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Ramsay MacDonald

86 quotes

“Yes, to-morrow every Duchess in London will be wanting to kiss me!”
Ramsay MacDonald (1866–1937) first seen 1919 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Remark to Philip Snowden the day after the formation of the National government (c. 25 August 1931), quoted in Philip Snowden, An Autobiography. Volume Two: 1919-1934 (1934), p. 987
“The desolation of loneliness is terrible. Was I wise? Perhaps not, but it seemed as though anything else was impossible.”
Ramsay MacDonald (1866–1937) first seen 1866 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Notebook entry on his estrangement from the Labour Party (27 December 1932), quoted in David Marquand, "MacDonald, (James) Ramsay (1866–1937)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; onl…
“I do not intend to carry on when we are through this mess. As soon as we have turned the corner I will get out, but I do not want to leave the Labour Party in a bad position.”
Ramsay MacDonald (1866–1937) first seen 1933 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Remarks to Walter Citrine (27 January 1933), quoted in Walter Citrine, Men and Work: An Autobiography (1964), p. 288
“We have started a housing and slum clearance programme which will not only give employment but will provide a decent setting for family life. In slums alone we are to deal with 20 houses where only one used to be dealt with. What that cause means to those of us who believe that the crown of the civilized state is the healthy family and the happy fireside you can judge.”
Ramsay MacDonald (1866–1937) first seen 1933 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Broadcast (7 December 1933), quoted in 'Towards Better Times', The Times (8 December 1933), p. 16
“There are people who pant for a return to the gay high old times of partisan fighting, when every day brought a spectacular display with smart, scintillating speeches, plenty of spice and ginger, and cheers of amused people sending the performers home to bed. Our days are too grim for that, but the old game has begun again.”
Ramsay MacDonald (1866–1937) first seen 1933 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Broadcast (7 December 1933), quoted in 'Towards Better Times', The Times (8 December 1933), p. 16
“As far back as 1895 I stood as an unflinching opponent of the idea that the progress of Socialism could be made by the declaration of a class war. I have always been opposed to it, and I exemplify that opposition to-day. The only method of social progress is not by dividing society, but by uniting society and giving all of us the community-consciousness that asks us cooperators to reach the great and good state ahead of us.”
Ramsay MacDonald (1866–1937) first seen 1934 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in Southampton (13 November 1934), quoted in The Times (14 November 1934), p. 15
“To-day, in spite of the prospects, our faith is undiminished. Our hearts may be sad—mine certainly is—but I have handed in none of my papers of enlistment in the Army of Peace. I am still in the ranks of that Army: a fighting soldier to remain there and act there and strive there as long as there is breath in my body and persuasion in my lips.”
Ramsay MacDonald (1866–1937) first seen 1934 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in Southampton (13 November 1934), quoted in The Times (14 November 1934), p. 16
“What we have to do is to doom the slums. And we have done it. It is going to take a year or two. We are not only going to doom slums, we are going to doom overcrowding. Next Session the House of Commons will...pass legislation which is going to doom overcrowding as we have already doomed the slums.”
Ramsay MacDonald (1866–1937) first seen 1934 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in Southampton (13 November 1934), quoted in The Times (14 November 1934), p. 16
“My first grave doubts as to German diplomacy arose when Germany left the League of Nations for reasons which I have never been able to appreciate, except upon assumptions which meant that the German Government was indifferent to the pacification of Europe.”
Ramsay MacDonald (1866–1937) first seen 1935 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 'Peace, Germany and Stresa', News Letter (27 April 1935), quoted in The Times (26 April 1935), p. 18
“I know that, when the troubled history of these times comes to be studied and recorded in the cold and just light of truth, all the blame will not lie at Germany's door. That will not save it, its methods and its self-will, as shown in these latter days, from the blame of destroying the chances of success in peacemaking which were once again presenting themselves to us, and of throwing the mind of Europe suddenly into anxiety and turning it back upon the fatal ways of militarism, thus compelling the nations of Europe to return for an evanescent comfort to increased military equipment.”
Ramsay MacDonald (1866–1937) first seen 1935 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 'Peace, Germany and Stresa', News Letter (27 April 1935), quoted in The Times (26 April 1935), p. 18
“The channels of world trade are so obstructed by the pursuit of nationalist economic policy that steps should be taken at once to make it possible to arrive at an international economic agreement which would revive international trade. A return to free trade pure and simple would only increase unemployment.”
Ramsay MacDonald (1866–1937) first seen 1935 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech to the National Labour conference in Caxton Hall, London (28 October 1935), quoted in The Times (29 October 1935), p. 9
“This nation ought to be quipped to defend itself and to fulfil its responsibility under the League system of mutual assistance in the event of an aggressor coming to threaten us all. A defenceless Britain at this stage of evolution will not be an aid to peace but an incentive to war. But we must watch very closely lest the acceptance of the responsibility to prepare for defence may lead to a policy of militarism for its own sake. We draw this distinction and will continue to observe it.”
Ramsay MacDonald (1866–1937) first seen 1935 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech to the National Labour conference in Caxton Hall, London (28 October 1935), quoted in The Times (29 October 1935), p. 9
“That blot on the peace of the world, the Treaty of Versailles, is vanishing, and for that I am thankful... France has again had a severe lesson, and I hope it will take it this time. In any event the folly of pandering to it by standing rigidly to the letter of Versailles or Locarno...must now be plain and this logical and legalistic nation should be brought to face reality.”
Ramsay MacDonald (1866–1937) first seen 1936 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Diary entry in response to the remilitarisation of the Rhineland (8 March 1936) , quoted in Stephen A. Schuker, 'France and the Remilitarization of the Rhineland, 1936', French Historical Studies, Vol. 14, No. 3 (Spring…
“Our loss of belief in the Liberal party is therefore owing to the fact that its day of historical fitness has passed away. The new problems of progress will demand treatment by men of different outlook, of a different political principle, of a different mental quality, of a new species of democratic sympathy. The mass of the Liberal party will no doubt continue progressive, but their organisation is not now the sole custodian of the progressive cause... The Independent Labour party is in the true line of the progressive apostolic succession. It alone is able to interpret the spirit of the time.”
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), pp. 24-25
“He had been across the veldt, he had seen the battlefields, the still open trenches, and it all came to Chinese labour. They were told it was going to release the slaves, the Uitlanders, to open up South Africa to a great flood of white emigrants. They were told it was going to plant the Union Jack upon the land of the free. But the echoes of the muskets had hardly died out on the battlefields, the ink on the treaty was hardly dry, before the men who plotted the war began to plot to bring in Chinese slaves. (Cheers.) They could talk about their gold; their gold is tainted. (Hear, hear.) They could talk about employing white men; it was not true, and even if it were true, was he going to stand and see his white brothers degraded to the position of yellow slave drivers? No, he was not. (Loud and continued cheers.) These patriots! These miserable patriots! If they had had the custodianship of the opinions of the country 75 years ago, slavery in the colonies would have continued. When the north was fighting the south for the liberty of men, these men would have counted their guineas, would have told them how many white men had plied the lash in the southern states, and they would have said that for miserable cash, miserable trash, the great name of the country required to be bought and sold. Thank God there were no twentieth century Unionist imperialists in office then. (Loud cheers.)”
Ramsay MacDonald (1866–1937) first seen 1906 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Leicester Daily Mercury (6 January 1906)
“[A]ny idea which assumes that the interests of the proletariat are so simply opposed to those of the bourgeoisie as to make the proletariat feel a oneness of economic interest is purely formal and artificial... [T]o-day there is still a goodly number of workmen who cross the line and become employers or employing managers, whilst the great thrift movements, the Friendly Societies, the Building Societies, the Co-operative Societies, connect working class interests to the existing state of things. In addition, there are considerable classes of workers in the community whose immediate interests are bound up with the present distribution of wealth, and who, obedient to class interests, would range themselves on the side of the status quo. Of course (it could be said that) they are making a mistake from the point of view of their own interests, and that if they were properly enlightened they would see that they belong to an exploited class, one and indivisible. That may be true, but a mode of action which is ineffective until men are "fully enlightened" is a chimera.”
Ramsay MacDonald (1866–1937) first seen 1907 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Socialism and Society (1907), pp. 112-113
“The idea that a lax administration of the Poor Law is Socialistic, that putting an unemployed man on a farm for six weeks at the public expense is Socialistic, that feeding school children is the beginning of the Socialistic State, is absurd. We can deal with our unemployed, our sweated workers, our derelicts, only by attacking the causes of unemployment, of sweating, of human deterioration and though at a crisis our humanitarianism will compel us to resort to palliatives and give temporary relief, our action at such times should not be a willing and proud thing but one which is hesitating and temporary.”
Ramsay MacDonald (1866–1937) first seen 1907 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Socialism (1907), pp. 119-120
“The voting strengths of the movement will come from the ranks of labour – the organised intelligent workers – the men who have had municipal and trade union experience – the men of self-respect who know the capacity of the people... They are to be the constructive agents of the next stage in our industrial evolution. But they are not to stand alone. Socialism is no class movement. Socialism is a movement of opinion, not an organization of status. It is not the rule of the working class; it is the organization of the community. Therefore, to my mind one of the most significant facts of the times is the conversion of the intellectual middle class to Socialism.”
Ramsay MacDonald (1866–1937) first seen 1907 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Socialism (1907), pp. 122-123
“Even if every person in the country had the ideal virtues that the working classes were asked by certain rather thin skinned and somewhat stilted critics of theirs to possess, and the capacity to turn his attention to every skilled trade in the country, and the very finest technical skill at his command, so long as they had the present system of industrial anarchy, when demand was never gauged by those controlling supply, when overproduction was a feature of one series of years and under-consumption a feature of another, they would have to face the unemployed problem. If that were so, it became a matter for the State to settle. The time had come to banish for ever from their thoughts the old-fashioned heresy that unemployment was merely the expression of individual shortcomings. Unemployment was the expression of the failure of social organisation, and so it became the duty of the State to protect the unemployed men from the awful horrors that attended unemployment.”
Ramsay MacDonald (1866–1937) first seen 1908 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the House of Commons (30 January 1908)
“The State does not concern itself primarily with man as possessor of rights, but with man as the doer of duties. A right is the opportunity of fulfilling a duty, and it should be recognised only in so far as it is necessary to the performance of duty... Nor should the State grant the "right" to the franchise unless by doing so it is promoting its own ends...as man approaches the fullness of liberty which he can enjoy only when he is perfect, his rights become more ample... The State regards the man as a carrier of human life between the Past and the Future, and assigns to him the work of realising the Future from the Past. It shows him the path.”
Ramsay MacDonald (1866–1937) first seen 1909 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Socialism and Government (1909), pp. 11-12
“Might and spirit will win and incalculable political and social consequences will follow upon victory. Victory must therefore be ours. England is not played out. Her mission is not accomplished. She can, if she would, take the place of esteemed honour among the democracies of the world, and if peace is to come with healing on her wings the democracies of Europe must be her guardians...History, will, in due time, apportion the praise and the blame, but the young men of the country must, for the moment, settle the immediate issue of victory. Let them do it in the spirit of the brave men who have crowned our country with honour in times that have gone. Whoever may be in the wrong, men so inspired will be in the right. The quarrel was not of the people, but the end of it will be the lives and liberties of the people. Should an opportunity arise to enable me to appeal to the pure love of country - which I know is a precious sentiment in all our hearts, keeping it clear of thought which I believe to be alien to real patriotism - I shall gladly take that opportunity. If need be I shall make it for myself. I wish the serious men of the Trade Union, the Brotherhood and similar movements to face their duty. To such it is enough to say 'England has need of you'; to say it in the right way. They will gather to her aid. They will protect her when the war is over, they will see to it that the policies and conditions that make it will go like the mists of a plague and shadows of a pestilence.”
Ramsay MacDonald (1866–1937) first seen 1914 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to the Mayor of Leicester, declining to speak at a recruitment meeting (September 1914), quoted in David Marquand, Ramsay MacDonald [1977] (1997), p. 175
“When Mr. Lloyd George talked...about unemployment he forgot that he was the cause of it. Unemployment...and the increased cost of living were all due to causes that had been begun during Mr. Lloyd George's régime. Mr. Lloyd George went to Paris to try to make good the nonsensical pledges he gave in 1918, and supported a Peace Treaty which had been the cause very nearly of Britain's bankruptcy, and certainly the bankruptcy of many other nations. He, and he alone, was responsible for that... Everything that had happened had been the outcome of Mr. Lloyd George's blunderings, and he was using the calamities of his own policy as a reason why they should send him back to office.”
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
“I do think...that the way the Daily News and the Westminster Gazette behaved [during the election] was contemptible. We expect nothing better from the Daily Mail and such miserable products. The result, however, of the whole fight has been to dig both deeply and broadly a ditch between Liberalism and Labour. From all over the country I hear from my friends who fought that the Liberal fight was dirtier than the Tory, and I have seen leaflets like that issued by [Sir Henry] Webb who fought [Hugh] Dalton in Cardiff, which are simply amazing in their dishonesty. The line he took was that whilst we pitied the poor German who was being asked to pay £2,000,000,000 we had no qualms in imposing a Capital Levy upon Englishmen to the extent of £3,000,000,000.”
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), pp. 448-449
“During all my political life I have anchored myself firmly upon the conviction that if progress is to be well-rooted, it can only be carried on by what is called political or constitutional ways... I can see no hope in India if it becomes the arena of a struggle between constitutionalism and revolution. No party in Great Britain will be cowed by threats of force or by policies designed to bring government to a standstill; and if any sections in India are under the delusion that that is not so, events will very sadly disappoint them. I would urge upon all the best friends of India to come nearer to us rather than to stand apart from us, to get at our reason and our good will.”
Ramsay MacDonald (1866–1937) first seen 1925 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Message dispatched to India (6 January 1925), quoted in The Times (26 January 1925), p. 9
“The policy of Great Britain is not the policy of alliances with any certain set of nations. It is a policy of friendship with those nations that believe in democratic forms of government and democratic development. The policy of Great Britain now is, and must be, and will be, that all nations in good will, in singleness, and in disinterestedness of heart will meet together, consider the great problems of Europe and the problems of the whole world, and agree, as the result of cooperation, discussion, and joint exchange of opinion, on a common policy which will make alliances absolutely a thing of the past.”
Ramsay MacDonald (1866–1937) first seen 1928 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Address to the German Reichstag (15 October 1928), quoted in The Times (16 October 1928), p. 15
“In 1918 Mr. Lloyd George let himself produce such a programme of development as would astonish his rivals. He was going to hang the Kaiser. You said, "That is the man who has the ear of the public." He was going to build one million houses. He was going to make the land fit for heroes to live in, and you said, "That's the thing." He was going to search the pockets of Germany for the last penny, and you said, "That the stuff." My friends, it was stuff. (Cheers and laughter.) ... If unemployment had been tackled in a business-like fashion in the first three years after the War, it would not have grown to the proportion it had now reached... Mr. Lloyd George has been in office, nay in power, with a majority of 300; Mr. Baldwin has been in power with a majority of 200. What have they done? Have they broken the tale of heartbreakening worsening? Nowhere. It is only to the Labour Party that you can look for the solution of your troubles.”
Ramsay MacDonald (1866–1937) first seen 1929 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in Aberavon (2 May 1929), quoted in The Times (3 May 1929), p. 11
“[I]f we lose our chance now, which really means if this Government is to be continued in power, that chance will not return either to us or to our children. The memories of the last War will grow dim. The world will get back into its old rut, familiar professions and piety about peace will again soothe us to sleep, and the various countries will once more base their security upon military preparation. So they will all, in the end, find themselves drifting hopelessly upon those currents that make for war—1914 will be repeated... And remember what the next war is to be like. The old lines which divide combatants from non-combatants, the weak and the diseased from the strong and the robust, men from women and children, will all be obliterated and civilization itself assailed, and from sea and sky will be brought to a heap of ruins.”
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
“We do not believe that a nation can flourish on the poverty of its masses. Empty pockets are not only poverty, but breed poverty. Our own backs and stomachs still are the most neglected and yet the most profitable of our markets. Those who believe that safeguarding or protection is any aid to the development of that market had better study protected countries, where wages are low, unemployment is habitual, and poverty even worse than it is here. Unemployment insurance is not a dole, it is a benefit which has been paid for just like life insurance. These payments must be made adequate for the purpose in order to safeguard our people against the demoralisation of charity. We have concentrated this policy into two points and they stand as representing our purpose. Work first of all, but if no work, maintenance.”
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
“One of the great reasons why I belong to the Labour Party and hold the Socialist views of what a wise and just social structure is, is because I detest class politics and want to end them in real national unity. In bringing that about we have to consider the claims of the great mass of our people, who, on account of their poverty, cannot adequately protect themselves. What has national unity meant to them? A change in a machine can make them outcasts; a change in fashion can make them paupers... The Labour Party wants to bring within the bounds and the meaning of this national unity the bottom dog, as he is called. For this purpose we have organised our great public services. The Labour Party wishes to develop them.”
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
“[The Kellogg Pact is] a mighty moral bulwark against war – and we must never underestimate the effectiveness of moral bulwarks with no bayonet nor bludgeon behind them. The entry of the United States into the Permanent Court of International Justice, the growing confidence in the court, and the increase in the number of nations who have signed the Optional Clause mark definite and, I believe, irrevocable steps in the displacement of military power by judicial process in the settlement of international disputes. Public servants like us will fail in our duty if we do not diminish military power in proportion to the increase of political security... I dare affirm that, in the naval programme of the leading naval powers, there is a margin between real security needs and actual or projected strength, and the world expects this Conference to eliminate that margin.”
Ramsay MacDonald (1866–1937) first seen 1930 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech as chairman of the London Naval Conference (January 1930), quoted in David Marquand, Ramsay MacDonald [1977] (1997), p. 510
“If we refuse...what are the prospects? Repression, and nothing but repression, and it is a very uncomfortable repression; a kind of repression from which we shall get neither credit nor success. It is the repression of the masses of the people, the great proportion of these masses being women and children. It is the repression not of organisations and not of bodies; it will develop into the repression of the whole of the population... If, on the other hand, you wish to bind India to you by bonds of confidence, to make her happy within your Empire and Commonwealth, if you wish to hear her praise you in gratitude and remain with you in pride, then accept the work that has been done by the Conference, and instruct the Government to proceed with it to a complete conclusion.”
Ramsay MacDonald (1866–1937) first seen 1931 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the House of Commons on Indian constitutional reform (26 January 1931)
“If I had only been able to carry my colleagues with me what we could have achieved! What a chance we had! But we threw it away. If they had only been straight enough to stand by what they had initiated, not what finally resulted from it—I am not saying that—I could have helped them. When they ran away and began to deny that they had ever had anything to do with our proposals, well, I thought to myself that politics had become too degraded for me. Do you know that they turned me out of the Labour Party with a rubber stamp? ... [W]hen I write my book on how the Labour Party betrayed Socialism I will tell the story there.”
Ramsay MacDonald (1866–1937) first seen 1933 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Remarks to Walter Citrine (27 January 1933), quoted in Walter Citrine, Men and Work: An Autobiography (1964), pp. 288-289
“You are faced with the problem of what to do in respect to this question, to that question, and to the other question, but perfectly obviously, after you have faced the more superficial aspects of the separate questions, you want to know in relation to a complete plan what you are actually giving and what you are actually getting. Therefore, when the departmental, or compartmental, exploration has gone on to a certain extent it cannot be finished until somebody, co-ordinating all your problems, sets out in one statement and declaration the complete scheme that this Conference can pass in order to give security, to give disarmament, to give hope to the future–until that scheme has been placed before you, you cannot complete your examination of compartmental problems and questions...”
Ramsay MacDonald (1866–1937) first seen 1933 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech to the Geneva Disarmament Conference (1933), quoted by John Gunther, Inside Europe (1940), p. 338, as an example of MacDonald's increasing mental deterioration.
“The Government is labouring arduously for peace. The world is unsettled and nations are timorous. They would go far with disarmament, but are just a little afraid, and whatever is done at Geneva must be by international agreement. Our experience has been, without the shadow of a doubt, that one nation disarming will have no influence upon others. We ourselves have disarmed to the very edge of safety, and our consistent efforts have been to get other nations to see that an agreed limit to armaments, accompanied by political agreements of non-aggression, is the most effective security of peace and safety.”
Ramsay MacDonald (1866–1937) first seen 1933 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Broadcast (7 December 1933), quoted in 'Towards Better Times', The Times (8 December 1933), p. 16
“The substance of Germany's general case has a background of reason and human nature. I cannot be accused of ever having approached it in the "mind of Versailles," nor in the spirit of one who assumed that a powerful and a proud people could be kept subordinate by force (even by what seems to be an overwhelming force), nor have I ever seen anything but disaster issuing from and to the League of Nations if it is used by victors to perpetuate the position and mind they were in on the day of their victory... But, be that as it may, Germany has acted in such a way as to destroy the feeling of mutual confidence in Europe. It has broken up the road to peace and has beset it with terrors. It claims a measure of armed power which puts most of the nations of Europe at its mercy. Every reflecting and reasonable German must see the force of the point I am making. He must know in his heart that Berlin is not enough—that, in fact, it has upset very much more than it has pacified.”
Ramsay MacDonald (1866–1937) first seen 1918 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 'Peace, Germany and Stresa', News Letter (27 April 1935), quoted in The Times (26 April 1935), p. 16. This article was first issued in the Press Bulletin of the National Labour Committee on 25 April (Documents on German…
“The most secure nation in the whole of Europe, until it roused suspicions and fears against itself, was Germany. The German people who believe stories of encirclement cannot help recognising that their latest policy of military expansion, together with the circumstances of its declaration—an army greater than that of any other nation in Europe, an air force already declared equal to ours, a fleet that would be equal to the French and superior to the Italian—must rouse fear and unsettlement in the mind of every nation at which it can strike, and inevitably force the sound pacific idea of general collective security into the dangerous form of military alliances. The nations which were backward in making their contributions are now congratulating themselves that they waited for Germany to make its contribution first.”
Ramsay MacDonald (1866–1937) first seen 1935 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 'Peace, Germany and Stresa', News Letter (27 April 1935), quoted in The Times (26 April 1935), p. 16