Edward Grey, 1st Viscount Grey of Fallodon Quotes

If her independence goes, the independence of Holland will follow.

Mr. Lloyd George is a colleague with whom I have always been on the best of terms personally, and the Budget raises the money required in a way which presses much less, I believe, upon the poorer classes than any alternative that could be devised.

Though I know something about British birds I should have been lost and confused among American birds, of which unhappily I know little or nothing. Colonel Roosevelt not only knew more about American birds than I did about British birds, but he knew about British birds also. What he had lacked was an opportunity of hearing their songs, and you cannot get a knowledge of the songs of birds in any other way than by listening to them. We began our walk, and when a song was heard I told him the name of the bird. I noticed that as soon as I mentioned the name it was unnecessary to tell him more. He knew what the bird was like. It was not necessary for him to see it. He knew the kind of bird it was, its habits and appearance. He just wanted to complete his knowledge by hearing the song. He had, too, a very trained ear for bird songs, which cannot be acquired without having spent much time in listening to them. How he had found time in that busy life to acquire this knowledge so thoroughly it is almost impossible to imagine, but there the knowledge and training undoubtedly were. He had one of the most perfectly trained ears for bird songs that I have ever known, so that if three or four birds were singing together he would pick out their songs, distinguish each, and ask to be told each separate name; and when farther on we heard any bird for a second time, he would remember the song from the first telling and be able to name the bird himself.

[W]hat really determines the Foreign Policy of this country is the question of sea power. It is the Naval question which underlies the whole of our European Foreign Policy.

[The United States is like] a gigantic boiler. Once the fire is lighted under it there is no limit to the power it can generate.

Had it not been for the Anglo-Russian agreement the Russians would either have interfered to keep the Shah on the throne or their troops would have been in Tehran long before this.

The strength of the House of Commons is dissipated, its time consumed, and its dignity and reputation are threatened by the attempt to manage in one Assembly the purely local interests of different parts of the United Kingdom. Without some large measure of Devolution in the United Kingdom the House of Commons cannot attend to Imperial affairs and matters which concern the country as a whole.

Have you read Bernhardi's and Treitschke's books? I really knew nothing of them before the war, but they reveal a deliberate purpose and an animosity that are appalling. Every ideal except that of force is abolished: and truth, honour, kindliness, uprightness are all to go by the board in the interest of Germany and force. War is deliberately to be made horrible and terrible, that people may fear to resist German domination... It would be better that we should all perish than fall under the domination of the Junker spirit and people.

I did not...regard anything except my own letters and official papers as deciding policy.

It is a grave matter that a treaty should be broken or arbitrarily set aside; it is still graver when the idea of the sanctity of treaties being the foundation of peace is considered so chimerical that no one who upholds it can be honest, and that resentment at the breach of a treaty must necessarily be pretence and hypocrisy. That all this is of bad augury for the future of Europe is certain.

There is no question of England aiming at the hegemony of the world. Her Army is far too small for any such ambition. All we desire is to be able to live on equal terms. But when we see Germany, having created already the largest Army in the world, proceeding apparently towards the creation of the largest Fleet also, we are naturally anxious as to whether it is equal terms or hegemony that Germany wants.

[T]he real decision of the electors must be taken now, as always, on large principles and broad lines. Their real choice lies between those who are for the House of Lords and those who are for the House of Commons. I am frankly on the side of the House of Commons. A majority for the House of Lords means also a majority for Tariff Reform. I am for Free Trade as well as for a free Constitution, and for these I ask your support.

With the United States in the League of Nations, war may be prevented and armaments discouraged... Without a League of Nations, the old order of things will revive, the old consequences will recur, there will again be some great catastrophe of war in which the United States will again find itself compelled to intervene.

I should like to say a word to those who regard the Far Eastern question as a test case, and say that by it the League of Nations will stand or fall. In my opinion, it is a matter peculiarly unfitted to be a test case... There are people who ask, could not the League of Nations have done more? I will ask what more could it have done. The League of Nations is not a separate entity, but it is composed of the Governments of those countries who are members of the League and it cannot act unless those Governments are all in agreement that action should be taken. Does anyone suppose that those Governments would be in favour of going to war in this case, or, if they had been in favour of going to war, that they would have been successful? I do not like the idea of resorting to war to prevent war. What we wish is to prevent war. War is a disagreeable thing, even if it is to be resorted to in order to prevent a war. It is too much like lighting a large fire in order to prevent a smaller one. Anyhow this instance seems to me peculiarly unsuitable for any action of that sort on the part of the League of Nations.

Without the United States, the present League of Nations may become little better than a League of Allies for armed self-defence against a revival of Prussian militarism or against a military sequel to Bolshevism in Russia... The great object of the League of Nations is to prevent future war and to discourage, from the beginning, the growth of aggressive armaments which could lead to war. For this purpose it should operate at once, and begin here and now in the first years of peace to establish a reputation for justice, moderation, and strength. Without the United States it will have neither the overwhelming physical nor moral force behind it that it should have.