“Like you, I believe strongly that where there is a revolutionary element expressed in action, one must act resolutely. My reading of Indian history has led me to believe that a Government founded so completely as ours is upon prestige can stand almost anything except the suspicion of weakness.”

— F. E. Smith, 1st Earl of Birkenhead

Letter to Lord Reading (13 November 1924), quoted in H. Montgomery Hyde, Lord Reading (Heinemann, 1967), p. 382

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F. E. Smith, 1st Earl of Birkenhead27

British politician 1872–1930

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