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Ernest Bevin

22 quotes

“If the workers see themselves faced with defeat through starvation, they will prefer to go down fighting rather than fainting — and whether or not we leaders agree.”
Ernest Bevin (1881–1951) first seen 1926 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Message to the American Federation of Labor appealing for help in the General Strike, quoted in New York World (10 May 1926)
“The most conservative man in the world is the British Trade Unionist when you want to change him.”
Ernest Bevin (1881–1951) first seen 1927 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech to the Trades Union Congress General Council (8 September 1927), quoted in Report of the Proceedings of the Trade Union Congress, 1927
“What I say is this, and I am not afraid of saying it. I sit on a Colonial Development Committee under an Act passed by the Labour Government, and I see the expenditure of millions of pounds going on for the development of areas where native races have not yet begun to be industrialised. You talk about the coal trade. Ought there not to be some control against the possible development of coal in Tanganyika and in East Africa, which might come into competition with your coal here at a time when the world does not want it?”
Ernest Bevin (1881–1951) first seen 1930 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech to the Trades Union Congress (1930), quoted in Trades Union Congress, Annual Report (1930), p. 286 and Geoffrey Foote, The Labour Party's Political Thought: A History (1986), p. 166
“It is placing the Executive and the Movement in an absolutely wrong position to be taking your conscience round from body to body asking to be told what you ought to do with it.”
Ernest Bevin (1881–1951) first seen 1935 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech to the Labour Party conference (1 October 1935), quoted in Labour Party Annual Conference Report 1935, p. 178. Bevin was criticising George Lansbury. Lansbury, a pacifist, was publicly agonising about the need to…
“From the day Hitler came to power, I have felt that the democratic countries would have to face war... I cannot see any way of stopping Hitler and the other dictators except by force.”
Ernest Bevin (1881–1951) first seen 1881 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech to the Executive Council of the Transport and General Workers' Union (March 1937), quoted in Alan Bullock, Ernest Bevin: Trade Union Leader, 1881–1940 (1960), p. 592
“The kind of middle-class mentality which actuates both those responsible for strategy and government has little knowledge of the new psychology and organizing ability of the totalitarian States. The forces we are fighting are governed neither by the old strategy nor follow the old tactics.”
Ernest Bevin (1881–1951) first seen 1940 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech at Stoke-on-Trent (1 May 1940), quoted in "Complacent Conduct of the War", The Times (3 May 1940), p. 3
“They say Gladstone was at the Treasury from 1860 to 1930. I'm going to be Minister of Labour from 1940 to 1990.”
Ernest Bevin (1881–1951) first seen 1940 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Remark after being appointed Minister of Labour (c. 13 May 1940), quoted in Francis Williams, Ernest Bevin (1952), p. 217
“If anyone asks me who was responsible for the British policy leading up to the war, I should, as a Labour man myself, make a confession and say: "All of us". We refused absolutely to face the facts. When the issue came of arming or rearming millions of people in this country...we refused to face the real issue at a critical moment. But what is the good of blaming anybody? We cannot make our action retrospective whatever we do. We have to start from now and try to do the best we can.”
Ernest Bevin (1881–1951) first seen 1362 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the House of Commons (29 July 1941), quoted in Hansard, House of Commons, 5th series, vol. 373, col. 1362
“The fact of it is that all of us agreed to save 6d. in the Income Tax by breaking up the Army in peace-time and not having it prepared when war broke out...I will never be a party to it again.”
Ernest Bevin (1881–1951) first seen 1336 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the House of Commons (4 December 1941), quoted in Hansard, House of Commons, 5th series, vol. 376, col. 1336
“So long as I have any power at all I will never be a party to treating the Army in the future as it has been treated in the past. They broke up in peace-time the very foundations of the Army structure, and expected to build it up during war-time with the enemy at the gates.”
Ernest Bevin (1881–1951) first seen 1942 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Western Daily Press (30 March 1942)
“We need 720,000 men continuously employed in this industry... This is where you boys come in... [O]ur fighting men will not be able to achieve their purpose unless we get an adequate supply of coal.”
Ernest Bevin (1881–1951) first seen 1943 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Broadcast to sixth-form boys (12 November 1943), quoted in British Information Services, British Speeches of the Day, Volume 1 (1943), p. 23. Bevin had introduced a system whereby some men conscripted for National Servi…
“There should be a study of a house directly elected by the people of the world to whom the nations are accountable.”
Ernest Bevin (1881–1951) first seen 1945 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the House of Commons (23 November 1945)
“If I may again refer to the different political concepts, there is, I think rather unfortunately, running through all the speeches and writings of our Soviet friends the theory that they alone represent the workers — that they alone are democratic.”
Ernest Bevin (1881–1951) first seen 1827 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the House of Commons (4 June 1946), quoted in Hansard, House of Commons, 5th series, vol. 423, col. 1827
“I come now to the question of diplomatic personnel... It is said that I am admitting to the service Eton and Harrow. I am not one of those who decry Eton and Harrow. I was very glad of them in the Battle of Britain—by God, I was!—those fellows paid the price in the Royal Air Force on those fatal days. If the Universities are to be criticized, well, put up a vote of censure on Harold Laski, because it is the product of the Universities I have got to accept.”
Ernest Bevin (1881–1951) first seen 1946 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech to the Labour Party Conference in Bournemouth (12 June 1946), quoted in British Information Services, British Speeches of the Day, Vol. IV (1946), pp. 423-424
“That won't do at all .. we've got to have this .. I don't mind for myself, but I don't want any other Foreign Secretary of this country to be talked to or at by a Secretary of State in the United States as I have just had in my discussions with Mr Byrnes. We've got to have this thing over here whatever it costs .. We've got to have the bloody Union Jack on top of it.”
Ernest Bevin (1881–1951) first seen 1946 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Remarks at Cabinet Committee GEN75 (25 October 1946), about the development of the British atomic bomb, quoted in Peter Hennessy, Cabinets and the Bomb (2007), p. 48
“His Majesty's Government have thus been faced with an irreconcilable conflict of principles. There are in Palestine about 1,200,000 Arabs and 600,000 Jews. For the Jews the essential point of principle is the creation of a sovereign Jewish State. For the Arabs, the essential point of principle is to resist to the last the establishment of Jewish sovereignty in any part of Palestine.”
Ernest Bevin (1881–1951) first seen 1947 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the House of Commons (18 February 1947)
“[T]his Pact is a purely defensive arrangement for the common security of the countries who join it, and it is not directed against anyone. If we are accused of ganging up against any country or group of countries I should say simply: "Examine the text. There is no secrecy about it, and there are no secret clauses. You will not find in the text any provision which threatens the security or the well-being of any nation." No nation innocent of aggressive intentions need have the slightest fear or apprehension about it.”
Ernest Bevin (1881–1951) first seen 1949 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the House of Commons on NATO (18 March 1949)
“[T]he Pact must be regarded as a concrete expression of the identity of view long held among the Western nations. It recognises the common heritage and civilisation of their peoples, founded on principles of democracy, individual liberty and the rule of law between nations. It is not elaborate; its simplicity is apparent, but I can assure the House that it is based on an understanding and determination to preserve our way of life.”
Ernest Bevin (1881–1951) first seen 1949 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the House of Commons on NATO (18 March 1949)
“(b) Under existing policy, however, we cannot agree to any proposals which mean our getting involved in the economic affairs of Europe beyond the point at which we could, if we wished, disengage ourselves. There are no grounds for abandoning this policy. (c) Any surrender of political sovereignty in matters of vital importance would jeopardise our ability to maintain the policy at (b). We must therefore maintain a very strict reserve in regard to schemes for the pooling of sovereignty or the establishment of European supra-national machinery.”
Ernest Bevin (1881–1951) first seen 1945 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Memorandum presented to the Cabinet (24 October 1949), quoted in The Labour Government and the End of Empire 1945–1951: Part II Economics and International Relations, ed. Ronald Hyam (1992), pp. 348-349
“Our relationship with the rest of the Commonwealth and, almost equally important, our new relationship with the United States ensure that we must remain, as we have always been in the past, different in character from other European nations and fundamentally incapable of wholehearted integration with them.”
Ernest Bevin (1881–1951) first seen 1945 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Memorandum presented to the Cabinet (24 October 1949), quoted in The Labour Government and the End of Empire 1945–1951: Part II Economics and International Relations, ed. Ronald Hyam (1992), p. 351
“My policy is to be able to take a ticket at Victoria station and go anywhere I damn well please!”
Ernest Bevin (1881–1951) first seen 1951 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Bevin's definition of his foreign policy. attributed to Bevin in the Spectator (20 April 1951). Variously quoted as "to be able to buy a ticket at Victoria Station to anywhere I damn please!
“I think that in the little argument going on now in New York and the differences that have arisen there are emerging three very fundamental principles. One is that it is improper to negotiate or attempt to negotiate or attempt to gain concessions by a great Power out of a little Power by means of occupying that country with your forces. It is the tradition — and I am not saying of one or other country only they have done it — but it is nineteenth-century imperialism that really must be left behind, and I believe that a solution will be found and the principle accepted that those of us who represent the great Powers will not do that.”
Ernest Bevin (1881–1951) first seen 1946 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech at Bristol (30 March 1946), referring to the negotiations over the United Nations Charter, quoted in "Mr. Bevin on World Politics", The Times (1 April 1946), p. 4