The voting strengths of the movement will come from the ranks of labour – the organised intelligent workers – the men who have had municipal and trad… - Ramsay MacDonald
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The voting strengths of the movement will come from the ranks of labour – the organised intelligent workers – the men who have had municipal and trade union experience – the men of self-respect who know the capacity of the people... They are to be the constructive agents of the next stage in our industrial evolution. But they are not to stand alone. Socialism is no class movement. Socialism is a movement of opinion, not an organization of status. It is not the rule of the working class; it is the organization of the community. Therefore, to my mind one of the most significant facts of the times is the conversion of the intellectual middle class to Socialism.
Ramsay MacDonald (12 October 1866 – 9 November 1937) was a British statesman who was the first ever Labour Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, leading a Labour Government in 1924, a Labour Government from 1929 to 1931, and a National Government from 1931 to 1935.
Portrait adapted from
Wikimedia Commons, Walter Stoneman (Public domain / CC0)
Also Known As
Birth Name:
James Ramsay MacDonald
•
James McDonald Ramsay
Alternative Names:
J. R. M.
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J. Ramsay McDonald
•
J. Ramsay MacDonald
I am in favour of arbitration—I see nothing else for the world. If we cannot devise a proper system of arbitration, then do not let us fool ourselves that we are going to have peace. Let us go back to the past, let us go back to competitive armaments, let us go back to that false, whited sepulchre of security and of military pacts—there is nothing else for us—and let us prepare for the next war, because that is inevitable.
Our loss of belief in the Liberal party is therefore owing to the fact that its day of historical fitness has passed away. The new problems of progress will demand treatment by men of different outlook, of a different political principle, of a different mental quality, of a new species of democratic sympathy. The mass of the Liberal party will no doubt continue progressive, but their organisation is not now the sole custodian of the progressive cause... The Independent Labour party is in the true line of the progressive apostolic succession. It alone is able to interpret the spirit of the time.
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[I]f we lose our chance now, which really means if this Government is to be continued in power, that chance will not return either to us or to our children. The memories of the last War will grow dim. The world will get back into its old rut, familiar professions and piety about peace will again soothe us to sleep, and the various countries will once more base their security upon military preparation. So they will all, in the end, find themselves drifting hopelessly upon those currents that make for war—1914 will be repeated... And remember what the next war is to be like. The old lines which divide combatants from non-combatants, the weak and the diseased from the strong and the robust, men from women and children, will all be obliterated and civilization itself assailed, and from sea and sky will be brought to a heap of ruins.
