British Peers

"What I know is that this country will be a divided society that will not be worth living in unless there is true racial equality for every citizen who lives in it."

"We used to think that you could spend your way out of a recession and increase employment by cutting taxes and boosting government spending. I tell you in all candour that that option no longer exists, and in so far as it ever did exist, it only worked on each occasion since the war by injecting a bigger dose of inflation into the economy, followed by a higher level of unemployment as the next step. Higher inflation followed by higher unemployment. We have just escaped from the highest rate of inflation this country has known; we have not yet escaped from the consequences: high unemployment. That is the history of the last twenty years."

"Now we must get back to fundamentals. First, overcoming unemployment now unambiguously depends on our labour costs being at least comparable with those of our major competitors. Second, we can only become competitive by having the right kind of investment at the right kind of level, and by significantly improving the productivity of both labour and capital. Third, we will fail – and I say this to those who have been pressing about public expenditure, to which I will come back – if we think we can buy our way out by printing what Denis Healey calls ‘confetti money’ to pay ourselves more than we produce."

"The cosy world we were told would go on for ever, where full employment would be guaranteed by a stroke of the Chancellor's pen, cutting taxes, deficit spending – that cosy world is gone. Yesterday, delegates pointed to the first sorry fruits: a high rate of unemployment. ... When we reject unemployment as an economic instrument — as we do — and when we reject also superficial remedies, as socialists must, then we must ask ourselves unflinchingly what is the cause of high unemployment. Quite simply and unequivocally, it is caused by paying ourselves more than the value of what we produce. There are no scapegoats. This is true in a mixed economy under a Labour Government as it is under capitalism or under communism. It is an absolute fact of life which no Government, be it left or right, can alter."

"You know, as I do, that we face two deep-seated problems, inflation and unemployment. Both of them are still too high. ... I have to emphasize to you that if we fail to bring down inflation, we shall never succeed in overcoming unemployment. We cannot have a prosperous industry in this country if we are unable to sell our goods overseas. No one owes Britain a living, and may I say to you quite bluntly that despite the measures of the last 12 months, we are still not earning the standard of living we are enjoying. We are only keeping up our standards by borrowing, and this cannot go on indefinitely. There is no soft option. I do not promise you any real easement for some time to come. There can be no lasting improvement in your own living standards until we can achieve it without going deeper and deeper into debt as a nation."

"For too long, perhaps ever since the war, we postponed facing up to fundamental choices and fundamental changes in our society and in our economy. This is what I mean when I say we have been living on borrowed time. For too long this country – all of us, yes this Conference too – has been ready to settle for borrowing money abroad to maintain our standards of life, instead of grappling with the fundamental problems of British industry. Governments of both parties have failed to ignite the fires of industrial growth in the ways that countries with very different political and economic philosophies have done."

"But the policies of the 1960s would not be successful today. No more would general import controls.They benefit some home industries at the expense of the livelihood of everyone working in exports. We would be robbing Peter to pay Paul."

"If we were to fail, I do not think any Government could succeed. I feel it would lead to a totalitarian government of the left or the right."

"The power structure in Britain is changing. Authority is no longer obeyed for its own sake. There are severe limits on what government can do, so the way to win the battle against inflation and unemployment is not to try to dragoon the country. If we do we shall fail. We must secure its consent. We are playing for high stakes. In a real sense, adherence to the social contract puts on trial whether our society has the will and determination to solve its problems by democratic means."

"James Callaghan: ...I am not pro, nor am I anti... Robin Day: What are you doing on this programme? Callaghan: I'm here because you asked me. Day: You're here to advise people to vote 'Yes' aren't you? Callaghan: ...I am here, and the Prime Minister has taken the same line; it is our job to advise the British people on what we think is the right result. Now there are a lot of other people who've always been emotionally committed to the Market. A lot of other people have been always totally opposed to the Market. I don't think the Prime Minister or myself have ever been in either category and that is not our position today. I'm trying to present the facts as I see them and why we have come down in favour of – now Britain is in, we should stay in."

"Our place in the world is shrinking: our economic comparisons grow worse, long-term political influence depends on economic strength – and that is running out. The country expects both full employment and an end to inflation. We cannot have both unless people restrain their demands. If the TUC guidelines [on pay] are not observed, we shall end up with wage controls once more and even a breakdown of democracy. Sometimes when I go to bed at night, I think that if I were a young man I would emigrate. But when I wake up in the morning, I ask myself whether there is any place else I would prefer to go."

"5 per cent it is, and I have told the unions that they have all the weapons. We are naked in their presence and we need their co-operation."

"First of all, please make sure that you go and vote in the Common Market referendum on Thursday. And secondly, the Government asks you to vote 'Yes', clearly and unmistakeably."

"[D]espite the indignation and horror with which most of us regard the actions of the Provisionals, we must not allow our policy to be dictated by revenge or by passion. If we do, we shall not only behave in an immoral way; we shall lose the battle."

"I think there is a case for opening a national debate on these matters."

"Millions of people in Britain must have been very surprised to hear that the language of Chaucer, of Shakespeare and of Milton must in future be regarded as an undesirable American import from which we have to protect ourselves if we are to build a new Europe. We can agree that the French own the supreme prose literature in Europe. But if we are to prove —if we have to prove—our Europeanism by accepting that French is the dominant language in the Community, then my answer is quite clear, and I will say it in French in order to prevent any misunderstanding: Non, merci beaucoup."

"[Callaghan] said that President Pompidou had made it clear that where differences existed between Britain and the French-dominated EEC, "Britain must subordinate them to the extent of a complete rupture with our identity". He asked if Mr. Heath's offer to participate in a European spirit, which signified a French spirit, meant that "we are honour bound not to try to upset the principles of the common agricultural policy?" Had Mr. Heath made it clear that no one believed it made sense to give up buying cheap food from New Zealand to buy dear food from France?"

"I think that it came as a surprise, if not a shock, to most people, when that notorious advertisement appeared in The Times in 1967, to find that there is a lobby in favour of legalising cannabis. ... The existence of this lobby is something that the House and public opinion should take into account and be ready to combat, as I am. It is another aspect of the so-called permissive society, and I am glad if my decision has enabled the House to call a halt in the advancing tide of so-called permissiveness. I regard it as one of the most unlikeable words that has been invented in recent years."

"Those who advocate devaluation are calling for a reduction in the wage levels and the real wage standards of every member of the working class."

"I come to the question of the Governor of the Bank of England, who made [a] speech...[which] was, I thought, a very good exposition of the nature of this country's problems. ... When he came to the question of the rate of wage and price inflation, in which he dealt with the question of unused resources, what he said I agree with. He said: “it is impossible to manage a large industrial economy with the very small margin of unused manpower and resources that characterised the British economy in the 1940s and 1950s.” That is true. ... We must have a somewhat larger margin of unused capacity than we used to try to keep. That is the truth of the matter."

"I sum up the prospects for 1967 in three short sentences. We are back on course. (Loud Ministerial cheers and Opposition laughter.) The ship is picking up speed. (More Ministerial cheers.) Every seaman knows the command at such a moment: "Steady as she goes". (Laughter and cheers.)"

"The Treaty of Rome was tailor-made to support French agriculture and German manufactures. It is by no means ideal for Britain's future trading arrangements. It was not designed for this purpose. The question is whether it is worth joining on the terms that are on offer or, as I believe, whether we would do better for ourselves by waiting."

"I hate putting up taxes."

"We have had a tremendous battle over the past 12 months. Sterling is safe. That battle is won."

"We should be aiming in the latter part of the 1960s for a 5 per cent. and then a 6 per cent. growth rate. Only then shall we attain the programme of social expenditure that is both necessary and desirable."

"There could be no democratic and independent Socialist Party in this country unless they aligned themselves with others against the insidious attempts of Communism to break the Socialist movement."

"If we achieve our target, 1967 will be a different year from the last two, a year in which we will begin to move forward again, and 1968 to 1970 will be the years of achievement in which the fruit of the work now being done will be shown."

"I have not the slightest doubt that the economic measures and the Socialist measures which one will find in countries of Eastern Europe, will become increasingly powerful against the uncoordinated, planless society in which the West is living at present."

"What would need to be reopened would be the test questions that were put to Mr Heath by M Pompidou and tamely accepted by him. To the question: “Do you agree to work for economic and monetary union?” Mr Heath had said “yes”, but the Labour movement said “no”. To the question: “Will you turn away from the open seas and mould yourself to Europe?” Mr Heath had said “yes” and the Labour movement was saying “no”. A Labour Government will seek to reopen the principles and renegotiate the details, specifically on high food prices which are part of their present policy and a reversal of Britain's food policies for over a century. We intend to have that renegotiated and to return to our traditional freedom to purchase food from other countries outside the EEC without incurring penalty."

"Never let me hear anyone say again that a Socialist State cannot provide outlets for those with initiative. The rewards given to ability in the U.S.S.R. at all levels are far greater than those given to the employed in capitalist Britain. I have seen it and it works."

"Too much stress is being put on the soldiers and the RUC to solve problems which politicians have failed to solve for so many years. There must be a political solution if the gunmen are to be divided from the rest of the population."

"Peace-or-war, not cost-of-living, was the most important issue at the election. He did not believe that peace with Stalin would be easy to achieve. Some delegates seemed to think it was all a matter of “getting together with Joe.” Had they forgotten their Marxism, and its interpretation of history. That was what they were dealing with, not Uncle Joe."

"The commentators have fixed the month for me, they have chosen the date and the day. But I advise them: "Don't count your chickens before they are hatched." Remember what happened to Marie Lloyd. She fixed the day and the date, and she told us what happened. As far as I remember it went like this: 'There was I, waiting at the church–' (laughter). Perhaps you recall how it went on. 'All at once he sent me round a note. Here's the very note. This is what he wrote: "Can't get away to marry you today, my wife won't let me."' Now let me just make clear that I have promised nobody that I shall be at the altar in October? Nobody at all."

"Well, that's a judgment that you are making. I promise you that if you look at it from outside, and perhaps you're taking rather a parochial view at the moment, I don't think that other people in the world would share the view that there is mounting chaos."

"My father took me to a dinner of the Honorable Cymmrodorion Society — a Welsh literary club — where Lloyd George, then Secretary for War, and W. M. Hughes, the Australian Prime Minister, both spoke. Hughes was perky, dry, and to the point; Lloyd George was up in the air in one of his "glory of the Welsh hills" speeches. The power of his rhetoric amazed me. The substance of the speech might be commonplace, idle and false, but I had to fight hard against abandoning myself with the rest of his audience. He sucked power from his listeners and spurted it back at them. Afterwards, my father introduced me to Lloyd George, and when I looked closely at his eyes they seemed like those of a sleep-walker."

"Labourers had diminished, game had tripled. The landlord was no more necessary to agriculture than a gold chain to a watch."

"The iron entered into my soul, when Ll[oyd] G[eorge]'s Government after the war let down and corrupted public life at home and destroyed our credit abroad."

"Even if Germany ever had any idea of challenging our supremacy at sea, the exigencies of the military situation must necessarily put it completely out of her head. Under these circumstances it seems to me that we can afford just quietly to maintain the superiority we possess at present, without making feverish efforts to increase it any further. The Navy is now, according to all impartial testimony, at the height of its efficiency. If we maintain that standard no one can complain, but if we went on spending and swelling its strength, we should wantonly provoke other nations."

"In 1920 I met Lenin. I was a very difficult person to get on with, and Lenin advised me—I remember it so well—to study David Lloyd George. He held the opinion that David Lloyd George was the greatest political leader this country had known."

"The Briton who made the deepest impression on me was Lloyd George. Eden speaks a repulsive, affected type of English, but Lloyd George was a pure orator, and a man of tremendous breadth of vision. What he has written on the Treaty of Versailles will endure for ever. He was the first man to declare that the Treaty would lead inevitably to another war. The idea that a people like the German people can be destroyed is madness, he said. Britain, he added, had no alternative but to live on terms of friendship with Germany."

"I must, however, say that I did not think the speech of my right hon. Friend was particularly helpful at a period of what he himself called discouragement and disheartenment. It was not the sort of speech which one would have expected from the great war leader of former days, who was accustomed to brush aside despondency and alarm, and push on irresistibly towards the final goal. It was the sort of speech with which, I imagine, the illustrious and venerable Marshal Petain might well have enlivened the closing days of M. Reynaud's Cabinet."

"The Coalition Government of 1918 onwards really was pretty bad, and it is a discreditable episode in our history that Lloyd George, a great man who came into public life as a great Radical and who, as his later history showed, retained so much of real radicalism in his heart, should at that moment, of all moments, have chosen to hang on to personal power at the price of giving way to the worst elements in the community — only to be cast out by the Tories like an old shoe, when he had served his purpose, killed the Liberal Party, and deceived the working class so thoroughly that they would never trust him again."

"Sincere congratulations. No one has done more to bring about this splendid victory than you."

"Success to your meetings. Future of this country depends on breaking up the land monopoly—it withers the land, depresses wages, destroys independence, and drives millions into dwellings which poison their strength. Godspeed to every effort to put an end to this oppression."

"There are always clouds in the international sky. You never get a perfectly blue sky in foreign affairs. And there are clouds even now. But we feel confident that the common sense, the patience, the good-will, the forbearance which enabled us to solve greater and more difficult and more urgent problems last year will enable us to pull through these difficulties at the present moment."

"I am very certain that his visit to America has been a piece of good fortune for both his country and our own, and for the cause of international accord. During his stay among us, though it has been all too brief, Mr. Lloyd George has voiced the appeal for that better understanding among the nations which must be at the base of all good relations. It has been a fine thing for our people to become better acquainted with this eminent leader in civilization's struggle to maintain itself, and I hope he will feel, when he leaves us a few days hence, that his effort in bringing his message to us has not been an entirely vain one."

"A dispute arose between the British and American Admiralties as to some warship-building projected by the Americans which our naval chiefs thought would threaten our superiority at sea. Thereupon Lloyd George began to express doubt about the necessity of proceeding with the League. I protested strongly, and eventually some compromise was arranged which put an end to this particular difficulty. But the incident illustrates the kind of way in which he regarded the League, and gave him a certain air of vacillation on the subject. After the war was over and we had left Paris I remember asking Fisher, then in the Government and often one of our representatives at Geneva, what the Prime Minister (as he was then) really thought about the League, and all I could get out of him was that Lloyd George was like the sea, sometimes blue and sometimes green. Lord Riddell says that Lloyd George hated the League. I think that is an exaggeration, though it may have been an accurate report of some casual observation in that sense. It is doubtless the case that the idea that war could be abolished seemed to him fantastic. "What had been would be" was to him a fundamental truth. He could never be persuaded to visit Geneva. He rarely referred to the League in his public speeches, and when he did his approval of it was chilly."

"They were now as a party engaged in carrying laboriously uphill the last few columns out of the Gladstonian quarry. ... Foremost among the tasks of Liberalism in the near future was the regeneration of rural life and the emancipation of the land of this country from the paralysing grip of an effete and unprofitable system. ... [The reports into rural life] were startling. When they were published they would prove conclusively that there were hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of men, women, and children dependent upon the land in this country and engaged in cultivating it, hardworking men and women, who were living under conditions with regard to wages, to housing, as well as hours of labour—conditions which ought to make this great Empire hang its head in shame that such things could be permitted to happen in any corner of its vast dominions, let alone in this country, the centre and source of all its glory."

"First came Lloyd George—a man of immense strength of character. But, like Clemenceau, he only believed in force. To him the Covenant, with its provisions for the settlement of international disputes by pacific means in the first place, was unreal. Though he supported it as well-meaning and even attractive, yet he was not prepared while he was Prime Minister to subordinate all else to the replacement of war by law, for in his heart he did not think that could be done. In his closing years he seemed to move nearer to the League. But it was then too late."

"This rich, proud Empire did not pay its children, who had maintained and built up its glory and upon whom they had to depend in future against every foe, enough to keep themselves, their wives, and their children above a state of semi-starvation. (Cries of "Shame.") The land of Britain, which ought to be rearing a virile, healthy, independent, prosperous people, was held under conditions which positively discouraged capital, enterprise, and brains, sapped independence and undermined vitality. The condition of things was one which demanded the immediate attention of every man who loved his native land and who had any heart to sympathize with humanity in despair."