To-day the most comprehensive system of social security ever introduced into any country would start in Britain. The four Acts—National Insurance, In… - Clement Attlee

In the ranks of Labour there would be no faltering until victory was won and German and Japanese aggression had been utterly defeated. But they had reached a stage when they could look beyond war to peace. In all our parties there was a firm resolve to build up a world system of security that would prevent our fellow men and women again being subjected to the horror of war. The lesson of the war of 1914–18 was...only half learnt. The idea of the League of Nations was right, but it was not put into practice. This time we must see to it that an international order is established in the world with the power and the will, and not merely the desire, to prevent war breaking out again.

The responsibility for dividing the world rests squarely on the shoulders of the Kremlin. We do not give up hope of reuniting the world, but it can only be done if the Communists give up their ideological imperialism, their attempt to bring the whole world into line, to confine every single person within the straitjacket of Marx-Leninism. We in the Labour movement do not believe in this dead dull uniformity. On the contrary, we believe that variety is of the essence of a free society.

[Attlee] reminded the delegates that it was vital to reduce costs by greater efficiency, which meant that both employers and employed had to seek in every way to attain it. He did not believe in lowering wages as a means of reducing costs, but equally it was necessary to realize that increases of wages that were not matched by increases of production would gravely impair their chances of getting rapidly over their difficulties. Increased demands for money payments, when there was no increase of goods to meet them led straight away to inflation. There was a danger that when a justifiable advance in wages for an under-paid section of the workers had been granted it resulted in demands from those who had enjoyed higher wages to maintain the same differential. This was bad economics and bad social morality. He had been disturbed at the evidence that some people were abusing the social services in such matters as sickness benefit. They could not have them sabotaged by misuse.