Anthony Eden Quotes

Il serait impertinent pour un pays n’ayant pas subi l’occupation de porter un jugement sur un autre l’ayant subi.

He was confident that there was no nation at the present time which looked upon the armaments of this country with suspicion. On the contrary, if there was anxiety at all in respect of our armaments, it was rather a doubt lest, having reduced them so far in a world which had been increasing its armaments, we should not be in a position to fulfil the commitments which we had undertaken. These were the responsibilities which no Government could ignore.

I do not believe that we can make progress in European appeasement if we allow the impression to gain currency abroad that we yield to constant pressure. I am certain in my own mind that progress depends above all on the temper of the nation, and that temper must find expression in a firm spirit. This spirit I am confident is there. Not to give voice it is I believe fair neither to this country nor to the world.

There was only one sanction that could be immediately effective, and that sanction was to deny to Italy the use of the Suez Canal. That sanction must inevitably have entailed military action; there is no doubt of it. That military action must, in my judgment, inevitably have led to war... The only additional sanction that could have been immediately effective would have been the closing of the Canal... There was, in fact, no immediately effective sanction that could have been taken but that. If the hon. Gentleman answers "Yes, he would have closed the Canal," how utterly illogical is the position of hon. Gentlemen opposite when they vote against all Estimates for the provision of armaments—[Interruption]—and when they denounce the Budget of my right hon. Friend as a war Budget. The truth is that while hon. Gentlemen opposite profess to support the League with horse, foot, and artillery, they really only mean to support it with threats, insults and perorations.

Although [in 1937] we might still hope to prevent the divisions of Europe into Fascist and anti-Fascist camps, our real affinities and interests, strategic as well as political, lay with France, a fact which some of my colleagues were most reluctant to recognise.

There is now doubt in our minds that Nasser, whether he likes it or not, is now effectively in Russian hands, just as Mussolini was in Hitler's. It would be as ineffective to show weakness to Nasser now in order to placate him as it was to show weakness to Mussolini.

We cannot agree that an act of plunder which threatens the livelihood of many nations should be allowed to succeed. And we must make sure that the life of the great trading nations of the world cannot in the future be strangled at any moment by some interruption to the free passage of the Canal.

In my view there is no security in armaments comparable to that which can be derived from the effective working of a collective peace system. The foreign policy of his Majesty's Government is unalterably based upon the League of Nations as being the most effective mechanism yet devised to operate such a system. It will, I am confident, be clear to any impartial critic upon examination that the moderate measures of national defence provided for in the White Paper do not constitute in themselves any departure from that policy.

Mr. Greenwood, when moving the Amendment yesterday, told us that the war would shake many strongly held views. I fear that this war will do very much more than that. The war will bring about changes which may be fundamental and revolutionary in the economic and social life of this country. On that we are all agreed.

[It] has had the effect of making us the 49th state [of America].

Results bad...whole tone and temper very different to a year ago, rearmed and rearming with the old Prussian spirit very much in evidence. Russia is now the bogey.

The British public is not anti-German at present but it would be opposed to any country which showed the intention of breaking the peace. A great many people in England think that French rigidity has helped Hitler's rise. People in England are neither pro-French nor anti-German. If they were finally convinced that Germany intended to break the peace, they would align themselves accordingly.

Britain's military defences were miserably weak [in 1935]. Many members of the Government thought that the Foreign Office ought to be able to resolve our European difficulties and so render rearmament unnecessary. I, on the other hand, was convinced that we could only reach worthwhile agreements if we were strong in spirit as our rearmament made itself felt. The Labour and Liberal Oppositions, though detesting the dictators, failed in their duty by voting and speaking against all measures to provide their country with the armaments to which alone Nazis and Fascists would give heed.

If you drive a nation to adopt procedures which run counter to its instincts, you weaken and may destroy the motive force of its action...You will realise that I am speaking of the frequent suggestion that the United Kingdom should join a federation on the continent of Europe. This is something which we know, in our bones, we cannot do... For Britain's story and her interests lie far beyond the continent of Europe. Our thoughts move across the seas to the many communities in which our people play their part, in every corner of the world. These are our family ties. That is our life: without it we should be no more than some millions of people living in an island off the coast of Europe, in which nobody wants to take any particular interest.

All my life, I've been a man of peace, working for peace, striving for peace, negotiating for peace. I've been a League of Nations man and a United Nations man and I'm still the same man with the same convictions, the same devotion to peace. I couldn't be other even if I wished. But I'm utterly convinced that the action we have taken is right.