Diplomats Of The United Kingdom

"Prison is an expensive way of making bad people worse."

"European security without the United States simply doesn't make sense. We Europeans need to say loud and clear that we welcome US forces in Europe."

"We have learnt that one cannot suppress nationalist feeling or force it into a framework against which it revolts."

"Now we've signed it – we had better read it!"

"Thatcherism is not Tutankhamun's tomb, which you've got to seal up and guard. It has to fructify. It's an investment. Take what has been achieved and go on from there. Thatcherism breaks into different things: privatisation, the extension of individual responsibility, education. But the course is certainly set. I want to keep it, not change it."

"The idea of Active Citizenship is a necessary complement to that of the enterprise culture. Public service may once have been the duty of an elite, but today it is the responsibility of all who have time or money to spare. Modern capitalism has democratised the ownership of property, and we are now witnessing the democratisation of responsible citizenship."

"There is no dread conspiracy against us. There is simply an argument, and no reason why we should be scared or defeatist in that argument. We must continue to fight our corner for British interests. But we can do that without frightening ourselves with ogres."

"I would like you to go to the farmhouse in Marlborough Downs where I was brought up. My father was a tenant farmer farming 500 acres... I was not uncomfortably off. I am not saying that. But there was no question of him sending me to Eton if I had not won a scholarship. That is what social mobility is all about."

"There will be shifts of sovereignty but only in specific areas which I consider debatable. The [European] Community should lead as external trade negotiator... But there must be basic areas of national sovereignty. Peace and war; law and order; foreign policy; fiscal policy. You can cooperate, but these are not matters for Community competence. Our resistance was entirely justified in the case of the Social Charter... I do not believe in the European glacier, that there is something irresistible about European integration."

"Fear of racial assault or harassment still scars the lives of too many men and women, especially in the inner cities... Racial harmony could not be imposed by legislation or by ministerial acts. However, the Government should help foster greater trust and equality of opportunity between people of different ethnic origins through a gradual shift in individual attitudes and behaviour. A Conservative government and a Conservative Party are well placed for that task. A harmonious but not homogenized nation was close to the hearts of both."

"There is a danger that we legislate to feel good, not to do good. Nowhere is this truer than in social legislation. The warm glow comes quickly after passing a piece of law which is designed to raise standards for those in jobs; the chill of lost jobs because of lost competitiveness is felt more slowly... We should make our labour markets more flexible and job-friendly, and secure greater skill levels and cost control. That means not introducing new limitations on the labour market."

"The fruits of economic success could turn sour unless we can bring back greater social cohesion to our country."

"NATO is one of the principal props which have allowed Britain to punch above its weight in the world."

"Underpinning our social policy are those traditions—the diffusion of power, civil obligation, and voluntary service—which are central to Conservative philosophy... The diffusion of power...the key to active and responsible citizenship."

"Lord Rothschild roamed like a condottiere through Whitehall, laying an ambush here, there breaching some crumbling fortress which had outlived its usefulness... He respected persons occasionally but rarely policies."

"The case for European solidarity has never been stronger than it is today because the pressures piling up on Europe are themselves strong and varied. At the moment the headlines in our newspapers concentrate on certain trading arguments with the United States. Clearly we in Europe deal better with these problems when we work together, and where pressures become unacceptable we can best secure their relaxation by reacting together. Of course we should remind ourselves that our aim is not to confront the United States with our own economic strength, great though that is if we work together. Our aim must be to work out a common view with the United States, based in the case of the pipeline on a common analysis of the role of trade in East–West relations."

"After fierce political discussion over more than twenty years, the British commitment to Europe is now firmly established. As I have said we ask for no exemptions or privileges. We recognise the concepts which inspired the original founders, and salute their wisdom in setting up the Community institutions. We believe that as a member of the class of 1973 we have an equal right, and perhaps an equal wisdom, to discuss the future of the Community as members of the class of 1958. We intend to exercise that right as Europeans, convinced of the essential validity of the case for Europe put forward by the Founding Fathers of the Community, anxious that we should find together the right ways of applying those principles to the new circumstances of 1982. I do not pretend that we face an easy task. But we shall apply ourselves to it with a commitment which no-one should doubt."

"We have to find, as the Victorians found, techniques and instruments which reach the parts of our society which will always be beyond the scope of statutory schemes. I believe that the inspiring and the enlisting of the active citizen in all walks of life is the key."

"I am slightly tired of the approach that it is all because of racism on the part of the police, just as I get slightly weary of police officers saying they are asked to police black communities more lightly."

"[Politicians have a right to respond to the] presence or absence of the churches, and their sometimes bizarre choice of priorities for discussion."

"The recent local elections revealed concern about the quality of some public services which the Government will need to weigh carefully in the coming consideration of our national spending priorities. As people become personally better off their expectations of services naturally rise too and we need to take this into account... We should continue to aim at a further reduction in the level of taxation. But many of our supporters will be looking for us to strike a balance in terms of the realities of 1986."

"Lord Curzon...saved Mosul for Iraq. The methods by which he attained this object were characteristic of his unequalled diplomatic skill... In quiet tones Curzon embarked upon what was perhaps the most brilliant, the most erudite, the most lucid exposition which even he had ever achieved. With unemphatic logic he demolished one by one the arguments which Ismet Pasha had advanced. The whole resources of his unequalled knowledge, the whole value of his unexampled experience, the vigour of his superb memory, his supreme mastery of lucid diction, the perfect symmetry of his every phrase, combined with the visual effect of his Olympian presence, rendered his performance one which none of those present (and they were men who had been accustomed to oratory in every form) had ever seen equalled and would ever see surpassed. Even Mr. Washburn Child, who was all too apt to resent Lord Curzon's effortless superiority, was stirred. He records in his diary that the contrast between Ismet Pasha's statement and Lord Curzon's reply was as that "between a Greek temple and a dish of scrambled eggs"."

"We have some quaint prophecies in our Irish history that have an uncanny method of being realised, or seeming to be realised, in future history; and one of these, which rather surprised me, was told me by an Irishman the other day. It was that an old Irish prophetess prophecied that one day an Irishman would be found weeping over an Englishman's grave. To-day I, as an Irishman, weep over a great Englishman's grave."

"The morning had been golden; the noontide was bronze; and the evening lead. But all were solid, and each was polished till it shone after its fashion."

"The expropriation, through the agency of our Courts and a rigid judicial system, of the Mohammedan peasantry in the West and North Punjab by their astute Hindu creditors of the towns and villages was already assuming serious dimensions, leading often to brutal acts of retaliation by the former, and threatening to become a serious political danger... It was not till 1900, when the process of expropriation had gone to dangerous lengths, and fierce reprisals by the Mohammedan and even the Hindu peasantry made the situation grave beyond dispute, that Lord Curzon's Government carried through the Punjab Alienation of Land Act. That beneficent measure was up to the end bitterly opposed by educated Indians, in the Press, on the platform, and in the Council. It is now regarded by hereditary landowners of all religions and castes as their "Magna Charta.""

""All civilization", said Lord Curzon, quoting Renan, "all civilization has been the work of aristocracies". ... It would be much more true to say "The upkeep of aristocracies has been the hard work of all civilizations"."

"He was a late worker and I should think never left a paper on his table at night that he had not read."

"Courage, devotion, public service: the magnitude of England, the integrity of beauty, the glory of work; such were the ideals by which he achieved his victory, by which he triumphed over pain and tragedy and disappointment."

"After every other Viceroy has been forgotten, Curzon will be remembered because he restored all that was beautiful in India."

"I really think now we shall leave on Sunday and with a Treaty... Of course it is entirely the Marquis [Curzon] absolutely entirely. When I thought he was wrong, he was right, and when I thought he was right, he was much righter than I thought. I give him 100 marks out of 100 and I am so proud of him. So awfully proud. He is a great man and one day England will know it. But you see Britannia has ruled here. Entirely against the Turks, against treacherous allies, against a week-kneed cabinet, against a rotten public opinion—and Curzon has won. Thank God."

"I have been collecting opinions about Curzon during my travels, and I am gradually coming to the conclusion that he is a great Viceroy. The majority of people perhaps dislike him intensely, almost always giving as their reason some childish gossip about his bad manners; but the best men I have met have been without exception his devoted admirers. They say he is a man full of courage and strenuousness, no respecter of persons, and not to be bound by red tape, but ready to take advice if there is commonsense in it, and always bent on going to the root of every matter that comes before him."

"How striking...as evidence of the sane continuity of the English character, have been the universal tributes paid to the memory of Lord Curzon—a sense of national loss manifested in an almost unexpected outburst of national homage."

"No one had ever challenged unpopularity among his own people so fearlessly as [Curzon] did in his endeavours... to secure even justice for Indians against Europeans."

"There is no doubt that, while he has always been and always was a man whose heart and soul were for England and the Empire, yet his best friends would own that it was India and the East that held his imagination from his early youth until the end of his life. He regarded the presence of the Englishman in India as the presence of a man with a mission, and he regarded him as the servant of our country on a sacred mission. He never flinched from those high ideals and earnest endeavours, and, in spite of all, he held the scales of justice even in that great country."

"I very much doubt if, since the palmy days of Mr. Gladstone, there has been any public man who combined so wide a range of interest in many subjects, and such an easy grasp of their general features, with so close and laborious attention to detail and the power of working out that detail."

"Whether in India or here at home, from first to last through a long and strenuous career, he set... and he followed, the highest possible standard of duty, of tireless and devoted industry... A great and unselfish servant of the State, who, in that service, was always ready to "scorn delights and live laborious days," a man who pursued high ambitions by none but worthy means, who never sulked under the rebuffs of fortune, who never allowed himself to be soured by the disappointment of unrealised hopes, he takes an assured place in the long line of those who have enriched by their gifts and dignified by their character the annals of English public life."

"The symbol of Empire in its noon-tide splendour."

"A common idea of him is that of a strenuous and autocratic ruler, excelling in the domain of high policy and the maintenance of "Imperial" power, but out of sympathy with the needs and aspirations of the common people. To those who may have been infected by this prevalent misconception it will be a surprise to find that no Viceroy was ever more zealous for the welfare of the lowliest class of his subordinates, more ready to investigate and redress the grievance of any petitioner, however humble, or more resolutely determined to ensure justice to all the toiling millions submitted to his sway."

"My name is George Nathaniel Curzon, I am a most superior person. My cheek is pink, my hair is sleek, I dine at Blenheim once a week."

"Lord Curzon is not a man towards whom it is possible to feel indifferent or neutral. On the one side were the men attracted or dominated by his superlative capacity, on the other those whom he had annoyed, or even alienated, by his trenchancy and "drive.""

"[Frenchmen] are not the sort of people one would go tiger-shooting with."

"Hardly less critical was the situation left by the Mudania armistice with Turkey. Even while the election was on Curzon had gone to Lausanne to spend nearly three months in strenuous controversy with Ismet Pasha. By sheer force of knowledge, debating ability and personality, he secured a far better peace than could have been expected. The difficult question of Mosul was postponed, and left to me to deal with more than two years later. As regard this our diplomatic and administrative position was seriously handicapped by the reckless advocates of economy at all costs in Parliament, in the Press and, not least, in a section of the Cabinet, which included Bonar Law himself, who were all for scuttle all round. Happily Curzon had charge of the Cabinet Committee which dealt with both Iraq and Palestine and, as a member of the Committee, I was greatly impressed by the sheer skill of draftsmanship which enabled him to get his way, first with his Committee and then with the Cabinet."

"I don't know about Curzon. He is very able, very just (he has never had sufficient credit for his Indian administration)[,] a great public servant, but he is not very accessible to new ideas."

"It is impossible to over-estimate the magnificent work Lord Curzon did for India in his constant care for its priceless archæological treasures."

"We have endeavoured to render the land revenue more equable in its incidence, to lift the load of usury from the shoulders of the peasant, and to check that reckless alienation of the soil which in many parts of the country was fast converting him from a free proprietor to a bond slave. We have done our best to encourage industries which little by little will relieve the congested field of agriculture, develop the indigenous resources of India, and make that country more and more self-providing in the future. I would not indulge in any boast, but I dare to think that as a result of these efforts I can point to an India that is more prosperous, more contented, and more hopeful. Wealth is increasing in India. There is no test you can apply which does not demonstrate it. Trade is growing. Evidences of progress and prosperity are multiplying on every side.6°"

"We talked of Curzon. L. G. said he had great knowledge—information of a sort which is uncommon amongst British politicians. He knows foreign countries; he has travelled widely. He is dogmatic and often unreasonable, but he brings something to the general stock which is very valuable."

"We endeavoured to frame a plague policy which should not do violence to the instincts and sentiments of the native population; a famine policy which should profit by the experience of the past and put us in a position to cope with the next visitation when unhappily it bursts upon us; an education policy which should free the intellectual activities of the Indian people, so keen and restless as they are, from the paralysing clutch of examinations; a railway policy that will provide administratively and financially for the great extension that we believe to lie before us; an irrigation policy that will utilise to the maximum, whether remuneratively or unremuneratively, all the available water resources of India, not merely in canals.... but in tanks and reservoirs and wells; a police policy that will raise standard of the only emblem of authority that the majority of the people see, and will free then from petty diurnal tyranny and oppression.... [T]he administrator looks rather to the silent and inarticulate masses, and if he can raise, even by a little, the level of material comfort and well-being in their lives, he has earned his reward...."

"India must always remain a constellation rather than a country, a congeries of races rather than a single nation. But we are creating ties of unity among those widely diversified peoples, we are consolidating those vast and outspread territories, and, what is more important, we are going forward instead of backward. It is not a stationary, a retrograde, a downtrodden, or an impoverished India that I have been governing for the past five and a half years. Poverty there is in abundance. I defy any one to show me a great and populous city, where it does not exist. Misery and destitution there are. The question is not whether they exist, but whether they are growing more or growing less. In India, where you deal with so vast a canvas, I daresay the lights and shades of human experience are more vivid and more dramatic than elsewhere. But if you compare the India of today with the India of any previous period of history-the India of Alexander, of Asoka, of Akbar, or of Aurangzeb-you will find greater peace and tranquillity, more widely suffused comfort and contentment, superior justice and humanity, and higher standards of material well-being, than that great dependency has ever previously attained.""

"Lord Curzon lived in somewhat Olympian isolation and saw few members of the staff except his principal private secretary and the Permanent Under-Secretary. I never met him. But he was a superb drafter and exacted a high standard of accuracy and clarity from the departments. His minutes were models, often combining wit and malice... Whatever may be thought of British foreign policy at this time, there is no doubt that under Curzon and Crowe the machinery of the office was more efficient than it has ever been. But this was not achieved without effort. Curzon insisted not only on good work but on long hours."

"The obstacle has been Mackenzie King, the Canadian, who is both obstinate, tiresome and stupid."