Presbyterians

"[W]e shall begin the exploitation of national resources like mines; or we shall begin the process of industrial reconstruction by agrarian policies which will bring the towns into contact with the country, re-populate the deserted villages, and re-till the waste fields."

"Ramsay MacDonald was a born leader, with a commanding personality and a magnificent presence; the most handsome man in public life. He was a great orator whose deep, resonant voice and sweeping gestures added to the force of his words. In his vehemence, however, he sometimes perpetrated startling malapropisms, and I remember him calling on delegates at an ILP conference to "work by day and propagate by night"."

"The Gladstone of Labour."

"MacDonald simply couldn't understand why he had been deserted by his former close friends. He felt that he had departed from none of his Socialist principles and had been true to the conceptions which had guided them through his political life."

"Early in the year 1923, Mr. Bonar Law resigned the Premiership and retired to die of his fell affliction. Mr. Baldwin succeeded him as Prime Minister, and Lord Curzon reconciled himself to the office of Foreign Secretary in the new Administration. Thus began that period of fourteen years which may well be called “The Baldwin-MacDonald Régime.” During all that time Mr. Baldwin was always, in fact if not in form, either at the head of the Government or leader of the Opposition, and as Mr. MacDonald never obtained an independent majority, Mr. Baldwin, whether in office or opposition, was the ruling political figure in Britain. At first in alternation but eventually in political brotherhood, these two statesmen governed the country. Nominally the representatives of opposing parties, of contrary doctrines, of antagonistic interests, they proved in fact to be more nearly akin in outlook, temperament, and method than any other two men who had been Prime Ministers since that office was known to the Constitution. Curiously enough, the sympathies of each extended far into the territory of the other. Ramsay MacDonald nursed many of the sentiments of the old Tory. Stanley Baldwin, apart from a manufacturer’s ingrained approval of protection, was by disposition a truer representative of mild Socialism than many to be found in the Labour ranks."

"Of the Budget as a whole, I say "Bravo". I am going to support it through thick and thin."

"Even if every person in the country had the ideal virtues that the working classes were asked by certain rather thin skinned and somewhat stilted critics of theirs to possess, and the capacity to turn his attention to every skilled trade in the country, and the very finest technical skill at his command, so long as they had the present system of industrial anarchy, when demand was never gauged by those controlling supply, when overproduction was a feature of one series of years and under-consumption a feature of another, they would have to face the unemployed problem. If that were so, it became a matter for the State to settle. The time had come to banish for ever from their thoughts the old-fashioned heresy that unemployment was merely the expression of individual shortcomings. Unemployment was the expression of the failure of social organisation, and so it became the duty of the State to protect the unemployed men from the awful horrors that attended unemployment."

"It is to MacDonald's credit that he came out strongly against this one-sided attitude, and in an article of April 27 [1935] in the News Letter, the weekly paper of the National Labour Party, severely criticised the Germans for their intransigent militarism, and the Germanophiles in this country for their blindness in swallowing the German case."

"The channels of world trade are so obstructed by the pursuit of nationalist economic policy that steps should be taken at once to make it possible to arrive at an international economic agreement which would revive international trade. A return to free trade pure and simple would only increase unemployment."

"This nation ought to be quipped to defend itself and to fulfil its responsibility under the League system of mutual assistance in the event of an aggressor coming to threaten us all. A defenceless Britain at this stage of evolution will not be an aid to peace but an incentive to war. But we must watch very closely lest the acceptance of the responsibility to prepare for defence may lead to a policy of militarism for its own sake. We draw this distinction and will continue to observe it."

"The Liberal Party, rallying round the standard of free trade, to which I also adhered, gained a balancing position at the polls, and, though in a minority, might well have taken office had Mr. Asquith wished to do so. In view of his disinclination, Mr. Ramsay MacDonald, at the head of little more than two-fifths of the House, became the first Socialist Prime Minister of Great Britain, and lived in office for a year by the sufferance and on the quarrels of the two older parties. The nation was extremely restive under minority Socialist rule, and the political weather became so favourable that the two Oppositions – Liberal and Conservative – picked an occasion to defeat the Socialist Government on a major issue. There was another general election – the third in less than two years. The Conservatives were returned by a majority of 222 over all other parties combined. At the beginning of this election Mr. Baldwin’s position was very weak, and he made no particular contribution to the result. He had, however, previously maintained himself as party leader, and as the results were declared, it became certain he would become again Prime Minister. He retired to his home to form his second Administration."

"[Trade unions should identify] with something higher and wider than trade union industrial demands. It must set these demands into a system of national well-being; the wage earner must become the citizen: the union must become the guardian of economic justice."

"He had been across the veldt, he had seen the battlefields, the still open trenches, and it all came to Chinese labour. They were told it was going to release the slaves, the Uitlanders, to open up South Africa to a great flood of white emigrants. They were told it was going to plant the Union Jack upon the land of the free. But the echoes of the muskets had hardly died out on the battlefields, the ink on the treaty was hardly dry, before the men who plotted the war began to plot to bring in Chinese slaves. (Cheers.) They could talk about their gold; their gold is tainted. (Hear, hear.) They could talk about employing white men; it was not true, and even if it were true, was he going to stand and see his white brothers degraded to the position of yellow slave drivers? No, he was not. (Loud and continued cheers.) These patriots! These miserable patriots! If they had had the custodianship of the opinions of the country 75 years ago, slavery in the colonies would have continued. When the north was fighting the south for the liberty of men, these men would have counted their guineas, would have told them how many white men had plied the lash in the southern states, and they would have said that for miserable cash, miserable trash, the great name of the country required to be bought and sold. Thank God there were no twentieth century Unionist imperialists in office then. (Loud cheers.)"

"That blot on the peace of the world, the Treaty of Versailles, is vanishing, and for that I am thankful... France has again had a severe lesson, and I hope it will take it this time. In any event the folly of pandering to it by standing rigidly to the letter of Versailles or Locarno...must now be plain and this logical and legalistic nation should be brought to face reality."

"The substance of Germany's general case has a background of reason and human nature. I cannot be accused of ever having approached it in the "mind of Versailles," nor in the spirit of one who assumed that a powerful and a proud people could be kept subordinate by force (even by what seems to be an overwhelming force), nor have I ever seen anything but disaster issuing from and to the League of Nations if it is used by victors to perpetuate the position and mind they were in on the day of their victory... But, be that as it may, Germany has acted in such a way as to destroy the feeling of mutual confidence in Europe. It has broken up the road to peace and has beset it with terrors. It claims a measure of armed power which puts most of the nations of Europe at its mercy. Every reflecting and reasonable German must see the force of the point I am making. He must know in his heart that Berlin is not enough—that, in fact, it has upset very much more than it has pacified."

"I cannot refrain from wishing you God-Speed in your election contest... [L]et the consequences be what they may, do not withdraw. The cause of Labour in Scotland and of Scottish Nationality will suffer much thereby. Your defeat will awaken Scotland and your victory will re-construct Scottish Liberalism. All success be yours, and the National cause you champion. There is no miner – and no other one for that matter – who is a Scotsman and not ashamed of it, who will vote against you in favour of an English barrister, absolutely ignorant of Scotland and of Scottish affairs."

"The most secure nation in the whole of Europe, until it roused suspicions and fears against itself, was Germany. The German people who believe stories of encirclement cannot help recognising that their latest policy of military expansion, together with the circumstances of its declaration—an army greater than that of any other nation in Europe, an air force already declared equal to ours, a fleet that would be equal to the French and superior to the Italian—must rouse fear and unsettlement in the mind of every nation at which it can strike, and inevitably force the sound pacific idea of general collective security into the dangerous form of military alliances. The nations which were backward in making their contributions are now congratulating themselves that they waited for Germany to make its contribution first."

"Mr. Rockefeller not only owns the Standard Oil supplies: he controls the railways, the banks, the shops...upon which his Trust depends. The Steel Corporation not only makes steel; it owns coal and iron fields, ore steamers, the Erie and Pittsburgh mineral railway, as well as the operatives in Homestead. We oppose the Trust, not as an organisation, but because it is controlled by individuals for their own ends...But the Trust points out the line of British advance. In this country, however, the introduction of the Trust should be marked by public ownership."

"What we have to do is to doom the slums. And we have done it. It is going to take a year or two. We are not only going to doom slums, we are going to doom overcrowding. Next Session the House of Commons will...pass legislation which is going to doom overcrowding as we have already doomed the slums."

"My first grave doubts as to German diplomacy arose when Germany left the League of Nations for reasons which I have never been able to appreciate, except upon assumptions which meant that the German Government was indifferent to the pacification of Europe."

"The books that influenced me most were Hugh Miller's, particularly his "Schools and Schoolmasters." Also the "Waverley Novels," in conjunction with Scottish History, opened out the great world of national life for and led me on to politics. But Hugh Miller had more influence upon me than any other."

"The State does not concern itself primarily with man as possessor of rights, but with man as the doer of duties. A right is the opportunity of fulfilling a duty, and it should be recognised only in so far as it is necessary to the performance of duty... Nor should the State grant the "right" to the franchise unless by doing so it is promoting its own ends...as man approaches the fullness of liberty which he can enjoy only when he is perfect, his rights become more ample... The State regards the man as a carrier of human life between the Past and the Future, and assigns to him the work of realising the Future from the Past. It shows him the path."

"The general election of May, 1929, showed that the “swing of the pendulum” and the normal desire for change were powerful factors with the British electorate. The Socialists had a small majority over the Conservatives in the new House of Commons. The Liberals, with about sixty seats, held the balance, and it was plain that under Mr. Lloyd George’s leadership they would, at the outset at least, be hostile to the Conservatives. Mr. Baldwin and I were in full agreement that we should not seek to hold office in a minority or on precarious Liberal support. Accordingly, although there were some differences of opinion in the Cabinet and the party about the course to be taken, Mr. Baldwin tendered his resignation to the King. We all went down to Windsor in a special train to give up our seals and offices; and on June 7, Mr. Ramsay MacDonald became for the second time Prime Minister at the head of a minority Government depending upon Liberal votes. The Socialist Prime Minister wished his new Labour Government to distinguish itself by large concessions to Egypt, by a far-reaching constitutional change in India, and by a renewed effort for world, or at any rate British, disarmament. These were aims in which he could count upon Liberal aid, and for which he therefore commanded a parliamentary majority. Here began my differences with Mr. Baldwin, and thereafter the relationship in which we had worked since he chose me for Chancellor of the Exchequer five years before became sensibly altered. We still, of course, remained in easy personal contact, but we knew we did not mean the same thing. My idea was that the Conservative Opposition should strongly confront the Labour Government on all great imperial and national issues, should identify itself with the majesty of Britain as under Lord Beaconsfield and Lord Salisbury, and should not hesitate to face controversy, even though that might not immediately evoke a response from the nation. So far as I could see, Mr. Baldwin felt that the times were too far gone for any robust assertion of British imperial greatness, and that the hope of the Conservative Party lay in accommodation with Liberal and Labour forces, and in adroit, well-timed manoeuvres to detach powerful moods of public opinion and large blocks of voters from them. He certainly was very successful. He was the greatest party manager the Conservatives had ever had. He fought, as their leader, five general elections, of which he won three. History alone can judge these general issues."

"One of the great reasons why I belong to the Labour Party and hold the Socialist views of what a wise and just social structure is, is because I detest class politics and want to end them in real national unity. In bringing that about we have to consider the claims of the great mass of our people, who, on account of their poverty, cannot adequately protect themselves. What has national unity meant to them? A change in a machine can make them outcasts; a change in fashion can make them paupers... The Labour Party wants to bring within the bounds and the meaning of this national unity the bottom dog, as he is called. For this purpose we have organised our great public services. The Labour Party wishes to develop them."

"Factory Laws, Fair Wages resolutions, Trade Unionism itself, are...all Protection – not the Protection of Mr. Chaplin, the landlord, nor of Mr. Chamberlain, the demagogue, but the Protection of the Socialist."

"I know that, when the troubled history of these times comes to be studied and recorded in the cold and just light of truth, all the blame will not lie at Germany's door. That will not save it, its methods and its self-will, as shown in these latter days, from the blame of destroying the chances of success in peacemaking which were once again presenting themselves to us, and of throwing the mind of Europe suddenly into anxiety and turning it back upon the fatal ways of militarism, thus compelling the nations of Europe to return for an evanescent comfort to increased military equipment."

"Malcolm MacDonald, son of the Labour Prime Minister, Ramsay MacDonald, invited Ralph and me to meet his father and spend the night at Chequers. We met the Prime Minister along the road as he was taking his constitutional walk in his plus-fours, his scarf, his cap, his pipe and walking stick, a typical country squire, the last person to look like a leader of the Labour Party. My first impression was of a gentleman of great dignity, extremely conscious of the burden of premiership, with a noble countenance which was not without humour. The first part of the evening was somewhat restrained. But after dinner we went to the famous historical Long Room for coffee, and after viewing the original Cromwellian death mask and other historical objects we got down to a cosy chat. I told him that since my first visit there was a great deal of chance for the better. In 1921 I had seen much poverty in London, grey-haired old ladies sleeping on the Thames Embankment, but now those old lades were gone; no more were derelicts sleeping there. The shops looked well stocked and the children well shod, and that, surely, must be to the credit of the Labour Government."

"There was one at Paris, however, who for a brief three months represented the conscience of Europe. It is difficult to explain why it should have been Castlereagh who resisted the Prussian clamour for the dismemberment of France in which even Metternich joined to the extent of demanding the permanent dismantling of the outer belt of French fortifications. Or why he should have refused always in such periods to go along with the Cabinet and Parliament, both urging a punitive peace. Yet France was spared and the equilibrium of Europe saved by the representative of the insular power which stood in least danger from immediate attack. At no other time in his career did Castlereagh show to greater advantage than in his battle for the equilibrium at Paris. Misunderstood at home, without the support of the moral framework which Metternich had provided in previous frays, he conducted himself with his customary methodical reserve, cumbersomely persuasive, motivated by an instinct always surer than his capacity for expression. This was the man on whom Europe for two generations heaped opprobrium as the destroyer of its liberties, because so much had the political equilibrium come to be taken for granted that the social contest overshadowed all else; to the extent that it was forgotten that without the political structure so resolutely preserved by Castlereagh, there would have been no social substance left to contend for."

"I met Murder on the way— He had a mask like Castlereagh—"

"As a Minister he is a great loss to his party, and still greater to his friends and dependants, to whom he was the best of patrons; to the country I think he is none. Nobody can deny that his talents were great, and perhaps he owed his influence and authority as much to his character as to his abilities. His appearance was dignified and imposing; he was affable in his manners and agreeable in society. The great feature of his character was a cool and determined courage, which gave an appearance of resolution and confidence to all his actions, and inspired his friends with admiration and excessive devotion to him, and caused him to be respected by his most violent opponents. As a speaker he was prolix, monotonous, and never eloquent, except, perhaps, for a few minutes when provoked into a passion by something which had fallen out in debate... He never spoke ill; his speeches were continually replete with good sense and strong argument, and though they seldom offered much to admire, they generally contained a great deal to be answered. I believe he was considered one of the best managers of the House of Commons who ever sat in it, and he was eminently possessed of the good taste, good-humor, and agreeable manners which are more requisite to make a good leader than eloquence, however brilliant."

"As for my friend Lord Castlereagh, he is so cold that nothing can warm him."

"[I]t was this man, more than any other, who forged again a European connection for Britain, who maintained the Coalition, and negotiated the settlement which in its main outlines was to last for over fifty years. Psychologists may well ponder how it came about that this Irish peer, whose career had given no indication of profound conceptions, should become the most European of British statesmen. No man more different from his great protagonist, Metternich, could be imagined. Metternich was elegant, facile, rationalist; Castlereagh, solid, ponderous, pragmatic; the former was witty and eloquent, if somewhat pedantic; the latter cumbersome in expression, although effective in debate; Metternich was doctrinaire and devious; Castlereagh, matter-of-fact and direct. Few individuals have left behind them such a paucity of personal reminiscences. Icy and reserved, Castlereagh walked his solitary path, as humanly unapproachable as his policy came to be incomprehensible to the majority of his countrymen. It was said of him that he was like a splendid summit of polished frost, icy, beautiful, aloof, of a stature that nobody could reach and few would care to."

"There probably never was a statesman whose ideas were so right and whose attitude to public opinion was so wrong. Such disparity between the grasp of ends and the understanding of means amounts to a failure in statesmanship."

"Most sincerely do I congratulate you; and be assured that the fullest justice is done to the great abilities you have displayed through the whole of the transactions which you have so successfully and wonderfully managed. Your superiority and authority are now fixed."

"It is not, however, by one or two isolated successes that Lord Castlereagh's foreign policy ought to be tried. It is best judged by its general results. During the war his aim was to overthrow Napoleon, and to reduce France within her ancient limits. After the war his aim was to uphold the balance of power, and so to secure lasting peace to Europe. When the direction of England's foreign policy passed from his hands, both objects had been attained... For forty years the peace of Europe flourished undisturbed by one single conflict between any of the five great Powers who adjusted their differences at Vienna... Europe has not enjoyed so long a repose from the curse of war since the fall of the Roman empire. Such an achievement is an ample justification of the acts of the Congress of Vienna and of the minister who bore so large a part in shaping its decrees."

"It was a mere calumny to call him an enemy to freedom. In its truest and most literal sense—the exemption from oppression—he did more for it than any statesman of his age. We have the testimony of the Duke of Wellington, that he had done more to destroy the slave-trade than any man in Europe; and the struggle which absorbed the best years of his life was a struggle on a vast scale for the liberties of mankind."

"Just and passionless."

"He had now the satisfaction to say, that although he was unable to announce the immediate and actual abolition of the [[Atlantic slave trade|[slave] trade]], all the Powers of Europe had agreed that it should not be extended beyond the period at which by possibility it could be terminated. They had concurred in a solemn address to the world, on the necessity of sweeping a trade, so intolerable in a moral point of view, from the face of the earth, and had pledged themselves to take no further time for that purpose than was necessary for the internal regulation of their own dominions."

"On the sad day following that of his death, one of his servants was asked whether he had remarked any change in him; the answer was 'Yes;' and being further asked to state the nature of the change, he replied, 'One day he spoke sharply to me!'"

"As opposed to France, a peace concluded in concert, though less advantageous in its terms, would be preferable to the largest concessions received from the enemy as the price of disunion. The great object of the Allies, whether in war or negotiation, should be to keep together, and to drive back and confine the armies of France within the circle of their own immediate resources. This alone can bring down the military force of the enemy to its natural level, and save Europe from being progressively conquered with its own spoils."

"It is this common danger which ought always to be kept in view as the true basis of the alliance, and which ought to preclude defection from the common cause. It must be represented to the Allies that having determined to deliver themselves from the vengeance of the conqueror by their collective strength, if collectively they fail, they are separately lost. He never will again trust any one of them with the means of self-defence—their only rational policy then is inseparable union—to make the contest that of their respective nations, to persevere under every disaster, and to be satisfied that to end the contest safely the enemy must be compelled to treat with them collectively, whilst the best chance of an early peace is at once to satisfy the enemy that a separate negotiation is unattainable."

"The present Confederacy may be considered as the union of nearly the whole of Europe against the unbounded and faithless ambition of an individual Napoleon]. It comprehends not only all the great monarchies, but a great proportion of the secondary Powers. It is not more distinguished from former Confederacies against France by the number and magnitude of the Powers engaged than by the national character which the war has assumed throughout the respective states. On former occasions it was a contest of sovereigns, in some instances perhaps, against the prevailing sentiment of their subjects; it is now a struggle dictated by the feelings of the people of all ranks as well as by the necessity of the case. The sovereigns of Europe have at last confederated together for their common safety, having in vain sought that safety in detached and insulated compromises with the enemy. They have successively found that no extent of submission could procure for them either safety or repose, and that they no sooner ceased to be objects of hostility themselves, than they were compelled to become instruments in the hands of France for effectuating the conquest of other unoffending states. The present Confederacy may therefore be pronounced to originate in higher motives and to rest upon more solid principles than any of those that have preceded it, and the several Powers to be bound together for the first time by one paramount consideration of an imminent and common danger."

"Put all their other men together in one scale, and poor Castlereagh in the other—single, he plainly weighed them down... One can't help feeling a little for him, after being pitted against him for several years pretty regularly. It is like losing a connection suddenly. Also, he was a gentleman, and the only one amongst them."

"I feel no wrath against the people. I am only doing my duty."

"I have no doubt the middle line would be the most popular, and that, in extorting the permanent cession of one or two fortresses of great name, our labours would carry with them an éclat which is not likely to attend them, according to the course we recommend. But it is not our business to collect trophies, but to try if we can bring back the world to peaceful habits. I do not believe this to be compatible with any attempt now materially and permanently to affect the territorial character of France, as settled by the Peace of Paris; neither do I think it a clear case (if we can, by imposing a strait waistcoat upon that Power for a number of years, restore her to ordinary habits, and weighing the extraordinary growth of other States in latter times, and especially of Russia) that France, even with her existing dimensions, may not be found a useful rather than a dangerous member of the European system."

"[F]rom Napoleon's tyranny time gave no respite, and insignificance no escape. His exactions ground down every income, and his massacres, thinly disguised under military names, thinned every village, from Reggio to Lilbeck. To have borne a large part in freeing Europe from such a scourge as this—to have provided securities that made it for the future an impossibility—was to have done a greater service to the cause of freedom than any shifting of the equilibrium of electoral power is ever likely to effect."

"My belief and hope, then, is, if the arrangement is made with some attention to the feelings and interests of the country, that the King, his Government, and the loyal party in France, will ally themselves with you; and that, thus sustained, the King will be able gradually to establish his authority, which, if accomplished, is valuable beyond all other securities we can acquire. If he fails, we shall not have to reproach ourselves with having precipitated his fall, and we shall have full time to take our precautions. If, on the contrary, we push things now to an extremity, we leave the King no resource in the eyes of his own people but to disavow us; and, once committed against us in sentiment, he will be obliged soon either to lead the nation into war himself, or possibly be set aside to make way for some more bold and enterprising competitor. The whole of this view of the question turns upon a conviction that the King's cause in France is far from hopeless, if well conducted, and that the European alliance can be made powerfully instrumental to his support, if our securities are framed in such a manner as not to be ultimately hostile to France, after she shall have given protracted proofs of having ceased to be a revolutionary State."

"To suppose that the Powers on the side of Germany might be induced to sign a peace, leaving Great Britain and the nations of the Peninsula to carry on the war, or that the enemy being expelled from the Peninsula, Spain might sheath the sword, leaving the Continental Powers to sustain the undivided shock of French power, is to impute to them all a total blindness to their common safety. Were either of these interests to attempt to shelter themselves in a separate peace, it must leave France master of the fate of the other, and ultimately of both. It is by the war in Spain that Russia has been preserved, and that Germany may be delivered; it is by the war in Germany that Spain may look to escape the subjugation that otherwise ultimately await her. So long as both manfully contend in the field against France, neither can be absolutely overwhelmed, and both, upon every sound principle of military calculation, must by perseverance triumph. To determine to stand or fall together is their only safety, and to effect this the confederates must be brought to agree to certain fixed principles of common interest."

"No doubt, the prevailing sentiment throughout Germany is in favour of territorially reducing France. After all the people have suffered, and with the ordinary inducements of some fresh acquisitions, it is not wonderful that it should be so; but it is one thing to wish the thing done, and another to maintain it when done; and, in calculating the chances of the latter, we ought to be aware that none of these Powers can, for any time, keep up war establishments, or, having once laid them down, find the means of speedily resuming them; and that, if the course adopted materially increases the chances of early war with France, these acquisitions may be of short duration, whilst our chances of an interval of peace will be diminished, and we may be obliged, in order to keep France within any bounds, to take the weight of the war, in a pecuniary sense, upon ourselves."

"I cannot, therefore, reconcile it to my sense of duty to embark in a scheme for new modelling the position of the Greek population in those countries at the hazard of all the destructive confusion and disunion which such an attempt may lead to, not only within Turkey but in Europe. I am by no means persuaded, were the Turks even miraculously to be withdrawn (what it would cost of blood and suffering forcibly to expel them I now dismiss from my calculations) that the Greek population, as it now subsists or is likely to subsist for a course of years, could frame from their own materials a system of government less defective either in its external or internal character, and especially as the question regards Russia, than that which at present unfortunately exists. I cannot, therefore, be tempted, nor even called upon in moral duty under loose notions of humanity and amendment, to forget the obligations of existing Treaties, to endanger the frame of long established relations, and to aid the insurrectionary efforts now in progress in Greece, upon the chance that it may, through war, mould itself into some scheme of government, but at the certainty that it must in the meantime, open a field for every ardent adventurer and political fanatic in Europe to hazard not only his own fortune, but what is our province more anxiously to watch over, the fortune and destiny of that system to the conservation of which our latest solemn transactions with our Allies have bound us."