Arthur Balfour citations (48 citations, Page 2)

“I am a Scotsman addressing Scotsmen, and I feel, therefore, peculiarly qualified to speak on this subject. I absolutely refuse to allow any man, be he English or be he Scottish, to rob me of my share in Magna Charta, or Shakespeare, because of Bannockburn or Flodden.”

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Arthur James Balfour

Speech to the University of Edinburgh (26 January 1927), quoted in The Times (27 January 1927), p. 14
Lord President of the Council

“Fairly well, but it is like talking to a lot of tombstones.”

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Arthur James Balfour

Answer to Lord Riddell after he asked him how he liked speaking in the House of Lords (19 July 1922), quoted in Lord Riddell's Intimate Diary Of The Peace Conference And After 1918–1923 (London: Victor Gollancz, 1933), p. 379
Lord President of the Council

“I speak perhaps, with a warmth of indignation unbefitting a Foreign Secretary, but with the news of this outrage...I confess that I find it difficult to measure my epithets, for...this Irish packet boat, crammed as it always is with men, women, and children, in broad daylight was deliberately torpedoed by a German submarine. It was carrying no military stores. It was serving no military ends. It was pure barbarism, pure frightfulness, deliberately carried out. ... I cannot measure the wicked folly of the proceeding of which they have been guilty. ... I wish I could think that these atrocious crimes were the crimes of a small dominant military caste. I agree that the direction of policy, the direction of national policy, may be in the hands of a small caste, but it is incredible that crimes like these, perpetrated in the light of day, known to all mankind, condemned from one end of the civilized world to the other, should go on being repeated month after month of four years of embittered warfare if it did not commend itself to the population which commits them.”

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Arthur James Balfour

Speech to a lunch of the English-Speaking Union in the Criterion Restaurant (11 October 1918) after the sinking of the RMS Leinster, quoted in The Times (12 October 1918), p. 2
Foreign Secretary

“I should fear that the new Poland would suffer from the diseases through which the old Poland perished; that it would be a theatre of perpetual intrigues between Germany and Russia; and that its existence, so far from promoting the cause of European peace, would be a perpetual occasion of European strife.”

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Arthur James Balfour

Memorandum, 'The Peace Settlement in Europe' (November 1916), quoted in Blanche E. C. Dugdale, Arthur James Balfour, First Earl of Balfour, K.G., O.M., F.R.S., Etc. 1906–1930 (London: Hutchinson & Co. Ltd, 1936), p. 325
First Lord of the Admiralty

“Whether an independent Bohemia would be strong enough to hold her own, from a military as well as from a commercial point of view, against Teutonic domination—surrounded as she is at present entirely by German influence—I do not know.”

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Arthur James Balfour

Memorandum, 'The Peace Settlement in Europe' (November 1916), quoted in Blanche E. C. Dugdale, Arthur James Balfour, First Earl of Balfour, K.G., O.M., F.R.S., Etc. 1906–1930 (London: Hutchinson & Co. Ltd, 1936), p. 324
First Lord of the Admiralty

“This Government have lived on electoral bribes for six years. They have been floating helplessly down the revolutionary stream, which they have not controlled or guided in any way, snatching now at one electoral advantage and now at another electoral advantage. They have attacked the Crown, they have attacked the Second Chamber, they have bound the Representative Chamber hand and foot; and, having finished their bribes, they are now lapsing into the old Radical practice of destroying Churches, passing what they conceive to be judicious Reform Bills from the gerrymandering point of view, and generally comporting themselves as a Radical Party in difficulties always does comport itself. I do not believe the country will stand it much longer.”

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Arthur James Balfour

Leader of the Opposition
Source: Speech to the executive committee of the City of London Conservative Association announcing his resignation as party leader (8 November 1911), quoted in The Times (9 November 1911), p. 10

“The Government have tyrannically destroyed, so far as the Parliament Bill is concerned, every real power which the Second Chamber possesses. They have in their own fashion imitated Cromwell, without either his excuses or his genius.”

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Arthur James Balfour

Letter to Lord Newton (25 July 1911), quoted in The Times (26 July 1911), p. 8
Leader of the Opposition

“The advantage of the Referendum is this—that the issue is quite clear and quite precise. It is not one of the mixed issues inevitably put before the constituencies at a General Election. It is perfectly easy to say, when the Referendum is over, on what the Referendum was, whereas after a General Election every man says that it was upon the subject in which he is interested, if the election has gone in his favour. The Referendum has an enormous advantage. It does not involve a General Election; it does not involve all the personal bitterness inevitably involved in a contest between the two competitors for a seat; it does not carry with it a change of Government; and it does get a clear verdict from the people.”

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Arthur James Balfour

Speech in the Albert Hall, London (29 November 1910), quoted in The Times (30 November 1910), p. 9
Leader of the Opposition

“I cannot become another Sir Robert Peel in my Party.”

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Arthur James Balfour

Remark to David Lloyd George (October 1910) rejecting his proposals for a coalition government, quoted in Blanche E. C. Dugdale, Arthur James Balfour, First Earl of Balfour, K.G., O.M., F.R.S., Etc. 1906–1930 (London: Hutchinson & Co. Ltd, 1936), p. 54
Leader of the Opposition

“It is necessary for us as a nation not merely to be organized for war but to be organized for peace, not only to be an armed nation while other nations are armed but to have our industry, our productive capacity organized while other nations are organizing their industry and their productive capacity.”

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Arthur James Balfour

Cheers.
Speech in Hanley (4 January 1910), quoted in The Times (5 January 1910), p. 7
Leader of the Opposition

“No Continental country has ever been able to understand the temper of the British people, but, while I give them a note of warning of our foreign critics, let me say what is more to the point to my own friends, that unless they bestir themselves Great Britain will be in a position of peril which it has not known in the memory of their fathers, their grandfathers, their great grandfathers, and if that position of peril should issue in some great catastrophe...this country will not again easily arise. (Hear, hear.) I do not believe there is going to be war between this country and any great foreign Power. (Hear, hear.) Heaven knows I do not desire it, but I do not believe it. Please remember the absolutely only way in which you can secure the peace which you all desire is that you shall be sure of victory if war takes place.”

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Arthur James Balfour

Cheers.
Speech in Hanley (4 January 1910), quoted in The Times (5 January 1910), p. 7
Leader of the Opposition

“I hold that fiscal reform is, and must remain, the first constructive work of the Unionist party; That the objects of such reform are to secure more equal terms of competition for British trade and closer commercial union with the Colonies. ... the establishment of a moderate general tariff on manufactured goods, not imposed for the purpose of raising prices or giving artificial protection against legitimate competition, and the imposition of a small duty on foreign corn are not in principle objectionable, and should be adopted if shown to be necessary for the attainment of the ends in view or for the purposes of revenue.”

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Arthur James Balfour

Letter to Joseph Chamberlain (14 February 1906), quoted in The Times (15 February 1906), p. 9
Leader of the Opposition

“In my judgment, the importance of the Crown in our Constitution is not a diminishing, but an increasing factor. It increases, and must increase with the development of those free, self-governing communities, those new commonwealths beyond the sea, who are constitutionally linked to us through the person of the Sovereign, the living symbol of Imperial unity.”

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Arthur James Balfour

Speech https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1901/jan/25/address-in-reply-to-the-kings-message#column_20 in the House of Commons (25 January 1901)
Leader of the House of Commons

“There are those who talk as if Irishmen were justified in disobeying the law because the law comes to them in a foreign garb. I see no reason why any local colour should be given to the Ten Commandments.”

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Arthur James Balfour

Speech https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1887/mar/28/motion-for-leave-first-reading#column_1656 in the House of Commons (28 March 1887) introducing the Irish Crimes Bill
Chief Secretary for Ireland

“I shall offer uncompromising resistance to any measure which may throw obstacles in the way of the teaching of religion in elementary schools. I will not consent in the name of religious freedom, to banish religion from education; or, in the name of religious equality, to plunder the Church.”

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Arthur James Balfour

Election address for the 1885 general election, quoted in Blanche E. C. Dugdale, Arthur James Balfour, First Earl of Balfour, K.G., O.M., F.R.S., Etc. 1848–1905 (London: Hutchinson & Co. Ltd, 1936), p. 72
President of the Local Government Board

“To secure order, freedom, and safety, for the minority as well as for the majority of the Irish people, and to do so as far as possible, by the administration of equal laws, should be the first object of any Ministry responsible for the government of that country. But I shall resist to the uttermost any attempt to loosen the connection, which has subsisted so long between Ireland and Great Britain, under whatever disguises that attempt may be made.”

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Arthur James Balfour

Election address for the 1885 general election, quoted in Blanche E. C. Dugdale, Arthur James Balfour, First Earl of Balfour, K.G., O.M., F.R.S., Etc. 1848–1905 (London: Hutchinson & Co. Ltd, 1936), p. 72
President of the Local Government Board

“He did not believe that any such transaction could be quoted from the annals of our political or Parliamentary history. It stood alone—he did not wish to use strong language, but he was going to say—it stood alone in its infamy.”

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Arthur James Balfour

Speech https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1882/may/16/ireland-irish-policy-of-the-government#column_836 in the House of Commons (16 May 1882) denouncing the Kilmainham Treaty
Backbench MP

“It is unfortunate, considering that enthusiasm moves the world, that so few enthusiasts can be trusted to speak the truth.”

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Arthur James Balfour

Chief Secretary for Ireland
Source: Letter to Mary Gladstone Drew (17 May 1891), in Some Hawarden Letters, 1878–1913, Written to Mrs. Drew (Miss Mary Gladstone) Before and After Her Marriage, chosen and arranged by Lisle March-Phillipps and Bertram Christian (London: Nisbet & Co., 1917), p. 248.