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David Lloyd George: 344 quotes2 likes

“The right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham said, in future what are you going to tax when you will want more money? He also not merely assumed but stated that you could not depend upon any economy in armaments. I think that is not so. I think he will find that next year there will be substantial economy without interfering in the slightest degree with the efficiency of the Navy. The expenditure of the last few years has been very largely for the purpose of meeting what is recognised to be a temporary emergency. … It is very difficult for one nation to arrest this very terrible development. You cannot do it. You cannot when other nations are spending huge sums of money which are not merely weapons of defence, but are equally weapons of attack. I realise that, but the encouraging symptom which I observe is that the movement against it is a cosmopolitan one and an international one. Whether it will bear fruit this year or next year, that I am not sure of, but I am certain that it will come. I can see signs, distinct signs, of reaction throughout the world. Take a neighbour of ours. Our relations are very much better than they were a few years ago. There is none of that snarling which we used to see, more especially in the Press of those two great, I will not say rival nations, but two great Empires. The feeling is better altogether between them. They begin to realise they can co-operate for common ends, and that the points of co-operation are greater and more numerous and more important than the points of possible controversy.”

David Lloyd George

Speech in the House of Commons http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1914/jul/23/finance-bill on the day the Austrian ultimatum was sent to Serbia (23 July 1914); The "neighbour" mentioned is Germany. <br class="br">Chancellor of the Exchequer

“Success to your meetings. Future of this country depends on breaking up the land monopoly—it withers the land, depresses wages, destroys independence, and drives millions into dwellings which poison their strength. Godspeed to every effort to put an end to this oppression.”

David Lloyd George

Telegram to a national conference to promote the taxation and rating of land held in Cardiff (13 October 1913), quoted in The Times (14 October 1913), p. 10
Chancellor of the Exchequer

“A ramshackle old empire.”

David Lloyd George

Speech of 1914; quoted in The Brunswick and Coburg Leader (16 October 1914). The "empire" mentioned is Austria-Hungary.
Chancellor of the Exchequer

“The outlook had become still more threatening since the Pact of Munich. So far from that notorious surrender purchasing appeasement, it had encouraged the dictators to a greater display of insolence. … Three years ago we discovered that our armaments in essentials for our defence had fallen far behind those of Germany, Italy, and Japan. It was a piece of criminal negligence. … During the past two years the dictators had, through our lack of foresight, through the gross stupidity of our national leaders, cleverly but relentlessly succeeded in placing the British Empire and France in the most dangerous strategical position which they had ever been situated.”

David Lloyd George

Speech in Llandudno (19 January 1939), quoted in The Times (20 January 1939), p. 14
Later life

“I propose that where private enterprise has been proved to be palpably unable, under present conditions…to solve our national difficulties and fulfil our national needs unaided by the State, the administrative and financial resources of the nation as a whole should be made responsible for setting on foot and supporting those developments in town and country which would bring into fruitful activity our undeveloped resources and opportunities.”

David Lloyd George

Speech in Bangor (17 January 1935), quoted in The Times (18 January 1935), p. 7
Later life

“All the trouble that had arisen in Europe had come from a flagrant breach of the undertaking to disarm by all the victors except one. … He knew that there had been horrible atrocities in Germany, and they all deplored and condemned them, but a country passing through a revolution was always liable to ghastly episodes owing to the administration of justice being seized here and there by an infuriated rebel. He was neither a Nazi nor a Fascist nor a Communist. If the Powers succeeded in overthrowing Nazism in Germany, what would follow? Not a Conservative, Socialist or Liberal régime, but extreme Communism. Surely that could not be their objective.”

David Lloyd George

Speech in Barmouth (22 September 1933), quoted in The Times (23 September 1933), p. 7
Later life

“Upon their casting vote depends the question whether Britain is to continue its honourable career as a pioneer in the path of human progress which, on the whole, it has pursued so nobly for generations, or whether it is in one leap to spring backward over 80 years and place itself on a level with the protectionist countries of the Continent of Europe, with their low wages, taxed food, fettered industries, and policy of international antagonisms, which interfere with prosperity and imperil the peace of the world. … Free trade is at issue. … I appeal fervently to Liberals not to walk straight into this booby trap set for them by the protectionists merely because it is decorated by the Union Jack.”

David Lloyd George

Election address (25 October 1931), quoted in The Times (26 October 1931), p. 14
Later life

“We are met together this afternoon under the shadow of a grave industrial conflict of unknown magnitude. Apart altogether from the merits of the dispute, every citizen will feel it his duty to support the Government of to-day in the maintenance of order and in the organizing and facilitating of the essential services of the nation. (Cheers.) The country must come first always and all the time. It is very deplorable and all the more deplorable because in my honest judgment it was unnecessary.”

David Lloyd George

Speech in Cambridge (1 May 1926) on the General Strike, quoted in The Times (3 May 1926), p. 9
Later life

“This is a Vote to spend £58,000,000 in protection of our trade routes. Our trade routes are in danger, but they are not in danger from navies. … They are not naval, they are not military, they are not aerial; they are industrial, and the First Lord of the Admiralty has within the last few days been brought face to face with far and away the greatest danger to our trade routes. It is not in the Pacific; it is at home. It is no use sweeping the vast expanse of the Pacific Ocean in order to see whether you can somehow or other find dangers to guard against. The danger is yawning in front of us, and the Government are marching into it, scanning the horizon with telescope glued to one eye, and the other closed.”

David Lloyd George

Speech https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1925/jul/29/navy-supplementary-estimate-1925-26#column_479 in the House of Commons (29 July 1925) <br class="br">Later life

“This is a Government of to-morrow. … It is all swagger and pose, and no action. Let it be done. No, he cannot do it, he is too busy doing other things. Russia must come first. No time to carry schemes for the unemployed, no time to deal with profiteering in food and in materials for building. … Yet there was time for a Russian loan. Moscow first, and Camberwell afterwards.”

David Lloyd George

Speech in Camberwell, London (27 October 1924) attacking Ramsay MacDonald's Labour Government, quoted in The Times (28 October 1924), p. 8
Later life

“The time has come for Liberalism to resume the leadership of progress—to lead away the masses from the chimeras of Karl Marx and the nightmares of Lenin, and to carry on the great task to which Gladstone and Bright devoted their noble lives.”

David Lloyd George

Later life
Source: Speech in Queen's Hall, Langham Place (14 October 1924) opening the Liberal Party's election campaign, quoted in The Times (15 October 1924), p. 10

“In the war we had got out of the danger of the military spirit in Europe trampling upon human liberty, and were now confronted with a menace from inside our own country—such a menace as had destroyed Russia. That menace was an attack upon the very life-blood of Britain, and unless it was arrested at the start, the whole fabric of the commerce, trade, and prosperity of this country would come down and Britain the mighty, whose name ringed round the earth, would become a poor thing.”

David Lloyd George

Speech in Haverfordwest (10 November 1922) during the general election campaign, quoted in The Times (11 November 1922), p. 12
Later life

“It is always a mistake to threaten unless you mean it, and it is because not merely we threatened, but we meant it, and the Turks knew that we meant it, that you have peace now.”

David Lloyd George

Speech in Manchester (14 October 1922) referring to the Chanak Crisis, quoted in The Times (16 October 1922), p. 17
Prime Minister

“Trial of the Kaiser; punishment of those responsible for atrocities; fullest indemnities from Germany; Britain for the British, socially and industrially; rehabilitation of those broken in the war; and a happier country for all.”

David Lloyd George

Election programme contained in a foreword to an official list of Coalition candidates, quoted in The Times (11 December 1918), p. 8
Prime Minister

“There is one point I had overlooked as to the question of the responsibility for the invasion of Belgium and the conduct of the war. The Government asked the Attorney-General to refer the question to some of the greatest jurists in this country. They have investigated it, and have come finally to the conclusion quite unanimously that in their judgment the Kaiser was guilty of an indictable offence for which he ought to be held responsible.”

David Lloyd George

Speech in Newcastle-upon-Tyne (29 November 1918), quoted in The Times (30 November 1918), p. 6
Prime Minister

“I have already accepted the policy of Imperial preference…to the effect that a preference will be given on existing duties and on any duties which may subsequently be imposed. On this subject I think there is no difference of opinion between us. … I am prepared to say that the key industries on which the life of the nation depends must be preserved. I am prepared to say also that, in order to keep up the present standard of production and develop it to the utmost extent possible, it is necessary that security should be give against the unfair competition to which our industries have been in the past subjected by the dumping of goods below the actual cost of production. … I shall look at every problem simply from the point of view of what is the best method of securing the objects at which we are aiming without any regard to theoretical opinions about Free Trade or Tariff Reform.”

David Lloyd George

Letter to Andrew Bonar Law (2 November 1918), quoted in The Times (18 November 1918), p. 4
Prime Minister

“The State must help to promote and encourage production. … There must be none of that shrinking from national organization, national production, and national assistance. Germany never made that mistake. Take the most important of national industries, agriculture. Agriculture in the past has been overlooked in this country. It has been neglected, with the result that we have been dependent very largely on lands across the seas for our food. We have realized during the war the perils of this position. … It is in the highest interests of the community that the land in this country should be cultivated to its fullest capacity, and I doubt whether there is a civilized country in the whole world where agriculture has received less attention at the hands of the State. … The cultivation of the land is the basis of national strength and prosperity.”

David Lloyd George

Speech in Manchester (12 September 1918), quoted in The Times (13 September 1918), p. 8
Prime Minister

“What is the next great lesson of the war? It is that if Britain has to be thoroughly equipped to meet any emergencies of either war or peace it must take a more constant and a more intelligent interest in the health and fitness of the people. … I solemnly warn my fellow-countrymen that you cannot maintain an A1 Empire with a C3 population. (Cheers.) Unless this lesson is learned the war is in vain. Remember that the health of the people is the secret of national efficiency and national recuperation.”

David Lloyd George

Speech in Manchester (12 September 1918), quoted in The Times (13 September 1918), p. 8
Prime Minister

“Dumping is the exporting to this country of goods from a foreign land under the cost—beneath the price at which they are sold in their own country. There could be only one object in doing that, and that is to make war upon a particular industry in our country. That is unfair. … In the interests of fairness, as well as in the interests of British industry as a whole, the Government have decided to submit to Parliament proposals which will effectively deal with dumping in the sense in which I have defined it.”

David Lloyd George

Speech https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1919/aug/18/dumping in the House of Commons (18 August 1919) <br class="br">Prime Minister

“Practically the whole of the engineering establishments of this country were controlled by the State. He had seen resolutions passed by the Trades Congress about the nationalization of industry, but the Government had done it.”

David Lloyd George

Speech to the Trades Union Congress in Bristol (9 September 1915), quoted in The Times (10 September 1915), p. 10
Minister of Munitions