has excited. It is he, and not the French people,
who has been intimidated. He has not dared to go forward with his further
programme of killing hostages.
This, as you will have little doubt, is not due to
mercy, to compassion, to compunction, but to fear and to a dawning consciousness
of personal insecurity rising in a wicked heart. I would say generally
that we must regard all these victims of the Nazi executioners in so
many lands, who are labelled Communists and Jews-we must regard them
just as if they were brave soldiers who died for their country on the
field of battle. Aye, in a way their sacrifice may be more fruitful
than that of the soldier who falls with his arms in his hands. A river
of blood has flowed and is flowing between the German race and the peoples
of nearly all Europe. It is not the hot blood of war, where good blows
are given and returned. It is the cold blood of the execution yard and
the scaffold, which leaves a stain indelible for generations and for
centuries.
Here, then, are the foundations upon which the "new
order" of Europe is to be inaugurated. Here, then, is the house-warming
festival of the Herrenvolk. Here, then, is the system of terrorism by
which the Nazi criminals and their quisling accomplices seek to rule
a dozen ancient, famous cities of Europe, and if possible all the free
nations of the world. In no more effective manner could they have frustrated
the accomplishment of their own designs. The future and its mysteries
are inscrutable, but one thing is plain-never, to those bloodstained,
accursed hands, will the future of Europe be confided.
Since Lord Mayor's Day last year very great changes
have taken place in our situation. We were then the sole champion of
freedom in arms. Then we were ill-armed and far out-numbered even in
the air. Now a large part of the United States Navy, as Colonel Knox
has told us, is constantly in action against the common foe. Now the
valiant resistance of the Russian nation has inflicted most frightful
injuries upon German military power, and at the present moment, the
German invading armies, after all their losses, lie on the barren steppes
exposed to the approaching severities of the Russian winter. Now we
have an Air Force which is at least equal in size and numbers, not to
speak of quality, to the German air power.
Rather more than a year ago I announced to Parliament
that we were sending a Battle Fleet back into the Mediterranean for
the destruction of the German and Italian convoys. The Admiralty brings
us to-day news of the destruction of another Italian destroyer. The
passage of our supplies in many directions through the sea, the broken
morale of the Italian Navy-all these show that we are still masters
there.
To-day I am able to go further. Owing to the effective
help we are getting from the United States in the Atlantic, owing to
the sinking of the Bismarck, owing to the completion of our splendid
new battleships and aircraft carriers of the largest size, as well as
the cowing of the Italian Navy already mentioned, I am able to announce
to you that we now feel ourselves strong enough to provide a powerful
naval force of heavy ships, with its necessary ancillary vessels, for
service if needed in the Indian and Pacific Oceans.
We stretch out the long arm of brotherhood and motherhood
to the Australian and New Zealand people, and to the Indian people,
whose army has already been fighting with so much distinction in the
Mediterranean theatre. This movement of our naval forces, in conjunction
with the United States main Fleet, may give practical proof to all who
have eyes to see that the forces of freedom and democracy have not by
any means reached the limit of their power.
I must admit that, having voted for the Japanese Alliance
nearly 40 years ago-in 1902-and having always done my very best to promote
good relations with the island Empire of Japan, and always having been
a sentimental well-wisher of Japan and an admirer of her many gifts
and qualities, I would view with keen sorrow the opening of a conflict
between Japan and the English-speaking world.
The United States' time-honoured interests in the
Far East are well known. They are doing their utmost to find a way of
preserving peace in the Pacific. We do not know whether their efforts
will be successful, but if they fail, I take this occasion to say-and
it is my duty to say-that should the United States become involved in
war with Japan the British declaration will follow within the hour.
Viewing the vast, sombre scene as dispassionately
as possible, it would seem a very hazardous adventure for the Japanese
people to plunge, quite needlessly, into a world struggle in which they
may well find themselves opposed in the Pacific by States whose populations
comprise nearly three-quarters of the human race.
If steel is a nation's foundation of modern war it
would be rather dangerous for a Power like Japan, whose steel production
is only about 7,000,000 tons a year, to provoke quite gratuitously a
struggle with the United States, whose steel production is now about
90,000,000 tons a year. And I take no account of the powerful contribution
which the British Empire can make in many ways. I hope devoutly that
the peace of the Pacific will be preserved in accordance with the known
wishes of the wisest statesmen of Japan, but every preparation to defend
British interests in the Far East and to defend the common cause now
at stake has been, and is being, made.
Meanwhile, how can we watch without emotion the wonderful
defence of their native soil, and of their freedom and independence,
which has been maintained single-handed for five long years by the Chinese
people under the leadership of that great Asiatic hero and commander,
General Chiang Kai-shek. It would be a disaster of the first magnitude
to world civilization if the noble resistance to invasion and exploitation
which has been made by the whole Chinese race were not to result in
the liberation of their hearths and homes. That, I feel, is a sentiment
which is deep in our hearts.
To return for a moment to the contrast between our
position now and a year ago. I do not need to remind you here in the
City that this time last year we did not know where to turn for a dollar
across the American Exchange. By very severe measures we had been able
to gather together and to spend in America about £500,000,000
sterling. But the end of our financial resources was in sight; nay,
had actually been reached. All we could do at that time-a year ago-was
to place orders in the United States without being able to see our way
through, but on a tide of hope, and not without important encouragement.
Then came the majestic policy of the President and
Congress of the United States in passing the Lease-Lend Bill, under
which, in two successive enactments, about £3,000,000,000 was
dedicated to the cause of world freedom, without-mark this, because
it is unique-without the setting up of any account in money. Never again
let us hear the taunt that money is the ruling power in the hearts and
thoughts of the American democracy. The Lease-Lend Bill must be regarded
without question as the most unsordid act in the whole of recorded history.
We for our part have not been found unworthy of the
increasing aid we are receiving. We have made unparalleled financial
and economic sacrifices ourselves, and now that the Government and people
of the United States have declared their resolve that the aid they are
giving us shall reach the fighting lines, we shall be able to strike
with all our might and main.
Thus we may, without exposing ourselves to any charge
of complacency, without in the slightest degree relaxing the intensity
of our war effort, give thanks to Almighty God for the many wonders
which have been wrought in so brief a space of time, and we may derive
fresh confidence from all that has happened and bend ourselves to our
task with all the force that is in our soul and with every drop of blood
that is in our veins.
We are told from many quarters that we must soon expect
what is called a peace offensive from Berlin. All the usual signs and
symptoms are already manifest, as the Foreign Secretary will confirm,
in neutral countries, and all those signs point in one direction. They
all show that the guilty men who have let Hell loose upon the world
are hoping to escape with their fleeting triumphs and ill-gotten plunder
from the closing net of doom.
We owe it to ourselves, we owe it to our Russian Allies
and to the Government and people of the United States, to make it absolutely
clear that whether we are supported or alone, however long and hard
the toil may be, the British nation and his Majesty's Government at
the head of that nation, in intimate concert with the Governments of
the great Dominions, will never enter into any negotiations with Hitler
or any party in Germany which represents the Nazi regime. In that resolve
we are sure that the ancient City of London will be with us to the hilt
and to the end.