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Ramsay MacDonald

86 quotes

“The Hindu from his traditions and religion regards India not only as a political unit naturally the subject of one sovereignty, but as the outward embodiment, as the temple - nay even as the Goddess Mother of his spiritual culture.... India and Hinduism are organically related as body and soul.”
Ramsay MacDonald (1866–1937) said by 1937 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Introduction to the "The Fundamental Unity ofIndia: ; Patel, Satyavrata Ramdas The so1l1 ofIndia New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers, 1974, c1973 p.208., as quoted in Londhe, S. (2008). A tribute to Hinduism: Tho…
“I cannot refrain from wishing you God-Speed in your election contest... [L]et the consequences be what they may, do not withdraw. The cause of Labour in Scotland and of Scottish Nationality will suffer much thereby. Your defeat will awaken Scotland and your victory will re-construct Scottish Liberalism. All success be yours, and the National cause you champion. There is no miner – and no other one for that matter – who is a Scotsman and not ashamed of it, who will vote against you in favour of an English barrister, absolutely ignorant of Scotland and of Scottish affairs.”
Ramsay MacDonald (1866–1937) first seen 1888 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Keir Hardie, who stood as an independent candidate in the Mid Lanarkshire by-election on a platform of independent labour representation and Scottish Home Rule (c. April 1888), quoted in Michael Keating and Da…
“The Labour party is no class champion. In politics it is frankly democratic, in economics it is co-operative... It was not bought into being to revenge the wage-earner and mercilessly smash the capitalist... Capitalist and labourer alike feel that some new order must evolve if England is to exist.”
Ramsay MacDonald (1866–1937) first seen 1850 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The New Charter: A Programme for Working Class Politics (1892), quoted in Pat Thane, ‘Labour and local politics: radicalism, democracy and social reform, 1880–1914’, in Eugenio F. Biagini and Alastair J. Reid (eds.), Cu…
“There is too much expected of parliament. Localities should manage their own affairs and unions of localities should be formed when necessary to look after common interests. Our county councils are excellent beginnings in this direction.”
Ramsay MacDonald (1866–1937) first seen 1850 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The New Charter: A Programme for Working Class Politics (1892), quoted in Pat Thane, ‘Labour and local politics: radicalism, democracy and social reform, 1880–1914’, in Eugenio F. Biagini and Alastair J. Reid (eds.), Cu…
“The end we have to strive for is complete democratic liberty in politics and complete freedom in industry from the tyranny of monopoly and the vagaries of capitalism. Or, employing words appropriate to the spirit of Socialism, we should say that the task of the practical democratic reformer is now to show how the work of democratic liberty, begun so well by the early Radicals but dropped by their modern representatives, is to be completed; how the golden bridge of palliatives between political and social democracy is to be built; and how the foundations of social democracy are to be laid.”
Ramsay MacDonald (1866–1937) first seen 1899 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 'The Independent Labour Party's Programme' (co-authored with Keir Hardie), The Nineteenth Century: A Monthly Review, vol. xlv (January 1899), p. 27
“Mr. Rockefeller not only owns the Standard Oil supplies: he controls the railways, the banks, the shops...upon which his Trust depends. The Steel Corporation not only makes steel; it owns coal and iron fields, ore steamers, the Erie and Pittsburgh mineral railway, as well as the operatives in Homestead. We oppose the Trust, not as an organisation, but because it is controlled by individuals for their own ends...But the Trust points out the line of British advance. In this country, however, the introduction of the Trust should be marked by public ownership.”
Ramsay MacDonald (1866–1937) first seen 1903 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Zollverein and British Industry (1903), pp. 159-160
“Factory Laws, Fair Wages resolutions, Trade Unionism itself, are...all Protection – not the Protection of Mr. Chaplin, the landlord, nor of Mr. Chamberlain, the demagogue, but the Protection of the Socialist.”
Ramsay MacDonald (1866–1937) first seen 1903 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Zollverein and British Industry (1903), p. 164
“[Trade unions should identify] with something higher and wider than trade union industrial demands. It must set these demands into a system of national well-being; the wage earner must become the citizen: the union must become the guardian of economic justice.”
Ramsay MacDonald (1866–1937) first seen 1850 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 'The new Labour movement', New Liberal Review (September 1903), quoted in Duncan Tanner, ‘Ideological debate in Edwardian labour politics: radicalism, Revisionism and socialism’, in Eugenio F. Biagini and Alastair J. Re…
“Lower forms merge into higher forms, one species with another, the vegetable into the animal kingdom; in human history one epoch slides into another...Socialism, the stage which follows Liberalism, retains everything of value in Liberalism by virtue of its being the hereditary heir of Liberalism.”
Ramsay MacDonald (1866–1937) first seen 1905 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Socialism and Society (1905), pp. 164-165
“[W]e shall begin the exploitation of national resources like mines; or we shall begin the process of industrial reconstruction by agrarian policies which will bring the towns into contact with the country, re-populate the deserted villages, and re-till the waste fields.”
Ramsay MacDonald (1866–1937) first seen 1905 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Socialism and Society (1905), p. 180
“The books that influenced me most were Hugh Miller's, particularly his "Schools and Schoolmasters." Also the "Waverley Novels," in conjunction with Scottish History, opened out the great world of national life for and led me on to politics. But Hugh Miller had more influence upon me than any other.”
Ramsay MacDonald (1866–1937) first seen 1906 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Contribution to 'Character Sketches. I—The Labour Party And The Books That Helped To Make It', The Review of Reviews, Vol. XXXIII (June 1906), p. 577
“The England of 1844 did not break out into revolt; Chartism did not develop into socialism... The class war created trade unionism; the working classes became citizens; law, morality, the force of combination, lifted to some extent the pall of darkness which hung over the land. The Marxian today still wonders why England fell from grace. Neither Marx nor Engels saw deep enough to discover the possibilities of peaceful advance which lay hidden beneath the surface. Their analogies misled them.”
Ramsay MacDonald (1866–1937) first seen 1907 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Socialism and Society (1907), pp. 108-109
“Of the Budget as a whole, I say "Bravo". I am going to support it through thick and thin.”
Ramsay MacDonald (1866–1937) first seen 1909 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On Lloyd George's People's Budget, quoted in 'From Green Benches', Leicester Pioneer (8 May 1909)
“State Charity is not socialism but may become the greatest menace the Socialist Movement [has been] threatened with.”
Ramsay MacDonald (1866–1937) first seen 1900 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter (1909), quoted in John Stewart, 'Ramsay MacDonald, the Labour Party, and Child Welfare, 1900–1914', Twentieth Century British History, Volume 4, Issue 2 (1993), p. 114
“The economic truths of Socialism, its industrialism, and its sociology, must remain the vainest of vain dreamings unless we preserve among the people the political frame of mind which can appreciate democratic liberty and worth. When "a man's a man for a' that" is recited without making the blood tingle, the man has ceased to be.”
Ramsay MacDonald (1866–1937) first seen 1909 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Socialism and Government (1909), p. xxvi
“The land will therefore belong to the State in one or other of its several forms, and rent will be State income. The great factory industries will be controlled by associations of consumers which again will be identical with the State in some one or other of its aspects... the socialist state will mainly concern itself with co-ordinating production and consumption so as to prevent gluts, useless labour, unearned incomes, industrial loss, surplus values,—the causes of poverty.”
Ramsay MacDonald (1866–1937) first seen 1909 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Socialism and Government (1909), pp. 119-120
“Greater liberty will be given to localities to regulate their own affairs, to acquire property for that purpose, to promulgate byelaws and more particularly to organise themselves as markets after the manner of co-operative societies.”
Ramsay MacDonald (1866–1937) first seen 1909 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Socialism and Government (1909), p. 129
“The Socialist, therefore, cannot consistently address himself to class sentiment or class prejudice. He ought, indeed, to look away from it, because any victory won as the result of siding with one party in the struggle only perpetuates what he desires to eliminate. The appeal to class interest is an appeal to the existing order, whether the class addressed is the rich or the poor. It is the anti-Socialist who makes class appeals; the Socialist makes social appeals. Class consciousness is an asset of the defenders of the existing order of exploitation.”
Ramsay MacDonald (1866–1937) first seen 1911 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Socialist Movement (1911), p. 148
“[T]he Labour Party stands for a contributory scheme so far as this Bill is concerned. Moreover, we are in favour of a contributory scheme with reference to sickness, whilst we were in favour of a non-contributory scheme in reference to old age pensions.”
Ramsay MacDonald (1866–1937) first seen 1911 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the House of Commons on the National Insurance Bill (6 July 1911)
“Mr. Lloyd George will not resign on anything anti-German. He is anti-German, and the trust which the reasonable Peace people place in him is altogether misplaced.”
Ramsay MacDonald (1866–1937) first seen 1911 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 'From Green Benches', Leicester Pioneer (20 July 1911)
“I have been mixed up a good deal with Army officers, and I never met an Army officer in that time without being told by some of them that they were going to stop Home Rule if that was to be applied to Ulster. I have met them on board ship going out to India, and I have been nearly assassinated by them. I remember one day on the way out to India we got a marconigram saying that Larkin had been sent to goal, and I said I could understand it if it had been Sir Edward Carson. The result of my saying that was that I was very nearly thrown overboard.”
Ramsay MacDonald (1866–1937) first seen 1914 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in Newcastle-upon-Tyne (24 April 1914), quoted in The Times (25 April 1914), p. 10
“When Sir Edward Grey failed to secure peace between Germany and Russia, he worked deliberately to involve us in the war, using Belgium as his chief excuse.”
Ramsay MacDonald (1866–1937) first seen 1914 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Leicester Pioneer (7 August 1914), quoted in The Times (18 January 1924), p. 14
“The only reason from beginning to end is that our foreign office is anti-German and that the Admiralty was anxious to seize any opportunity for using the Navy in battle practice... Never did we arm our people and ask them to give us their lives for less good cause than this.”
Ramsay MacDonald (1866–1937) first seen 1914 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Leicester Pioneer (7 August 1914), quoted in The Times (9 April 1918), p. 8 and The Times (18 January 1924), p. 14
“Let us understand what we are out for. I say unhesitatingly...I say perfectly definitely that this country, if it retains any shred of honour at all, cannot accept a peace unless peace is forced upon it which means the sacrifice of Belgian sovereignty to any extent. If Germany imagines that there is any section of this country that is prepared to accept peace at the sacrifice of any portion—and I emphasise this—not merely of Belgian sovereignty, but of any portion of it, then the sooner German public opinion is disabused of that delusion the better.”
Ramsay MacDonald (1866–1937) first seen 1916 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the House of Commons (24 May 1916)
“In youth one believes in democracy, later on, one has to accept it.”
Ramsay MacDonald (1866–1937) first seen 1866 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Diary entry (20 March 1919), quoted in David Marquand, ‘MacDonald, (James) Ramsay (1866–1937)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Oct 2009
“Were I a German Minister I should sign [the Treaty of Versailles] only after making it clear that my signature was obtained under compulsion and that the provisions were such that I could not guarantee they would be carried out.”
Ramsay MacDonald (1866–1937) first seen 1919 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Forward (25 June 1919), quoted in Quintin Hogg, The Left was Never Right (1945), p. 31
“Felt the virtues of the Victorian times so condemned by Mr Strachey. The simple honesties can always be made a butt by the impish unrealiabilites.”
Ramsay MacDonald (1866–1937) first seen 1921 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Diary entry (23 April 1921), quoted in David Marquand, Ramsay MacDonald [1977] (1997), p. 246. MacDonald was reading Strachey's biography of Queen Victoria. He finished the book two days later and wrote in his diary tha…
“We will endeavour to unite the whole country in opposing French aggression... We cannot stand by and allow the resources of Germany to be deteriorated by French action. The British occupation of the Rhine, if it is part of the French policy, cannot be allowed to continue.”
Ramsay MacDonald (1866–1937) first seen 1923 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On the French occupation of the Ruhr; Daily Herald (23 January 1923), quoted in Quintin Hogg, The Left was Never Right (1945), p. 116
“They were going to work their own country for all it was worth, to bring human labour into touch with God's natural endowments, so that the land would blossom like the rose and have houses and firesides where there would be happiness and glorious aspirations.”
Ramsay MacDonald (1866–1937) first seen 1923 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech to a Labour Party luncheon in the Hotel Belgravia, Victoria (1 November 1923), quoted in The Times (2 November 1923), p. 9
“He was a free-trader, because he felt it was the best, with all its drawbacks. There were higher wages in protected America, but there was corrupt politics. Protection in America meant more sweating in America than free trade did in England. The very worst of conditions and slums in England were a paradise compared with the conditions of steel workers under protection in Pittsburg. The whole of the protection system was meant not for workers, wage-earners, or the wives of working men, but to make capitalists millionaires.”
Ramsay MacDonald (1866–1937) first seen 1923 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in Northampton (19 November 1923), quoted in The Times (20 November 1923), p. 16
“Mr. Lloyd George's campaign in its gross demagogic vulgarity has also increased both the number and the value of the reasons why we should have nothing whatever to do with his Party.”
Ramsay MacDonald (1866–1937) first seen 1911 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to C. P. Scott (11 December 1923), quoted in The Political Diaries of C. P. Scott, 1911–1928, ed. Trevor Wilson (1970), p. 449
“We do not believe that military alliances are going to bring security. We believe that a military alliance in an agreement for security is like a grain of mustard seed—small to begin with. That is the essential seed of the agreement, and that seed with the years will grow and grow and grow, until at last the tree that has been produced from it will overshadow the heavens, and we shall be back exactly in the military position in which we found ourselves in 1914.”
Ramsay MacDonald (1866–1937) first seen 1924 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech to the League of Nations Assembly in Geneva (4 September 1924), quoted in The Times (5 September 1924), p. 12
“The League takes upon itself as its first task the creating once again of the European system, and that European system never will exist until our late enemies have ceased to be our enemies and have come in to take their cooperative part in that system.”
Ramsay MacDonald (1866–1937) first seen 1924 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech to the League of Nations Assembly in Geneva (4 September 1924), quoted in The Times (5 September 1924), p. 12
“I am in favour of arbitration—I see nothing else for the world. If we cannot devise a proper system of arbitration, then do not let us fool ourselves that we are going to have peace. Let us go back to the past, let us go back to competitive armaments, let us go back to that false, whited sepulchre of security and of military pacts—there is nothing else for us—and let us prepare for the next war, because that is inevitable.”
Ramsay MacDonald (1866–1937) first seen 1924 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech to the League of Nations Assembly in Geneva (4 September 1924), quoted in The Times (5 September 1924), p. 12
“We are here preparing, as I see it, this international armaments conference. That ought to be our project. If we can remove the obstacles in the way of that we shall have done a tremendous amount of work that, in its very nature, once it is done, is bound to be permanent, because the reason and morality of the world will stand by it so loyally.”
Ramsay MacDonald (1866–1937) first seen 1924 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech to the League of Nations Assembly in Geneva (4 September 1924), quoted in The Times (5 September 1924), p. 12
“Political leaders, irrespective of party...were beginning to see that, unless in Europe they could create an enormous federation of free-trade nations, there was not a single nation in Europe which could flourish in the industrial standard it ought to occupy.”
Ramsay MacDonald (1866–1937) first seen 1925 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in Northampton (21 November 1925), quoted in The Times (23 November 1925), p. 14
“I can assure you that, whatever your political colour may be, in the Old Country political parties, even in the heat of battle, never obscure national or Imperial interests.”
Ramsay MacDonald (1866–1937) first seen 1928 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech to a state banquet in Ottawa (9 September 1928), quoted in The Times (11 September 1928), p. 13
“What the Liberals have done to the Labour Party's programme is to come along like a gipsy, steal our child, get it in gaudy attire, and then produce it on platforms to perform at the General Election.”
Ramsay MacDonald (1866–1937) first seen 1922 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in Swansea (15 March 1929), quoted in John Campbell, Lloyd George: The Goat in the Wilderness, 1922–1931 (1977), p. 226
“I see that Mr. Lloyd George last night confessed that he read the betting news in the papers. (Laughter.) Ah! I shake my head at the Rake's Progress. (Laughter.) ... The only Liberal contribution to the programme advocated by Mr. Lloyd George is its headline... It is just a certain amount of improvised jazz—that is their programme.”
Ramsay MacDonald (1866–1937) first seen 1929 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in Madeley in the Wreckin Division in response to the Liberal Party's "Orange Book", We can Conquer Unemployment (27 March 1929), quoted in The Times (28 March 1929), p. 16
“Let us declare boldly in favour of disarmament. Let us put down our own proposals, arguing them, fighting for them, persuading people to join us, appealing not only to the reason but to the moral sense of the world. Great Britain marching clear away at the head of the great movement for international peace, that is our idea.”
Ramsay MacDonald (1866–1937) first seen 1929 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the Free Trade Hall, Manchester (24 May 1929), quoted in The Times (25 May 1929), p. 6
“We want no injustice done to other people. I do not appeal to you merely as a class, but I do appeal to you workers to form yourselves into an organisation which will use political power in order to protect our human conditions and give you fair play in life.”
Ramsay MacDonald (1866–1937) first seen 1929 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the Hippodrome, Darlington (25 May 1929), quoted in The Times (27 May 1929), p. 9
“There can be no security until the Great Powers have agreed to settle their disputes, which have hitherto led to war, by conciliation and arbitration. This was the policy which the Labour Party was working up to in 1924, and which it will pursue again when it is in office.”
Ramsay MacDonald (1866–1937) first seen 1929 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the Newcastle station of the BBC that was broadcast on radio as the Labour Party's election address (28 May 1929), quoted in The Times (29 May 1929), p. 9
“Unemployment cannot be cured by relief work nor by patchwork of any kind. We must develop national resources and improve trade so that there will be increased employment and a tremendous revolution in industry and in power by the use of electricity and petrol, which must be accompanied by reorganisation of transport, including the making of roads, the reconditioning of railway plant and equipment, an extension of pensions which must enable the more aged workers to retire, the raising of the school age with necessary maintenance grants. We must dam the influx of premature people into industry.”
Ramsay MacDonald (1866–1937) first seen 1929 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the Newcastle station of the BBC that was broadcast on radio as the Labour Party's election address (28 May 1929), quoted in The Times (29 May 1929), p. 9
“I am so much concerned for the quiet development of industry, the peaceful mind and confidence both at home and abroad, that I will use every ounce of influence I have to prevent another election for the next two years... I wish to make it quite clear that I am going to stand for no monkeying.”
Ramsay MacDonald (1866–1937) first seen 1929 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Statement to a London correspondent of the Associated Press (1 June 1929), quoted in The Literary Digest, Volume 101 (1929), p. 14 and Current History, Volume 30 (1929), p. 660
“The day is coming when we may have to give up orthodox free trade as we inherited it from our fathers.”
Ramsay MacDonald (1866–1937) first seen 1926 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Remark to J. H. Thomas (14 January 1930), quoted in Thomas Jones, Whitehall Diary, Volume II: 1926–1930, ed. Keith Middlemas (1969), p. 235
“All this humbug of curing unemployment by Exchequer grants is one of the most superficial and ill considered proposals that has ever been foisted upon the Party. There is no more Socialism in it than there was in the cup of tea that I had at breakfast this morning.”
Ramsay MacDonald (1866–1937) first seen 1930 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Walton Newbold (2 June 1930), quoted in David Marquand, Ramsay MacDonald [1977] (1997), p. 538
“As a result of a careful examination of ideas they had come to the conclusion that the great work of every constructive Government must be to put the population on the land. Here was something permanent. They took men body and soul off the pavements, which had no rootable capacity, and put them in the fields to till and sow and harvest. In the worst time they would produce their own food there. It might not be luxurious, but it was healthy.”
Ramsay MacDonald (1866–1937) first seen 1930 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech to the Labour Party conference in Llandudno (7 October 1930), quoted in The Times (8 October 1930), p. 7
“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.”
Ramsay MacDonald (1866–1937) first seen 1931 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 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
“The Socialist Movement in this country is going to rack and ruin, because it is being controlled by people who are nothing more than critics of the Government, inspired by the idea that all you have to do is to hand out largesse to the community. All sense of principle, of communal organisation, and of service given with one's whole heart to the community, has gone and we are in danger of drifting into a Poor Law frame of mind.”
Ramsay MacDonald (1866–1937) first seen 1931 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Captain Bennett (8 August 1931), quoted in David Marquand, Ramsay MacDonald [1977] (1997), p. 609
“If we yield now to the TUC we shall never be able to call our bodies or souls or intelligences our own.”
Ramsay MacDonald (1866–1937) first seen 1866 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Diary entry after the TUC rejected cuts in public spending (22 August 1931), quoted in David Marquand, "MacDonald, (James) Ramsay (1866–1937)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; onl…