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Arthur Balfour
62 quotes
“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.”
Arthur Balfour (1848–1930) first seen 1882 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the House of Commons (16 May 1882) denouncing the Kilmainham Treaty
“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.”
Arthur Balfour (1848–1930) first seen 1848 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 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
“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.”
Arthur Balfour (1848–1930) first seen 1848 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 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
“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.”
Arthur Balfour (1848–1930) first seen 1887 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the House of Commons (28 March 1887) introducing the Irish Crimes Bill
“I have never had to go back beyond the year 1885 to prove that the Irish leaders desired to obtain what they call the freedom of their country by illegal and anarchic means.”
Arthur Balfour (1848–1930) first seen 1888 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in Eridge Park near Tunbridge Wells (6 August 1888), quoted in The Times (7 August 1888), p. 1.
“It is unfortunate, considering that enthusiasm moves the world, that so few enthusiasts can be trusted to speak the truth.”
Arthur Balfour (1848–1930) first seen 1878 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 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 Christ…
“Those who look forward to a period of continuous and, so to speak, inevitable progress, are bound to assign some more solid reason for their convictions than a merely empirical survey of the surface lessons of history. ...Humanity, civilisation, progress itself, must have a tendency to mitigate the harsh methods by which Nature has wrought out the variety and the perfection of organic life.”
Arthur Balfour (1848–1930) first seen 1891 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: A Fragment on Progress (1891)
“[T]he energies of our system will decay, the glory of the sun will be dimmed, and the earth, tideless and inert, will no longer tolerate the race which has for a moment disturbed its solitude. Man will go down into the pit and all his thoughts will perish.”
Arthur Balfour (1848–1930) first seen 1895 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Foundations of Belief: Being Notes Introductory to the Study of Theology (1895), p. 31
“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.”
Arthur Balfour (1848–1930) first seen 1901 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the House of Commons (25 January 1901)
“...the existing educational system of this country is chaotic, is ineffectual, is utterly behind the age, makes us the laughing-stock of every advanced nation in Europe and America, puts us behind not only our American cousins but the German and the Frenchman and the Italian, and that it was not consistent with the duty of an English Government, of a British Government, to allow that state of things longer to continue without an adequate remedy.”
Arthur Balfour (1848–1930) first seen 1902 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in St James's Hall, Manchester (14 October 1902) defending the Education Act, quoted in The Times (15 October 1902), p. 5
“...the great Unionist party shall still control, whether in power or whether in opposition, the destinies of this great Empire.”
Arthur Balfour (1848–1930) first seen 1906 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in Victoria Hall, Nottingham (15 January 1906), quoted in The Times (16 January 1906), p. 6
“...we are now in a position which we have not been within the memory of living men. (“Shame.”) Now, what does this imply? Everything depends upon the Navy. (Hear, hear.) We exist as an Empire only on sufferance unless our Navy be supreme (hear, hear), and I for one, ladies and gentlemen, am not content to exist on sufferance. (Cheers.)”
Arthur Balfour (1848–1930) first seen 1910 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in Hanley (4 January 1910), quoted in The Times (5 January 1910), p. 7
“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. (Cheers.)”
Arthur Balfour (1848–1930) first seen 1910 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in Hanley (4 January 1910), quoted in The Times (5 January 1910), p. 7
“I cannot become another Sir Robert Peel in my Party.”
Arthur Balfour (1848–1930) first seen 1906 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 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: H…
“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.”
Arthur Balfour (1848–1930) first seen 1911 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Lord Newton (25 July 1911), quoted in The Times (26 July 1911), p. 8
“...this Home Rule Bill is an experiment in Federalism of the most impossible, unexampled, and preposterous character.”
Arthur Balfour (1848–1930) first seen 1913 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in Aberdeen (3 November 1913), quoted in The Times (4 November 1913), p. 10
“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.”
Arthur Balfour (1848–1930) first seen 1906 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 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
“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.”
Arthur Balfour (1848–1930) first seen 1906 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 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
“His Majesty's Government views with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of the existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.”
Arthur Balfour (1848–1930) first seen 1906 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Lord Rothschild (2 November 1917); this letter became known as the Balfour Declaration, quoted in Blanche E. C. Dugdale, Arthur James Balfour, First Earl of Balfour, K.G., O.M., F.R.S., Etc. 1906–1930 (London:…
“Nationality was valuable, in so far as it was a centripetal principle, in so far as it produced closer cooperation between members of the human race. It had the other side, and it must not be put on an absurd pedestal. It was not to any politician's or statesman's credit that he worked on the emotions of nationality to produce division; the proper use of the feeling of nationality was to produce union.”
Arthur Balfour (1848–1930) first seen 1920 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech to a meeting of the Congress of Philosophy at Oxford (27 September 1920), quoted in The Times (28 September 1920), p. 12
“Suppose [he said to the Americans] that it was a familiar thought in your minds that there never was at any moment of the year within the limits of your State more than seven weeks food for the population, and that that food had to be replenished by overseas communication...Then you will understand why every citizen of the British Empire, whether he comes from the far Dominions of the Pacific, or the small island in the North Sea, can never forget...that without sea communication he, and the Empire to which he belongs, would perish.”
Arthur Balfour (1848–1930) first seen 1906 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech to the second meeting of the Washington Naval Conference (1921), quoted in Blanche E. C. Dugdale, Arthur James Balfour, First Earl of Balfour, K.G., O.M., F.R.S., Etc. 1906–1930 (1936), p. 236
“Fairly well, but it is like talking to a lot of tombstones.”
Arthur Balfour (1848–1930) first seen 1918 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 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 (1933), p. 379
“Most terrible of all the terrible Turks.”
Arthur Balfour (1848–1930) first seen 1922 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: His comment about Mustafa Kemal Pasha, later known as Atatürk, in THE TWO KEMALS; The Polished Aristocrat of European Circles in Contrast With the Ruthless Commander of Fanatical Turks, New York Times, 1 October 1922
“The General Strike has taught the working classes more in four days than years of talking could have done.”
Arthur Balfour (1848–1930) first seen 1926 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech (7 May 1926), reported in The Observer (14 November 1926), quoted in Robert Andrews, The New Penguin Dictionary of Modern Quotations (2003)
“Biography should be written by an acute enemy.”
Arthur Balfour (1848–1930) first seen 1927 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Observer (20 January 1927)
“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.”
Arthur Balfour (1848–1930) first seen 1927 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech to the University of Edinburgh (26 January 1927), quoted in The Times (27 January 1927), p. 14
“Our whole political machinery presupposes a people so fundamentally at one that they can safely afford to bicker.”
Arthur Balfour (1848–1930) first seen 1928 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Introduction to Walter Bagehot's The English Constitution (London: Oxford University Press, 1928), p. xxiv.
“It is proof of the most vital principle of the English Constitution, which no foreigner can understand, that when they are brought together in the public interest, they never get deflected from the main issue before them by the memory of ancient conflict or the impossibility of working together. That is the great secret of the paradox that in this country alone will you see the perfection of Parliamentary Government carried to the pitch it has been.”
Arthur Balfour (1848–1930) first seen 1928 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the Speaker's Courtyard of Parliament for his 80th birthday ceremony (25 July 1928), quoted in The Times (26 July 1928), p. 16
“I am 80. I cannot take much more part in public affairs, but I rejoice to think I see growing up younger generations, one by one, who instinctively follow the great example of their forefathers and are predestined with undiminished lustre to carry to future ages the glories of the British Empire.”
Arthur Balfour (1848–1930) first seen 1928 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the Speaker's Courtyard of Parliament for his 80th birthday ceremony (25 July 1928), quoted in The Times (26 July 1928), p. 16
“The Irish had owed their success to crime. Winston practically admitted it. They had defied British rule,—and British rulers had given in to them. How could such a state of things be said to fit in with the scheme of the Empire?”
Arthur Balfour (1848–1930) first seen 1906 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Remarks after the publication of Winston Churchill's book The Aftermath (1929), 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. …
“Few persons are prevented from thinking themselves right by the reflection that, if they be right, the rest of the world is wrong.”
Arthur Balfour (1848–1930) said by 1930 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I speak of God, I mean something other than an Identity wherein all differences vanish, or a Unity which includes but does not transcend the differences which it somehow holds in solution. I mean a God whom men can love, a God to whom men can pray, who takes sides, who has purposes and preferences, whose attributes, howsoever conceived, leave unimpaired the possibility of a personal relation between Himself and those whom He has created.”
Arthur Balfour (1848–1930) said by 1930 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Apart from life and thought, there is no reason to regard one form of material distribution as in any respect superior to another. A solar system may be more interesting than its parent nebula ; it may be more beautiful. But if there be none to unravel its intricacies or admire its splendours, in what respect is it better ? Its constituent atoms are more definitely grouped, the groups move in assignable orbits ; but why should the process by which these results have been achieved be regarded as other than one of purposeless change super-induced upon meaningless uniformity?”
Arthur Balfour (1848–1930) said by 1930 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Everything that happened, good or bad, would subtract something from the lessening store of useful energy, till a time arrived when nothing could happen any more, and the universe, frozen into eternal repose, would for ever be as if it were not. /.../ The physical course of nature does not merely fail to indicate design, it seems loudly to proclaim its absence.”
Arthur Balfour (1848–1930) said by 1930 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Theory of selection /.../ leaves untouched all that can be inferred from the existence of the conditions which make organic evolution possible: matter which lives, multiplies, and varies ; an environment which possesses the marvellously complex constitution required to make these processes possible. /.../ it cannot produce either the original environment or the original living matter. These must be due either to luck or to contrivance; and, if they be due to luck, the luck (we must own) is great. How great we cannot say.”
Arthur Balfour (1848–1930) said by 1930 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We now know too much about matter to be materialists. The very essence of the physical order of things is that it creates nothing new. Change is never more than a redistribution of that which never changes. But sensibility belongs to the world of consciousness, not to the world of matter.”
Arthur Balfour (1848–1930) said by 1930 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“On questions of taste there is notoriously the widest divergence of opinion./.../ if, from a survival point of view, one taste be as good as another, it is not the varieties in taste which should cause surprise so much as the uniformities. To be sure, the uniformities have often no deep aesthetic roots. They represent /.../ tendencies to agreement, which govern our social ritual, and thereby make social life possible.”
Arthur Balfour (1848–1930) said by 1930 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There is always something about our feeling for beautiful things which can neither be described nor communicated, which is unshared and unshareable.”
Arthur Balfour (1848–1930) said by 1930 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Men's wishes are not always vain, nor is every life too brief to satisfy its possessor. Only when we attempt, from the point of view permitted by physics and biology, to sum up the possibilities of collective human endeavour, do we fully realise the "vanity of vanities" proclaimed by the Preacher.”
Arthur Balfour (1848–1930) said by 1930 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Logic always seems to be telling us, in language quite unnecessarily technical, what we understood much better before it was explained.”
Arthur Balfour (1848–1930) said by 1930 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Cromwell failed because he relied solely upon repressive measures. That mistake I shall not imitate. I shall be as relentless as Cromwell in enforcing obedience to the law, but, at the same time, I shall be as radical as any reformer in redressing grievances, and especially in removing every cause of complaint in regard to the land. It is on the twofold aspect of my policy that I rely for success. Hitherto, English Governments have stood first upon one leg and then upon the other. They have either been all for repression, or all for reform. I am for both; repression as stern as Cromwell: reform as thorough as Mr Parnell or anyone else can desire.”
Arthur Balfour (1848–1930) first seen 1887 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Statement shortly after taking office (March 1887), quoted in Bernard Alderson, Arthur James Balfour: The Man and His Work (1903), p. 71
“[I]t is Authority rather than Reason to which, in the main, we owe, not religion only, but ethics and politics; that it is Authority which supplies us with essential elements in the premises of science; that it is Authority rather than Reason which lays deep the foundations of social life; that it is Authority rather than Reason which cements its superstructure. And though it may seem to savour of paradox, it is yet no exaggeration to say, that if we would find the quality in which we most notably excel the brute creation, we should look for it, not so much in our faculty of convincing and being convinced by the exercise of reasoning, as in our capacity for influencing and being influenced through the action of Authority.”
Arthur Balfour (1848–1930) first seen 1895 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Foundations of Belief: Being Notes Introductory to the Study of Theology (1895), pp. 237–238
“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.”
Arthur Balfour (1848–1930) first seen 1906 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Joseph Chamberlain (14 February 1906), quoted in The Times (15 February 1906), p. 9
“Go about at this moment if you will and consult the statesmen and diplomatists of the lesser Powers, and I am perfectly confident that you will find among them an absolute unanimity of opinion that a struggle sooner or later between this country and Germany is inevitable. I do not agree with them, but that is their opinion. They have watched with the closest interest...and they have come to the conclusion, I believe utterly wrongly, that we are not alive to the sense of our responsibilities, and that nothing can stir us to a recognition of our position, and that, therefore, we are predestined to succumb in some great contest, the occasion for which nobody can foresee, to a country which does face facts, which is alive to its responsibility, and which talks little and does much. (Cheers.) And so far has this depreciatory view of the virility of the manhood of Great Britain gone that I have known Germans, not connected with the Government, but men of position and character, men engaged in great affairs, who if you talk to them about the adoption of Tariff Reform by this country, actually say,—“Do you suppose we should ever allow Great Britain to adopt Tariff Reform?” (Cheers.) I do not press private and irresponsible conversations more than they ought to be pressed, but the idea of any man of education and character outside this country should have the audacity to say that Great Britain is not to settle its own taxation according to its own ideas, makes my blood boil. (Cheers.)”
Arthur Balfour (1848–1930) first seen 1910 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in Hanley (4 January 1910), quoted in The Times (5 January 1910), p. 7
“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. (Cheers.)”
Arthur Balfour (1848–1930) first seen 1910 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in Hanley (4 January 1910), quoted in The Times (5 January 1910), p. 7
“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.”
Arthur Balfour (1848–1930) first seen 1910 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the Albert Hall, London (29 November 1910), quoted in The Times (30 November 1910), p. 9
“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.”
Arthur Balfour (1848–1930) first seen 1911 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 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
“It is not wisdom but folly to assume that all the chances are going to favour the enemy. ... It is admitted on all hands that the losses which would accompany voluntary retirement would be very heavy; I admit also that the losses which would accompany an involuntary retirement would be heavier still. But I suggest that, if we succeed in staying on [in Gallipoli], we shall suffer neither the kind of loss, and that in any case it may be worth while to risk the difference between the two, rather than desert, in the sight of East and West, an important strategic position, which has been gloriously captured, is gloriously held, and may perhaps never be dangerously threatened.”
Arthur Balfour (1848–1930) first seen 1906 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Memorandum on the Gallipoli campaign (19 November 1915), 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. 114
“Our enemies, who, I may parenthetically remark, are attempting to change their constitution, appear to have no notion that what we want is not so much a change of the form of the apparatus of government as a change in the hearts by which that government is to be directed and animated, and if we are to judge, and surely we may judge without unfairness, of a man's heart by what he does, I would ask you whether those who have made mankind pale with horror over their early barbarities and brutal excesses in Belgium show the least sign that four years of war has in any material respect improved their disposition. Brutes they were when they begun the war, and, as far as we can judge, brutes they remain at the present moment.”
Arthur Balfour (1848–1930) first seen 1918 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech to a lunch of the English-Speaking Union in the Criterion Restaurant (11 October 1918), quoted in The Times (12 October 1918), p. 2
“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.”
Arthur Balfour (1848–1930) first seen 1918 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 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