“It must be admitted that so long as things were peaceful the methods of the British ruling class served them well enough. Their own people manifestly tolerated them. However unjustly England might be organized, it was at any rate not torn by class warfare or haunted by secret police. The Empire was peaceful as no area of comparable size has ever been. Throughout its vast extend, nearly a quarter of the earth, there were fewer armed men than would be found necessary by a minor Balkan state. As people live under, and looking at them merely from a liberal, negative standpoint, the British ruling class had their points.”
Part I : England Your England, § IV
The Lion and the Unicorn (1941)
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George Orwell 473
English author and journalist 1903–1950Related quotes

Speech to the Labour Party Conference in Caxton Hall, London (12 December 1944), quoted in The Times (13 December 1944), p. 2.
War Cabinet

“We are here to announce class warfare, in peace and for democracy.”
As quoted in "Protests Urge Resignation of Leaders in Thailand http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/15/world/asia/15thai.html" in The New York Times (15 March 2010).

Non-Fiction, A Mouthful of Air: Language and Languages, Especially English (1992)

1910s, The Rights of the People to Rule (1912)

Speech to the Empire Rally of Youth at the Royal Albert Hall (18 May 1937), quoted in Service of Our Lives (1937), pp. 163-164.
1937

Hear, hear.
On the Labour Party (7 July 1906), quoted in ‘The Chamberlain Celebration In Birmingham.’, The Times (10 July 1906), p. 11.
1900s