Colonial Governors

"All the trouble began in 1652 when Jan van Riebeeck landed in the Cape."

"And as we are making our position stronger every day, it is to be hoped that they (Khoisan) will feel less inclined to disturb us, provided, however, that a strict watch be kept on everything and we remain on our guard in every direction, continuing with diligence at the fences and other defensive forts..."

"You shall also keep your fires burning if the ships are blown back by contrary winds, but if the ships are foreign or not Dutch (onduitsch) you shall at once extinguish your fire."

"When the British Empire finally sinks beneath the waves of history, it will leave behind it only two memorials: one is the game of Association Football and the other is the expression 'Fuck Off'."

"The Dutch Company, actuated solely by the spirit of gain, and viewing their [Javan] subjects, with less regard or consideration than a West India planter formerly viewed a gang upon his estate, because the latter had paid the purchase money of human property, which the other had not, employed all the existing machinery of despotism to squeeze from the people their utmost mite of contribution, the last dregs of their labor, and thus aggravated the evils of a capricious and semi-barbarous Government, by working it with all the practised ingenuity of politicians, and all the monopolizing selfishness of traders."

"...Cette decision sauva la France et la liberte du monde. Translated from French to English: ...This decision saved France and the freedom of the world."

""Churchill was 'very keen, able, and broad-minded' and a 'powerful backer', but warned that his weakness was being 'too apt to make up his mind without sufficient knowledge'."

"British influence... is not exercised to impose an uncongenial foreign system upon a reluctant people. It is a force making for the triumph of the simplest ideas of honesty, humanity, and justice, to the value of which Egyptians are just as much alive as anybody else."

"[I]f Egyptian prosperity is a British interest, so is Egyptian independence. We have no desire to possess ourselves of Egypt, but we have every reason to prevent any rival power from so possessing itself. And there is no sure, no creditable manner of providing permanently against such a contingency, except to build up a system of Government so stable as to leave no excuse for future foreign intervention."

"I have a strong hope and conviction that, with moderation and good sense, and a policy of firmness, patience and good temper, these difficulties may yet be satisfactorily, if not immediately settled."

"There is only one possible settlement – war! It has got to come ... The difficulty is in the occasion and not the job itself, that is very easily done and I think nothing of the bogies and difficulties of settling South Africa afterwards. You will find a very different tone and temper when the center of unrest is dealt with."

"If, ten years hence, there are three men of British race to two of Dutch, the country [i.e. South Africa] will be safe and prosperous."

"...the impracticability of governing natives, who, at best, are children, needing and appreciating just paternal government, on the same principles as apply to the government of full-grown men."

"If we believe a thing to be bad, and if we have a right to prevent it, it is our duty to try to prevent it and to damn the consequences."

"I feel more sure that the end is nearing than I do what kind of end it will be."

"My own disposition is against being in the government unless I am part of the Supreme Direction."

"The prospects for peace were, "even blacker than a year ago"."

"Instead of it (World War I) being a war to end wars - it (the Paris Peace Conference) is a Peace to end Peace."

"Only at Government House did I find the Man of No Illusions, the anxious but unwearied Pro-Consul, understanding the faults and virtues of both sides, measuring the balance of rights and wrongs, and determined - more determined than ever, for is it not the only hope for the future of South Africa? - to use his knowledge and power to strengthen the Imperial ties."

"The conditions of the Transvaal ordinance ... cannot in the opinion of His Majesty's Government be classified as slavery; at least, that word in its full sense could not be applied without a risk of terminological inexactitude."

"Lord Milner has gone from South Africa, probably forever. The public service knows him no more. Having exercised great authority he now exercises no authority. Having held high employment he now has no employment. Having disposed of events which have shaped the course of history, he is now unable to deflect in the smallest degree the policy of the day. Having been for many years, or at least for many months, the arbiter of the fortunes of men who are 'rich beyond the dreams of avarice', he is today poor, and honorably poor. After twenty years of exhausting service under the Crown he is today a retired Civil Servant, without pension or gratuity of any kind whatever... Lord Milner has ceased to be a factor in public life."

"He is an old friend of mine. We admired and loved the same woman. That's an indissoluble bond."

"If he does not agree with you, he closes his eyes like a lizard and you can do nothing with him."

"We should have won the war some time ago if there were about half-a-dozen Lord Milners to form a (War) Cabinet."

"How far reaching that service became at the turning point of the war, what a godsend that combination of cool judgement and knowledge with the Premier's flair and courage, how essential to victory the power of decision which at the blackest moment consolidated the direction of the allied armies...but when the story comes to be fully written, it may be found that nothing even in the South African chapter has left a more decisive mark on history than Lord Milner's work at Doullens and in Downing Street..."

"“What would have been the position to-day on South Africa if there had not been a man prepared to take upon himself responsibility; a man whom difficulties could not conquer, whom dissenters could not cow, and whom obloquy could not move?”"

"Milner....is the strongest member of the War Cabinet as well as being the best informed."

"Lloyd George had the firm support of Milner, the strongest man in his War Cabinet."

"The interview adjourned at an appointed hour to the office of the Secretary of War, Lord Milner, whose little book on "The English in Egypt" written twenty-six years ago, was a bible to me in Philippine days. He was an extremely forceful and able man. He was born in Germany of British parents and seems to have acquired a little of the blood and iron. At least he is the most difficult person to bring over that my General (Pershing) and I have attempted. It is all on the question of how many troops shall go with the British and what they shall be. He wants all infantry and machine guns, and while protesting that they all look forward to the day when we shall have our American Army on the line as such, is demanding the things that will make that impossible, at least before 1919."

"In appearance a scholar rather than a man of action, but with an air of grave assurance, which indicated fixity of purpose, a man more apt to give than to take advice."

"I think that Milner and I stand for very much the same things. He is a poor man, and so am I. He does not represent the landed or capitalist classes any more than I do. He is keen on social reform, and so am I."

"Milner was the only person I can turn to for advice. Bonar was a quaking reed. Carson had courage, but not always judgement. Milner alone had both wisdom and intrepidity."

"...trained in the school of newspapers and books rather than that of men. ...poor nervous ignorant fellow, utterly out of sympathy with South Africa."

"Having to deal with the War Cabinet, I know very well there are only two people in it who do anything - the Prime Minister and Lord Milner..."

"l'homme d'action par excellence du cabinet anglais (the outstanding man of drive in the British cabinet)."

"When Lord Milner was given the Order of the Garter... [h]e had to attend a Levee, and when he dressed he was faced by the problem over which shoulder should the riband go. As there was no time to ask anyone's advice he decided to wear it...over the right shoulder; but the Garter...[is] worn over the left shoulder. Quite unconscious that he was wearing his riband over the wrong shoulder he appeared in the antechamber at St. James's Palace, where everyone assembles. There, unfortunately, he met George Curzon, who was scandalised at his ignorance; so strongly, in fact, did Curzon feel that after the Levee he wrote Milner a letter saying that it was almost inconceivable that anyone who had been given this ancient Order, the highest Order in the land, should not even take the trouble to ascertain how it was worn. It happened some months later that one of the Levees at St. James's Palace happened to come on a collar day... Curzon...came rather late to the Levee...and...committ[ed] the most heinous offence of wearing a riband as well as a collar. Of course, the King observed this at once but made little of it, only chaffing Curzon about the mistake; Milner, who was also present, heard these remarks and afterwards wrote to Curzon, repeating nearly word for word that it was almost inconceivable that anyone who had been given this ancient Order, etc. etc."

"Lloyd George is a real bad 'un. The other members of the War Cabinet seem afraid of him. Milner is a tired, dyspeptic old man. Curzon is a gas-bag. Bonar Law equals Bonar Law."

"The complete inscription, in english, says, "In this Town Hall, on the 26th of March, 1918, the Allies entrusted General Foch with the Supreme Command on the Western Front. This decision saved France and the liberty of the world.""

"What mystifies me is how he or any one else can determine what is a desirable type of industry such as should qualify for special assistance of this kind. In my own simple way I should have thought that a desirable industry was, almost by definition, one which could establish itself and thrive without special assistance in ordinary market conditions. Anything else suggests a degree of omniscience which I, at least, am not prepared to credit even the most expert with. I trust the commercial judgment only of those who are themselves taking the risks."

"You always had the feeling that Cowperthwaite was looking over your left shoulder. You knew that he would ask at least five questions about any proposal that was submitted."

"Cowperthwaite was brilliant, well-trained in economics, suffered no fools, and was highly principled. He wouldn't last five minutes in a similar post in Britain, since he was no predisposed to compromise any of his principles - only the constitutional structure of Hong Kong allowed him that power."

"Cowperthwaite had a clear desk with no files; he had plenty of time to think. Few were his equals in either intellect or initiative. He invariably had his way with the departments."

"I have worked for many years with Sir John and I know only too well how wise he can be. I also know what a kind heart beats under his severe exterior―though he would never admit it. He has often, in my view, been unfairly criticized but, as Financial Secretary, he has done far more for Hong Kong than most people, and much more than most people realize."

"I met Cowperthwaite in 1963 on my next visit to Hong Kong. I remember asking him about the paucity of statistics. He answered, "If I let them compute those statistics, they’ll want to use them for planning.""

"I hold that two principles are important; first that there should be a steady expansion of public services, not an irregular one related to revenue accruing in any particular year; the second that taxes should be constant over long periods (provided, that is, that they are neither burdensome nor inequitable)."

"I find odd the view that a Government institution is better placed to evaluate "the technical and financial viability" of a project than a commercial bank. It may well be that our banks are deficient in the kind of expertize required for assessing projects but then what we should be doing is encouraging banks to acquire such expertize or to make use of outside, commercial, expertize. I do not believe in any case that a Government machine can provide a reliable judgement on such matters, an opinion the banking members of the committee appear to have shared, for they have prudently refused to commit themselves to accepting its advice. I myself tend to mistrust the judgement of anyone not involved in the actual process of risktaking."

"I must confess my distaste for any proposal to use public funds for the support of selected, and thereby, privileged, industrialists, the more particularly if this is to be based on bureaucratic views of what is good and what is bad by way of industrial development, but I have been studying the report referred to with some interest."

"I was particularly struck in this context by my honourable Friend, Mr K. S. Lo's concern at the decline in the enamelware industry as an example of the effect of lost advantages, as if this decline were a loss rather than a gain to the community. It has declined, I believe, because we have learned to use our resources of enterprise, capital and labour in other more profitable directions. That is progress. We would be in a sorry way if enamelware was still our fourth biggest industry."

"I cannot myself believe that anyone in this Chamber, and very few in the community as a whole, would wish to reverse all our previous policies and choose stabilization rather than growth; and it would certainly go contrary to the other views expressed by honourable Members about the need to promote the further growth of trade and industry. Not only would we be fore-going the creation of additional wealth and what this can bring, and has brought, in social advance, but we would also, I believe, permanently damage that climate of economic activity which has taken us so far and so fast. This would be particularly unwise, I suggest, in the face of those relatively darker clouds referred to by Your Excellency."

"There was a plea from honourable Members relating to the need for formal Gross National Product figures. Such figures are very inexact even in the most sophisticated countries I think they do not have a great deal of meaning, even as a basis of comparison between economies. That other countries make use of them is not, I think, necessarily a good reason to suppose that we need them. But, although I am not entirely clear what practical purpose they would serve in Hong Kong, I am sure they would be of interest. I suspect myself, however, that the need arises in other countries because high taxation and more or less detailed Government intervention in the economy have made it essential to be able to judge (or to hope to be able to judge) the effect of policies, and of changes in policies, on the economy. One of the honourable Members who spoke on this subject, said outright, as a confirmed planner, that he thought that they were desirable for the planning of our future economic policy. But we are in the happy position, happier at least for the Financial Secretary where the leverage exercised by Government on the economy is so small that it is not necessary, nor even of any particular value, to have these figures available for the formulation of policy. We might indeed be right to be apprehensive lest the availability of such figures might lead, by a reversal of cause and effect, to policies designed to have a direct effect on the economy. I would myself deplore this."