My own belief is that the policy of the present Opposition would lead to national ruin and consequent distress and suffering such as this country has… - Edward Grey, 1st Viscount Grey of Fallodon

Books are the greatest and the most satisfactory of recreations. I mean the use of books for pleasure. Without books, without having acquired the power of reading for pleasure, none of us can be independent, but if we can read we have a sure defence against boredom in solitude.

What Herr Ballin said was, apparently, that I was indirectly responsible for the war, because I had not pledged this country definitely either to support France and Russia, or not to support them. In the former event, Austria would have given way; in the latter, France and Russia would have given way. This was not true; but what it suggested to me was how far Herr Ballin was from understanding what democratic government meant. The idea that one individual, sitting in a room in the Foreign Office, could pledge a great democracy definitely by his word, in advance, either to take part in a great war or to abstain from taking part in it, is absurd.

The French fleet is now in the Mediterranean, and the northern and western coasts of France are absolutely undefended. The French fleet is being concentrated in the Mediterranean, the situation is very different from what it used to be, because the friendship which has grown up between the two countries has given them a sense of security that there was nothing to be feared from us. My own feeling is that if a foreign fleet, engaged in a war which France had not sought, and in which she had not been the aggressor, came down the English Channel and bombarded and battered the undefended coasts of France, we could not stand aside and see this going on practically within sight of our eyes, with our arms folded, looking on dispassionately, doing nothing. I believe that would be the feeling of this country.