"Let me repeat to you my warning against the danger of rumour. I experienced such a good example of it myself this afternoon. I was told by a perfectly reliable and truthful reporter that the Premier of France had said nothing but a miracle could save his country. I could hardly believe that so stalwart a fighter had said anything of the sort, but I am afraid I repeated to several other people what I had been told, and it was not until I came to read the actual account that I found that he had said something quite different.
"His message was one of supreme confidence; he firmly announced his faith that nothing could defeat the united forces of the French Republic and the British Empire, and added that if tomorrow or at some future date any faint-hearted person were to come to him and say that nothing but a miracle could save France, then he would feel confident that that miracle would be performed, because he had faith in the salvation of France.
"I am convinced that these grave events will act, indeed, they have already acted, as a tonic to the nation. I find, wherever I go, a calm spirit of inflexible determination. The House of Commons this afternoon was a very different assembly from what it was before the Whitsun recess. It reminded me of the words of Macaulay: "Then none was for a party, then all were for the State" Our old party differences, which have often been so bitter in the past and may be so in future, had been put aside as playthings for which we had no longer any use.
"We here behind the line must play our part as worthily as those who are keeping watch tonight in the front line or those who may spring to attack at dawn tomorrow. Let them feel and know that behind their steady lines there exists a vast reserve of calm confidence."—Reuter.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.