“During the earlier years of the League we were fortunate in having many statesmen of outstanding ability who were convinced supporters of international cooperation under the League Covenant. … It is enough to say that under the leadership of those great men the first ten years of the League of Nations was a period of almost unbroken prosperity. The League moved from strength to strength. It established its organization and its Secretariat — a very remarkable achievement which has worked extremely well. Then, too, came the Permanent Court of International Justice, which has also been a very marked success and which, I trust, will establish ultimately the rule of law in all international affairs.”

— Robert Cecil, 1st Viscount Cecil of Chelwood

The Future of Civilization (1938)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "During the earlier years of the League we were fortunate in having many statesmen of outstanding ability who were convi…" by Robert Cecil, 1st Viscount Cecil of Chelwood?

Robert Cecil, 1st Viscount Cecil of Chelwood photo

Robert Cecil, 1st Viscount Cecil of Chelwood 30

lawyer, politician and diplomat in the United Kingdom 1864–1958

Related quotes

“The American League must be that fountain of youth they talk about. A lot of National League pitchers did pretty good in the American League this year.”

Roberto Clemente (1934–1972) Puerto Rican baseball player

As quoted in "D.C. Money Will Talk" by Bob Addie, in The Washington Post (Wednesday, October 11, 1972), p. D4
Baseball-related, <big><big>1970s</big></big>, <big>1972</big>

“In the first place, let us admit that the first ten years of the League were in a sense unnatural. The horror of war to which I have already alluded was necessarily far more vivid than it can be expected long to remain. That tremendous argument for peace, the horror of war, was a diminishing asset. Most of us, at that time, were, I think, quite well aware that unless we could get the international system into solidly effective working order in the first ten years, we were likely to have great difficulties in the succeeding period, and so it has proved.”

Robert Cecil, 1st Viscount Cecil of Chelwood (1864–1958) lawyer, politician and diplomat in the United Kingdom

The Future of Civilization (1938)
Context: We see the world as it is now, after these defeats of the League, and we can compare it with what it was six or seven years ago. The comparison is certainly depressing; the contrast is terrible. And we have not yet reached a time when we can estimate the full material losses and human suffering which have been the direct result of the ambitions of one set of powers and the weakness of the others. Nor is there any purpose in attempting to do so. Let us, rather, examine where we now stand and what steps we ought to take in order to strengthen the international system and thrust back again the forces of reaction.
In the first place, let us admit that the first ten years of the League were in a sense unnatural. The horror of war to which I have already alluded was necessarily far more vivid than it can be expected long to remain. That tremendous argument for peace, the horror of war, was a diminishing asset. Most of us, at that time, were, I think, quite well aware that unless we could get the international system into solidly effective working order in the first ten years, we were likely to have great difficulties in the succeeding period, and so it has proved.

“Talk to me of treaties! Talk to me of the League of Nations! Every Great Power in Europe was pledged by treaty to preserve Belgium. That was a League of Nations, but it failed.”

Edward Carson, Baron Carson (1854–1935) Irish politician, barrister and judge

Speech (7 December 1917), Liberal Magazine, XXV (1917), p. 604, quoted in Henry R. Winkler, ‘The Development of the League of Nations Idea in Great Britain, 1914-1919’, The Journal of Modern History Vol. 20, No. 2 (Jun., 1948), p. 105

“The Premier League is in danger of becoming one of the most boring, but great, leagues in the world.”

Kevin Keegan (1951) English footballer

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/eng_prem/8888167.stm

“Our Nation has associated itself with other great powers for the purpose of promoting peace in the regions of the Pacific Ocean. It has steadily refused to accept the covenant of the League of Nations, but long before that was thought of, before the opening of the present century, we were foremost in promoting the calling of a conference at The Hague to provide for a tribunal of arbitration for the settlement of international disputes. We have made many treaties on that basis with other nations.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

1920s, Freedom and its Obligations (1924)

“In my own country, and perhaps in some others, the workers for the League of Nations are sometimes reproached with attaching too much importance to collective security and the forcible prevention of war. That only shows how short people's memories are in political affairs. As a matter of fact, during the first ten years of the League very little was said about these subjects. We dwelt on the social and humanitarian sides of the League. We urged disarmament and treaty revision. Great reliance — particularly in England — was placed not upon forcible action but upon public opinion. We preached — and, I am glad to say, preached successfully — the enormous importance of publicity in the actions of the League, so that the world might know not only what was being done but why it was being done at Geneva. We attached perhaps even too great importance to the conception that no nation would be so rash or so wicked as to set itself against the public opinion of the world.”

Robert Cecil, 1st Viscount Cecil of Chelwood (1864–1958) lawyer, politician and diplomat in the United Kingdom

The Future of Civilization (1938)

“[T]he League of Nations will be of no value unless it has behind it the sanction of strong nations, prepared at a moment's notice to stop aggression. Otherwise the League of Nations will be a scrap of paper.”

David Lloyd George (1863–1945) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Prime Minister
Source: Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1919/jul/03/unprovoked-attack-upon-france#S5CV0117P0_19190703_HOC_333 in the House of Commons on the Treaty of Versailles (3 July 1919)

“Half a league half a league
Half a league onward
All in the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred:”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson The Charge of the Light Brigade

St. 1
The Charge of the Light Brigade (1854)
Context: Half a league half a league
Half a league onward
All in the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred:
'Forward the Light Brigade
Charge for the guns' he said
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

“Unto the furthest flood-brim look with me;
Then reach on with thy thought till it be drown'd.
Miles and miles distant though the last line be,
And though thy soul sail leagues and leagues beyond,—
Still, leagues beyond those leagues, there is more sea.”

Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828–1882) English poet, illustrator, painter and translator

The Choice
Context: Nay, come up hither. From this wave-wash'd mound
Unto the furthest flood-brim look with me;
Then reach on with thy thought till it be drown'd.
Miles and miles distant though the last line be,
And though thy soul sail leagues and leagues beyond,—
Still, leagues beyond those leagues, there is more sea.

“The Nautilus was piercing the water with its sharp spur, after having accomplished nearly ten thousand leagues in three months and a half, a distance greater than the great circle of the earth. Where were we going now, and what was reserved for the future?”

Jules Verne book Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea

Le Nautilus en brisait les eaux sous le tranchant de son éperon, après avoir accompli près de dix mille lieues en trois mois et demi, parcours supérieur à l'un des grands cercles de la terre. Où allions-nous maintenant, et que nous réservait l'avenir?
Part II, ch. VIII: Vigo Bay
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (1870)

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Robert Cecil, 1st Viscount Cecil of Chelwood 30

Related quotes

Related topics