"'Or, I beg your pardon, ginger beer or cyder, we should not greatly mind to whom the lower course belonged. But, sir, it is a well-known and a most patriotic fact that the Thames river contains nothing else than water. Water, sir, is the panacea of this nation!'
"(Violent applause from two-thirds of the House.)
"'Yes, the panacea, the salvation, the resurrection, and the rehabilitation of this country.'
"(Cries: 'Righteousness!--Righteousness!')
"'We cannot get enough of it. Water in our throats--in our papers, books, and speeches. Water in our dramas, novels, drugs; water, water--three kingdoms for water!'
"(Wild and frantic applause of the whole House.)
"'Now, sir, I maintain all this does not hold good with our friends the Germans. They do drink wine and beer and schnapps. They cannot be without them. Their Rhine gives them wine in plenty in that part of its course which belongs to them. What does it, what can it matter to them to whom the lower part of the Rhine, full of mere water, does or does not belong?'
"'The Germans are a practical nation. Does any person; I say more than that, _can_ any person say that the Germans will wage a great war in order to possess themselves of water, when all that time they already have excellent wine? I could understand, sir, that if the Germans occupied the watery mouth of the Rhine only, and not its middle and upper course full of noble wine----'
"(Several voices: 'Order! Order! Retract noble.')
"'Well, well, the House will allow me to say "noble" wine, inasmuch as wine has not only four or fourteen quarters, but innumerable ones.'
"(Opposition cries: 'Excellent! deucedly clever!')
"'To return to my argument: I could understand that the Germans, if they had only the lower course of the Rhine, would forthwith wage war to acquire the middle and upper course of the river. We learn from Tacitus that they are a very thirsty nation, and this authentic news is, as readers of more modern authors tell me, not given the lie by the contemporary Germans either. But under the existing circumstances the Rhine--or Hock--argument, meant to prove German hostility, falls into the water near the Dutch border, wherever that may be.
"'There is finally, sir, another so-called argument _re_ Holland and Germany. It is stated that the Germans covet Holland on account of the Dutch colonies in Asia and South America. These colonies, as everybody knows, are exiguous.'