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We depend, unhappily, to a great extent upon imports of oil... We cannot allow our people to go cold and hungry just because some people who claim to… - Frederick Lindemann, 1st Viscount Cherwell
" "We depend, unhappily, to a great extent upon imports of oil... We cannot allow our people to go cold and hungry just because some people who claim to speak for world opinion have suddenly arbitrarily introduced some novel concept of national sovereignty which apparently permits the Government of any country, at its own sweet will, to repudiate its obligations and refuse to honour its promises. In the old days the victim of such maltreatment would have insisted upon its rights, if necessarily by armed force. But this, we are told, is quite out of fashion—it would be "gunboat diplomacy." We must not use force: we must negotiate. You might as well say that, if someone snatches your watch in the street, you must not resist, still less take it back. You must negotiate with him. I suppose that, if you are lucky, you may recover the chain. If I believed that the Socialist leaders...could not grasp this simple train of reasoning, I should despair of the future of this country. Of course it is no doubt tempting to snatch a Party advantage by making sanctimonious speeches, and generally by taking what purports to be the high moral line in these matters; but it really shocked me that, when it was suggested in another place that the Government spokesman had in mind the protection of our oil supplies, he was greeted with boos and jeers. The Government actually, it seems, were trying to safeguard the vital interests of their country. What a terrible accusation!
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About Frederick Lindemann, 1st Viscount Cherwell
Frederick Alexander Lindemann, 1st Viscount Cherwell CH PC FRS (5 April 1886 – 3 July 1957) was a British physicist who was prime scientific adviser to Winston Churchill in World War II.
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Frederick Lindemann, 1. Viscount Cherwell
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Frederick Alexander Lindemann
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Frederick Alexander Lindemann Cherwell
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Additional quotes by Frederick Lindemann, 1st Viscount Cherwell
[W]e are told that no nation can stand out against world opinion; that we can rely upon the moral forces of the Assembly's resolution. Surely this is more wishful thinking. What is more, it is flatly contradicted by experience. For several years now U.N.O. has condemned Egypt for refusing to allow the passage of Israel's ships through the Suez Canal in direct conflict with its obligations under the 1888 Treaty. Has the moral force of this condemnation had any effect on the Egyptians? None whatever. By a huge majority U.N.O. has called upon Russia to withdraw its troops from Hungary. Has the moral force of this resolution had any effect? Ask the Hungarians. If the Russians do not comply, we are told, they will be branded by the Assembly. The trouble is, that they have been branded already, and they do not seem to mind.
Why is it that we have nothing to compare with these great technological universities in this country? The main reason, I fear, is because we suffer from a most lamentable type of intellectual snobbery which causes the majority of our so-called educated people to look down on science and technology as some form of menial intellectual activity, on which civilised, cultured people need not embark and indeed are better without. I am not sure that traces of it have not survived even to this day in this House. I well remember—admittedly it was a good many years ago—mentioning to a Member of your Lordships' House a relative of his, the great Lord Rayleigh, certainly one of the six greatest physicists in the world. His comment was: "Oh, yes, he is a little odd, isn't he?—interested in chemistry and that sort of thing." That was what he said of one of the greatest physicists this country has known. It is to that attitude of mind, which has by no means died out, that many of our troubles are due.
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What I have said will, I fear, arouse indignation in some quarters. That is always the way when comfortable emotional beliefs which cannot be sustained by evidence on logical grounds are challenged. The magic syllables "U.N.O." have acquired the status of an invocation, almost of a prayer. To cast doubt on the Organisation is considered akin to blasphemy. The rôle of the iconoclast is always hateful, but facts and logic cannot simply be brushed aside. I therefore think it my duty, as one not linked in any way with the Government and still less with the Opposition, to refuse to foster what I believe to be a dangerous delusion which is rapidly becoming a snare.
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