Austen Chamberlain: Government

Austen Chamberlain was British politician. Explore interesting quotes on government.
Austen Chamberlain: 24 quotes0 likes

“The affairs of the world do not stand still… I could not go, as the representative of His Majesty's Government, to meeting after meeting of the League of Nations, to conference after conference with the representatives of foreign countries, and say, "Great Britain is without a policy. We have not yet been able to meet all the Governments of the Empire, and we can do nothing." That might be possible for an Empire wholly removed from Europe, which existed in a different hemisphere. It was not possible for an Empire the heart of which lies in Europe and next door to the Continent of Europe, and where every peril to the peace of Europe jeopardised the peace of this country.”

Austen Chamberlain

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1925/nov/18/treaty-of-mutual-guarantee in the House of Commons (18 November 1925). <br class="br">1920s

“No British Government ever will and ever can risk the bones of a British grenadier.”

Austen Chamberlain

Letter to Sir Eyre Crowe (16 February 1925) on the Polish Corridor, quoted in Keith Middlemas and John Barnes, Baldwin: A Biography (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1969), p. 356.
1920s

“Revision is a dangerous word. Revision should never appear, I venture to think, in the mouth of a statesman or in the policy of a Government until they are prepared to define very closely the limits within which they think revision should take place. The long history of this country has in one sense been a history of the revision of Treaties. We have revised and revised and what have we got for it? What concession once made has any longer kept the value it had before it was revised? Of which of these concessions can it be said at this present moment that it has tempered feeling in Germany, that it has produced that friendly spirit that those who made it desired to promote? What is passing in Germany seems to me to render this a singularly inopportune moment to talk about the revision of Treaties.”

Austen Chamberlain

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1933/apr/13/adjournment-easter-1 in the House of Commons (13 April 1933) questioning revisions of the Treaty of Versailles <br class="br">1930s