Secretaries Of State For The Colonies United Kingdom

"If adverse critics charged him with shallow reasoning and a diffuse diction, his clear and flowing style, and copiousness of illustration, with the art which he certainly possessed of enlivening even dry subjects of finance with classical allusions and pleasant humour, made his speeches always acceptable to a large majority of his hearers."

"Mr. Robinson sat down amid demonstrations of applause more loud and more general than perhaps ever before greeted the opening of a ministerial statement of finance."

"The only ground on which I reconciled myself to the fitness of a Corn Law at all was my apprehension—an apprehension which I most sincerely entertained—that this country would become, or might become, more dependent than in prudence she ought to be upon supplies of corn from foreign countries."

"Indeed, it would have been impossible for me to have supported a Corn Law as a part of a great system of national policy intended to give uniform and universal protection to native industry, because over and over again I have laid down the opposite principle with reference to protection; and I have shared year after year in measures and arguments, the object of which was to break in the principle of what is called protection to British industry, and to get rid, as speedily as circumstances would permit, first of prohibition, and then of protection, which I have always held to be injurious not only to the country generally, but ultimately to the very interests which it is designed to serve."

"When I introduced, in 1815, the Corn Bill of that day, I did it...with the greatest reluctance. I was not a Member of the Government; that is to say, I only held a subordinate situation in it—and when the Earl of Liverpool sent to desire that I would move the measure, I took the liberty of expressing to him that I had a great objection to the principle of any Corn Law whatever. I thought then—I have thought ever since—that a Corn Law is in itself an evil to be justified solely by the establishment of some paramount necessity, sufficient to overcome the magnitude of the objection, and to sanction the imposition on the country of what is in itself an evil."

"Let me not omit what gave me and all his friends sincere pleasure, that Frederick Robinson highly distinguished himself in the best young man's speech I ever heard in the Parliament. Peel, when he has spoken, has been more flowery, and with more classical allusion; but in readiness, in clear, forcible, and demonstrative language, and in the appearance of an old and able debater, Robinson beat him, and indeed all his contemporaries. Whitbread, who spoke after him, paid him very handsome compliments."

"He had made a sacrifice of many preconceived opinions, of many early predilections, and of many long-cherished notions."

"They were not now in the situation of arguing, for the first time, whether they should act on the principle of restriction or not. For not only on the subject of corn, but on all great branches of trade in this country, they had, from time immemorial, proceeded on a system of restriction. And therefore, he contended, they were not now placed in a situation of discussing first principles. They were not now, for the first time, to inquire, whether they were to act on this principle or not. The system had been acted on for a long period, and we could not depart from it without encountering a frightful revulsion, which it would be dreadful to combat. It was not, therefore, a question between restriction and non-restriction—but how they were to apply principles, that had been long called into action, to the existing circumstances of the country. This was the only ground on which he would now recommend the measure he was about to submit to their consideration."

"He had always given it as his opinion, that the restrictive system of commerce in this country was founded in error, and calculated to defeat the object for which it was adopted."

"We certainly do not want a Catholic Association to assist us. If they attempt to excite our fears, they will fail; for they will enlist our pride, at least as strong as any other feeling, against them. We shall betray our duty; we shall do mischief to Ireland; we shall render her incapable of enjoying the benefits which she has lately acquired, or which she may hereafter acquire, unless we make up our minds steadily and firmly to put an end to this Association, which I sincerely believe to be the bane and curse of the country."

"The King has behaved admirably, and has shown his sincere desire to keep Canning's Government together upon the principles upon which it was formed. It is our duty to do our part to preserve it as long as we can, and to do all in our power not to disappoint his Majesty's expectations, or to thwart his genuine objects. We must forget all that is unpleasant in what has occurred, and act cordially and frankly together. If we do, and start well, depend upon it the country will support the King in his resolution to support us, particularly if we exert ourselves bonâ fide to get rid of, or at least to nullify, the odious distinctions of Whig and Tory, and to get the press, if possible, to support the Government, not so much on account of its individual composition, but because it is the King's Government and founded upon just and honourable principles."

"Japan was provoked into attacking the Americans at Pearl Harbor. It is a travesty of history ever to say that America was forced into the war. Everyone knows where American sympathies were. It is incorrect to say that America was truly neutral even before America came into the war on an all-out basis."

"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."

"...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."

"...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."

"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.""

"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."

""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"."

"Just as every human being has an ancestry, unknown to him though it may be; so every idea, every incident, every movement has in the past its own long chain of causes, without which it could not have been. Formerly we were glad to let the dead bury their dead: nowadays we turn lovingly to the records, whether of persons or things; and we busy ourselves willingly among origins, even without conscious utilitarian end. We are no longer proud of having ancestors, since every one has them; but we are more than ever interested in our ancestors, now that we find in them the fragments which compose our very selves."

"The Webbs explicitly rejected the 'naive belief that. . . Soviet] penal settlements are now maintained and continuously supplied with thousands of deported manual workers and technicians, deliberately for the purpose of making, out of this forced labour, a net pecuniary profit to add to the State revenue.' Such notions were simply 'incredible' to 'anyone acquainted with the economic results of the chain-gang, or of prison labour, in any country in the world'. Slavery always has its apologists, but seldom are they so ingenuous. The thirty-six Soviet writers who, under Gorky's direction, produced the hyperbolic book The Belomor-Baltic Canal Named for Stalin at least had the excuse that the alternative to lying might be dying. The Webbs wrote their rubbish in the safety of Bloomsbury."

"Perhaps nothing illustrates better the diabolical character of the Stalinist regime than the 140-mile Belomor Canal, built at Stalin's instigation to link the Baltic Sea and the White Sea. Between September 1931 and August 1933, somewhere between 128,000 and 180,000 prisoners - most of them from Solovetsky, with Frenkel directing their efforts - hacked out a waterway, equipped only with the most primitive pick-axes, wheelbarrows and hatchets. So harsh were the conditions and so inadequate the tools that tens of thousands of them died in the process. This was hardly unforeseeable; for six months of the year the ground was frozen solid, while in many places the prisoners had to cut through solid granite. And, as so often, the net result was next to worthless economically: far too narrow and shallow to be navigable by substantial vessels. Yet when Shaw's fellow Fabians Sidney and Beatrice Webb were given a tour of the finished canal they were oblivious to all this. As they put it in their book Soviet Communism: A New Civilization? (1935), it was 'pleasant to think that the warmest appreciation was officially expressed of the success of the OGPU, not merely in performing a great engineering feat, but in achieving a triumph in human regeneration'."

"The constituency parties were frequently little unrepresentative groups of nonentities dominated by fanatics and cranks, and extremists, and that if the block vote of the Trade Unions were eliminated it would be impracticable to continue to vest the control of policy in Labour Party Conferences."

"The capitalist is very fond of declaring that labour is a commodity, and the wage contract a bargain of purchase and sale like any other. But he instinctively expects his wage-earners to render him, not only obedience, but also personal deference. If the wage contract is a bargain of purchase and sale like any other, why is the workman expected to toff his hat to his employer, and to say ‘sir’ to him without reciprocity?"