"As a nation we have two tasks; the one is to provide goods and services for our home needs, the other is to pay for the food and raw materials which we must get from abroad. Before the war we were rich; we owned money and railways and so forth abroad. The income from these helped to pay for our imports; but we sold these in order to help to win the war. We have therefore borrowed large sums from Canada and the United States to tide us over while we build up again, but when this money runs out we must pay for what we want from our own resources. To do this we must devote a far larger part than ever before of the wealth we produce to pay for imports."
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Prime Ministers of the United KingdomPoliticians from EnglandAcademics from EnglandLawyers from EnglandDemocratic socialists
Original Language: English
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Broadcast (18 March 1947), quoted in The Times (19 March 1947), p. 4
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Clement_Attlee
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Clement Attlee
Clement Richard Attlee, 1st Earl Attlee KG OM CH FRS PC (3 January 1883 – 8 October 1967) was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1945 to 1951. Coming from an upper middle class background, Attlee was converted to socialism through working in the East End of London and became MP for Limehouse in 1922 (later Walthamstow West from 1950–55). He served as Deputy Prime Minister in Winston Churchill's war cabinet during World War II. He was elected Labour Party leader in 1935 and won a lan
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