“We are going to Geneva determined, by persuasion, by arguments, by appeals to what has been written, appeals to measures already taken, appeals to history, appeals to common sense, to get the nations of the world to join in and reduce this enormous, disgraceful burden of armaments which we are now bearing from one end of the world to the other.”

Source: Speech in the Royal Albert Hall, London, in support of the aims of the Disarmament Conference in Geneva (11 July 1931), quoted in The Times (13 July 1931), p. 14

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Ramsay MacDonald 27
British statesman; prime minister of the United Kingdom 1866–1937

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To the workman we appeal by the memory and traditions of his own sufferings and wrongs to be vigilant to avoid the great guilt of inflicting upon his fellow-citizens the injustice from which he has himself escaped.

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