“In days to come yesterday’s sitting of the House of Commons will be remembered. Not for the unprecedented magnitude of the Votes of Credit – though these were truly colossal [coming in a £2 million a day] – but for the further revelation of the Prime Minister as a strong war minister, for the scathing eloquence with which he denounced the crimes of Germany against the law of nations in the conduct of “her systematic campaign of piracy and pillage,” and for the firmness and grimness with which he announced Great Britain’s policy of reprisals. It was not a mere sitting of the House of Commons; it was a great historic occasion.”