Top 15 Rab Butler Quotes

We don't have to take this Thatcher business seriously, do we?

I had derived from Bolingbroke an assurance that the majesty of the State might be used in the interests of the many, from Burke a belief in seeking patterns of improvement by balancing diverse interests, and from Disraeli an insistence that the two nations must become one. If my brand of Conservatism was unorthodox, I was committing heresy in remarkably good company.

I do not believe that unless you can persuade parents that the family should still remain the unit in which discipline is applied, you will never get a conquest of the crime wave. ... We have created a better and happier state from the material point of view, but, at the same time, there is no doubt that the younger generation, especially just before leaving school, and between the ages of 17 and 19, are much more unruly than is right in a modern, civilized society.

The Government will have to give consideration to the question of how much this inflow can be assimilated into our society at the present time. If you give the Government a little longer, we shall try to find a solution as friendly to these people as we can and not based on colour prejudice alone.

I have said on many occasions, in Parliament and elsewhere, that I am not convinced that this [the restoration of corporal punishment for young offenders] would have the effect for which its advocates hope.

Conservatives have always been ready to use the power of the State.

Truly Conservative policies [are] freeing markets, freeing the economy, giving the economy buoyancy, moving to liberty and the desirable goal of freeing payments and trade.

In the past three years we have burned our identity cards, torn up our ration books, halved the number of snoopers, decimated the number of forms and said good riddance to nearly two-thirds of the remaining wartime regulations. This is the march to freedom on which we are bound. And the pace must quicken as we go forward...Within the limits of law and social justice, our aim is freedom for every man and woman to live their own lives in their own way and not have their lives lived for them by an overweening State.

We want to keep prices stable for two reasons—to hold on to our share of world markets, and to avoid strains and dislocations at home. We are probably entering a period when it will be more difficult to keep prices from rising. It is a matter for both sides of industry to see that increased money returns, either dividends or wages, are matched by increased output.

There are great economic opportunities ahead of us. If we are sensible, we can have rising production and rising standards of living without constantly rising prices. Why should we not aim to double our standard of living in the next 20 years, and still have our money as valuable then as now? The faster we modernize and expand our productive capacity, the more we shall be able to increase the national wealth.

If we continue to use industrial resources for other purposes – defence, housing, etc. – thus preventing the diversion of resources to export work, the [exchange] rate will continue to fall. ... the basic idea of internal stability of prices and employment, which had dominated economic policy for so long will not be maintainable. It will not be possible to maintain stable internal prices and wages; it will not be possible to avoid unemployment. There will be a continuous process of change and readjustment and much of this will be painful.

The more effective our own action to deal with our balance of payments deficit, the higher will be the [exchange] rate [of sterling], and the lower the cost of living. On the other hand, if we fail to deal with our internal problems effectively, and fail to organise the economy in a way which releases sufficient resources for exports, the rate will fall and the cost of living will rise accordingly. ... When we had gold reserves (and American aid) to take the impact of our balance of payments deficit, it was possible to insulate the economy from the failure to pay its way. This is no longer possible, and failure to pay our way will be felt by every family in the country in a rise in the cost of living.

[I]n conditions of full employment, such as we have today, it is clear that the bargaining power of Trade Unions is very strong. Employers in general can sell all they can produce profitably and are afraid that they will never get their labour back if they once lose it. Workers know that there is plenty of work available. Thus there is no real obstacle to the steady increase in wages, which in turn leads to corresponding increases in prices. I must tell my colleagues that I do not see any easy answer to this problem.

We should emerge from the rearmament period with inadequate reserves, with no assurance of further U.S. aid, with our export markets reduced, with a continuous and possibly increased claim on our resources for defence, with German and Japanese competition at full blast and finally, with industrial efficiency in a relatively worse position compared with the United States than it is now.

Conservatives were planning before the word entered the vocabulary of political jargon.