Give us another 3 or 4 months of production, not more hampered than it is at present, and we shall have something over, with which we can make oursel… - Neville Chamberlain

I do not propose to say many words tonight. The time has come when action rather than speech is required. Eighteen months ago in this House I prayed that the responsibility might not fall upon me to ask this country to accept the awful arbitrament of war. I fear that I may not be able to avoid that responsibility. But, at any rate, I cannot wish for conditions in which such a burden should fall upon me in which I should feel clearer than I do to-day as to where my duty lies... We shall stand at the bar of history knowing that the responsibility for this terrible catastrophe lies on the shoulders of one man—the German Chancellor, who has not hesitated to plunge the world into misery in order to serve his own senseless ambitions.

The most common cry, and this of course is chronic in the U.S.A., is "why are we always too late? why do we let Hitler take the initiative?" ... The answer to these questions is simple enough, but the questioners would rather not believe it. It is, "because we are not yet strong enough". ... We have plenty of man-power, but it is neither trained nor equipped. We are short of many weapons of offence and defence. Above all, we are short of air power. If we could weather this year, I believe we should be able to remove our worst deficiencies.

This morning the British Ambassador in Berlin handed the German Government a final note, stating that, unless we heard from them by 11 o'clock that they were prepared at once to withdraw their troops from Poland, a state of war would exist between us. I have to tell you now that no such undertaking has been received and that consequently this country is at war with Germany. … It is evil things that we will be fighting against—brute force, bad faith, injustice, oppression and persecution—and against them I am certain that the right will prevail.