Politicians From England

"In modern industry there is very little that the individual can do by his unaided efforts."

"What we possess has its intrinsic value, but how we came to possess it is also an important question."

"The Liberal does not meet opinions which he conceives to be false with toleration, as though they did not matter. He meets them with justice, and exacts for them a fair hearing as though they mattered just as much as his own."

"The foundation of liberty is the idea of growth."

"Compulsion may be necessary for the purposes of external order, but it adds nothing to the inward life that is the true being of a man."

"He is a citizen of the world in that he represents his nation, which is a member of the community of the world."

"There is no line drawn beyond which human obligations cease. There is no gulf across which the voice of human suffering cannot be heard, beyond which massacre and torture cease to be execrable. Simply as a patriot, again, a man should recognize that a nation may become great not merely by painting the map red, or extending her commerce beyond all precedent, but also as the champion of justice, the succourer of the oppressed, the established home of freedom."

"To move towards harmony is the persistent impulse of the rational being, even if the goal lies always beyond the reach of accomplished effort."

"If the child was helpless, was the grown up person, man or woman, in a much better position?"

"The more a class is brought low, the greater its difficulty in rising again without assistance. For purposes of legislation the State has been exceedingly slow to accept this view."

"Government must keep the ring, and leave it for individuals to play the game."

"Does scope for individual development, for example, consort with idea of equality?"

"True consent is free consent, and full freedom of consent implies equality on the part of both parties to bargain."

"The fancied clearness of Utopian vision is illusory, because its objects are artificial ideas and not living facts."

"At all times men have lived in societies, and ties of kinship and of simple neighbourhood underlie every form of social organization."

"Thirteen months ago, Mr. , who had surprised the world by joining Mr. 's , surprised it still further by coming forward with a proposal which would have rendered the work of the Tariff Commission superfluous. The object of the Commission was to draw up a scientific tariff, the essence of which was to be a nicely graduated scale of import duties adapted to the needs of British industry, as conceived by Mr. Chamberlain and his followers. Such a scheme, whatever its merits or demerits, must necessarily be complex in the last degree."

"Excess of liberty contradicts itself. In short, there is no such thing; there is only liberty for one and restraint for another. If liberty then be regarded as a social ideal, the problem of establishing liberty must be a problem of organizing restraints; and thus the conception of a liberty which is to set an entire people free from its government appears to be a self-contradictory ideal."

"The modern state is the distinctive product of a unique civilization. But it is a product which is still in the making, and a part of the process is a struggle between old and new principles of social order."

"Both logically and historically the first point of attack is arbitrary government, and the first liberty to be secured is the right to be dealt with in accordance with law. A man who has no legal rights against another, but stands entirely at his disposal, to be treated according to his caprice, is a slave to that other."

"If there is one law for the Government and another for it's subjects, one for noble and another for commoner, one for rich and another for poor, the law does not guarantee liberty for all."

"The first condition of universal freedom, that is to say, is a measure of universal restraint. Without such restraint some men may be free but others will be unfree."

"The more the individual receives free scope for the play of his faculties, the more rapidly will society as a whole advance."

"Great changes are not caused by ideas alone; but they are not effected without ideas."

"To be effective men must act together, and to act together they must have a common understanding and a common object."

"Kennedy reminds me of Lindbergh and I suspect him of wishing to have a tough foreign policy and to worry about prestige. On the other hand, he is on the left, will be nicer to Negroes than to Big Business and has promised to appoint Adlai Stevenson as secretary of state. So it works out 50/50 by me."

"Clemenceau, Lloyd George and President Wilson.... It is appalling that these ignorant and irresponsible men should be cutting Asia Minor to bits as if they were dividing a cake...."

"Nye Bevan dies at 4.15 in the afternoon. I regret the loss of this splendid coloured figure and a great parliamentarian and patriot. When I was once being scolded for being malicious in my descriptions of people, Nye protested, "Harold is not malicious at all, He is the angel of pity"."

"For seventeen years, he did nothing at all but kill animals and stick in stamps."

"The Dell, (Bodnant Garden) is the most extensive, most varied and most tasteful piece of planting I have ever seen. I have no doubt at all that this is the richest garden I have ever seen. Knowledge and taste are combined with enormous expenditure to render it one of the wonders of the world."

"Dr Johnson is the only conversationalist who triumphs over time."

"To be a good diarist, one must have a little snouty, sneaky mind."

"Above all, his knowledge and interest were not limited by politics. There was no province of human skill or intelligence which he did not regard with an eager curiosity. He was deeply read in many literatures. He had studied the poets and historians of Greece and Rome with an acute understanding. He could illustrate the events of his own day by the experience of Thucydides. He scorned translations, and read Herodotus, for example, in the original, with great profit to himself. And he could discourse with a ready eloquence of what he knew. None of those who frequented Holland House shone in conversation with a radiance equal to Melbourne's."

"His contempt of fuss persuaded him to wear a cloak of carelessness. He refused to detect a gravity in trivial things. He persistently esteemed politics at their proper value. It was not his habit to pretend that an Act of Parliament would bring into being a new heaven and a new earth. This habit irritated his more pompous colleagues, and being known to the world brought him into an unmerited discredit. Men lacking in humour were busy with reproach against a philosophic temper which they could not understand."

"The truth is, he hated humbug and hypocrisy wherever he found them, and his sense of picturesqueness persuaded him very often to overstate his case. But this over-statement was but another expression of his virtue and honesty; and though England has known some greater Ministers than Melbourne, she has put her trust in few innately wiser or more simply devoted to her interests."

"Melbourne's career was made possible only by his temperament. He possessed that acute intelligence which sees the good and bad on either side, and which naturally inclines to moderation. The great master of men, the leader of forlorn hopes, cannot succeed without a grain of stupidity. He cannot reach the pinnacle of courage or conviction if he understands the reason of his adversary's action as well as of his own. Melbourne's strength was his weakness also. He knew so much that he was too often reduced to a condition of stable equilibrium."

"The reasons Melbourne lasted so long in the upper echelons of government was that although by birth, breeding and conviction he was an archetypal Whig, he made such consistently Tory noises that he retained the confidence of Parliament and country far longer than any genuine radical could have done."

"Viscount Melbourne declared himself quite satisfied with the Church as it is; but if the public had any desire to alter it, they might do as they pleased. He might have said the same thing of the Monarchy, or of any other of our institutions; and there is in the declaration a permissiveness and good humour which in public men has seldom been exceeded. Carelessness, however, is but a poor imitation of genius, and the formation of a wise and well-reflected plan of Reform conduces more to the lasting fame of a Minister than that affected contempt of duty which every man sees to be mere vanity, and a vanity of no very high description. But if the truth must be told, our Viscount is somewhat of an impostor. Every thing about him seems to betoken careless desolation: any one would suppose from his manner that he was playing at chuck-farthing with human happiness; that he was always on the heel of pastime; that he would giggle away the Great Charter, and decide by the method of tee-totum whether my Lords the Bishops should or should not retain their seats in the House of Lords. All this is the mere vanity of surprising, and making us believe that he can play with kingdoms as other men can with nine-pins. Instead of this lofty nebulo, this miracle of moral and intellectual felicities, he is nothing more than a sensible honest man, who means to do his duty to the Sovereign and to the Country: instead of being the ignorant man he pretends to be, before he meets the deputation of Tallow-Chandlers in the morning, he sits up half the night talking with Thomas Young about melting and skimming, and then, though he has acquired knowledge enough to work off a whole vat of prime Leicester tallow, he pretends next morning not to know the difference between a dip and a mould. In the same way, when he has been employed in reading Acts of Parliament, he would persuade you that he has been reading Cleghorn on the Beatitudes, or Pickler on the Nine Difficult Points. Neither can I allow to this Minister (however he may be irritated by the denial) the extreme merit of indifference to the consequences of his measures. I believe him to be conscientiously alive to the good or evil that he is doing, and that his caution has more than once arrested the gigantic projects of the Lycurgus of the Lower House. I am sorry to hurt any man's feelings, and to brush away the magnificent fabric of levity and gaiety he has reared; but I accuse our Minister of honesty and diligence; I deny that he is careless or rash: he is nothing more than a man of good understanding, and good principle, disguised in the eternal and somewhat wearisome affectation of a political Roué."

"The Queen don't like his [Robert Peel] manner after—oh! how different, how dreadfully different, to that frank, open, natural and most kind, warm manner of Lord Melbourne."

"He [the Duke of Wellington] said that he was quite sure that the Queen would find Lord Melbourne an honourable man, and one in whom Her Majesty might put confidence; that he was a man apt to treat matters too lightly, or, as he expressed it, apoco curante, but in the main an honest and an honourable man."

"Melbourne, to do him justice, is destitute of humbug, does not see things through the medium of his wishes or prejudices, but thinks impartially, and says what he thinks."

"There has been a curious scene with Melbourne at Windsor, which was told me by Jocelyn, who was present. It was at dinner, when Melbourne was sitting next to the Queen. Some allusion was made to passing events and to the expected measure, when Melbourne suddenly broke out, "Ma'am, it is a damned dishonest act." The Queen laughed, and tried to quiet him, but he repeated, "I say again it is a very dishonest act," and then he continued a tirade against abolition of Corn Laws, the people not knowing how to look, and the Queen only laughing. The Court is very strong in favour of Free Trade, and not less in favour of Peel."

"When the King sent for him [Melbourne] he told Young "he thought it a damned bore, and that he was in many minds what he should do—be Minister or no." Young said, "Why, damn it, such a position never was occupied by any Greek or Roman, and, if it only lasts two months, it is well worth while to have been Prime Minister of England." "By God that's true," said Melbourne; "I'll go.""

"Melbourne is a gentleman, liberal and straightforward, with no meanness, and incapable of selfish trickery and intrigue, but he is habitually careless and insouciant, loves ease, and hates contests and squabbles, and though he would never tell a lie, he has probably not that stern and rigid regard for truth which would make him run any risk rather than that of concealing anything or suffering a false impression to be formed or conveyed with respect to any matter he might be concerned in."

"Melbourne swore that Henry VIII was the greatest man who ever lived, and Allen declared if he had not married Anne Boleyn we should have continued Catholics to this day, both of which assertions I ventured to dispute. ... Melbourne loves dashing opinions."

"Yesterday at Holland House; nobody there but Melbourne. We were talking of Reform, and Lord Holland said, "I don't know if we were right about Reform, but this I know, that if we were to propose it at all, we were right in going the lengths we did, and this was Canning's opinion." Melbourne said, "Yes, I know it was, and that was mine, and that was the reason why I was against Reform.""

"Melbourne's excellent scholarship and universal information remarkably display themselves in society, and he delivers himself with an energy which shows how deeply his mind is impressed with literary subjects."

"Grey...asked me if Melbourne could be persuaded to change his office for Privy Seal and let Richmond into the Home office. His motive for wishing it was alleged indolence in Melbourne. I combated the grounds and told him a dislike to meddling legislation and his [Melbourne's] careless nonchalant Manner might give him the character of an indolent man with the inobservant, but those who had business with the office did not find him so. He did uncommonly well there and I strongly deprecated his removal even if he wished it."

"By the bye, there is one thing we haven't agreed upon, which is, what we are to say. Is it to make our corn dearer or cheaper, or to make the price steady? I don't care which: but we had better all be in the same story."

"I wish I were as cocksure of anything as Tom Macaulay is of everything."

"I don't like the middle classes, the higher and lower classes, there's some good in them; but the middle class are all affectation and conceit and pretence and concealment."