Viscount Alfred Milner Milner

“ It is the common sense and experience of the people waking up to the altered state of affairs, beginning to shake itself free from a theory which no longer fits the facts. It is a movement of emancipation, a twofold struggle for freedom—in the sphere of economic theory, for freedom of thought, in the sphere of fiscal policy, for freedom of action. ”

“ I do not like fighting an abstract noun. My objection to anti-Socialism as a platform is that Socialism means so many different things. On this point I agree with Mr. Asquith. I will wait to denounce Socialism till I see what form it takes. Sometimes it is synonymous with robbery, and to robbery, open or veiled, boldly stalking in the face of day or hiding itself under specious phrases, Unionists are, as a matter of course, opposed. But mere fidelity to the eighth Commandment is not a constructive policy, and Socialism is not necessarily synonymous with robbery. ”

“ I am the last man to contend that preferential trade alone is a sufficient bond of Empire. But I do contend that the maintenance or creation of other bonds becomes very difficult, if in the vitally important sphere of commerce we are to make no distinction between our fellow-citizens across the seas and foreigners. Closer trade relations involve closer relations in all other respects. An advantage, even a slight advantage, to Colonial imports in the great British market would tend to the development of the Colonies as compared with the foreign nations who compete with them. ”

“ It is thoroughly vicious in principle to divide the nation, as many of the Radical and Labour men want to divide it, into two sections—a majority which only calls the tune, and a minority which only pays the piper.
I own I am aghast at the mean opinion which many politicians seem to have of the mass of their working fellow countrymen, when they approach them with this crude sort of bribery, offering them everything for nothing, always talking to them of their claims upon the State, and never of their duties towards it. This is a democratic country. ”

“ It is that they are deliberately and on principle—I do not asperse their motives; I do not question their sincerity and conviction—anti-patriotic, opposed to national as distinct from cosmopolitan ideals. They are not zealous for national defence; they have no faith in the Empire; they love to show their impartiality by taking sides against their own country; they object to their children being taught respect for the flag. But we Unionists are not cosmopolitans, but Britons. We have no envy or ill-will towards other nations; a man is not a worse neighbour because he loves his own family. ”

“ There is the depopulation of the countryside, and the influx of foreign paupers into our already overcrowded towns. There is the undermining of old-established and valuable British industries by unfair foreign competition. That is not an exhaustive list, but it is sufficient to illustrate my meaning. Well, wherever these and similar evils are eating away the health and independence of our working people, there the foundations of the Empire are being undermined, for it is the race that makes the Empire. Loud is the call to every true Unionist, to every true Imperialist, to come to the rescue. ”

“ The first thought of a wise business man is for his markets, and you as a great trading nation are bound to think of your markets, not only your markets of to-day but of to-morrow and the day after to-morrow.
The Free Trade theory was the birth of a time when our imports were practically all supplemental to our exports, all indispensable to us, and when, on the other hand, the whole of the world was in need of our goods, far beyond our power of supplying it. ”

“ I am speaking from my personal experience, and only saying in public here to-night what I have said in private a hundred times, that as an agent of my country in distant lands I have had endless occasion to appreciate the support given to the British cause by the ability, the courage, the shrewd sense and the broad Imperial instinct of many Scotsmen. And therefore I look with confidence to a Scottish audience to support my appeal for continuous national effort in making the most of the British Empire. ”

“ It has enjoyed great, though by no means unbroken, prosperity under Free Trade. Side by side with that system of ours other countries have prospered even more under quite different systems. These facts alone are sufficient to justify the critical spirit, which is the spirit of the Tariff Reformer. He does not believe in any absolute right or wrong in such a matter as the imposition of duties upon imports. Such duties cannot, he thinks, be judged by one single test, namely, whether they do or do not favour the home producer, and be condemned out of hand if they do favour him. ”

“ It is not a reform altogether of the same nature as those on which I have been dwelling, nor is it perhaps the kind of reform about which I feel the greatest enthusiasm, because I would rather attack the causes, which lead to that irregularity of employment and that under-payment which prevents people from providing for their own old age themselves, than merely remedy the evils arising from it. ”

“ It is of more value to our trade, for, if there is one thing absolutely indisputable, it is that these communities buy ever so much more of us per head than foreign nations do. But it is not only a question of trade; it is a question of the future of our people. By encouraging the development of the British Dominions beyond the seas we direct emigration to them in preference to foreign lands. We keep our people under the flag instead of scattering them all over the world. We multiply not merely our best customers but our fellow citizens, our only sure and constant friends. ”

“ It is not only with regard to Tariff Reform that I think the air is clearer. The Unionist Party has to my mind escaped another danger which was quite as great as that of allowing the Tariff question to be pushed on one side, and that was the danger of being frightened by the scare, which the noisy spreading of certain subversive doctrines has lately caused, into a purely negative and defensive attitude; of ceasing to be, as it has been, a popular and progressive party, and becoming merely the embodiment of upper and middle class prejudices and alarms. ”

“ Men of first-rate ability and character are rare. Still rarer are men who, having those qualities, also have the knack of compelling the attention and respect even of a hostile House of Commons. When a party possesses a leader with all these gifts, it is not likely to change him in a hurry.
But if I refuse to take a gloomy view of the Unionist leadership, I must admit that I am not altogether an optimist about the immediate prospects of Unionism. There is no doubt a bright side to the picture as well as a less encouraging one. ”

“ What we do deprecate is the spirit in which they are so often preached and pursued. No progress is going to be made—quite the contrary—by stirring up class hatred or trying to rob Peter in order to pay Paul. It is not true that you cannot benefit one class without taking from another class—still less true that by taking from one you necessarily benefit another. The national income, the sum total of all our productive activities, is capable of being enormously increased or diminished by wise or foolish policy. For it does not only depend on the amount of capital and labour. ”

“ Certainly they hold that the blind worship of immediate cheapness may cost the nation dear in the long run. But, unless cheapness is due to some mischievous cause, they are just as anxious that we should buy cheaply as the most ardent Cobdenite, and especially that we should buy cheaply what we cannot produce ourselves. Talking of cheapness, however, I must make a confession which I hope will not be misunderstood by ladies present who are fond of shopping—I wish we could get out of the way of discussing national economics so much from the shopping point of view. ”

“ There is nothing more calculated to remove class prejudice and antagonism than the co-operation of men of different classes on the same body for the same public end. And there is this about the aims of Unionism, that they are best calculated to teach the value of such co-operation; to bring home to men of all classes their essential inter-dependence on one another, as well as to bring home to each individual the pettiness and meanness of personal vanity and ambition in the presence of anything so great, so stately, as the common heritage and traditions of the British race. ”

“ And while we sit there—and here I venture, with all humility, to speak for all the members of that body, whether hereditary or created—we feel that we ought to deal with the questions submitted to us to the best of our judgment and conscience, without fear of the consequences to ourselves and without allowing ourselves to be brow-beaten for not being different from what we are. We believe that we perform a useful and necessary function. We believe that a Second Chamber is essential to the good government of this country. ”

“ Nothing could be more fatal to prosperity, and to the fairest hopes of social progress, than if the great body of the upper and middle classes of the community had cause to regard that progress as indissolubly associated with an attack upon themselves. ”

“ He does not care from whom he buys, or to whom he sells. He does not care about the ulterior effects of his trading, whether it promotes British industry or ruins it; whether it assists the growth of the kindred States, or only enriches foreign countries. To us Tariff Reformers these matters are of moment, and of the most tremendous moment. We do not undervalue our great foreign trade, and I for one am convinced that there is nothing in the principles of Tariff Reform which will injure that trade. ”

“ There may be no violent crime, but there is open and widespread defiance of the law and interference with the elementary rights of law-abiding people. It is a demoralising state of affairs, and one to which no good citizen in any part of the United Kingdom, however little he may be personally affected by it, can afford to be indifferent. Once let it be granted that any popular movement, which is not strong enough to obtain an alteration of the law by regular means, can simply set the law aside in practice, and you are at the beginning of general anarchy. ”

“ My own feeling is—I may be quite wrong, but I state my opinion for what it is worth—that there is far less danger of the democracy going wrong about domestic questions than there is of its going wrong about foreign and Imperial questions, and for this simple reason, that with regard to domestic questions they have their own sense and experience to guide them.
If a mistake is made in domestic policy its consequences are rapidly felt, and no amount of fine talking will induce people to persist in courses which are affecting them injuriously in their daily lives. ”

“ An increase of wages then is the primary condition of any real improvement in the lives of the sweated workers. So the point is this. Can we do anything by law to screw up the remuneration of the worst-paid workers to the minimum necessary for tolerable human existence? I know that many people think it impossible, but my answer is that the fixing of a limit below which wages shall not fall is already not the exception but the rule in this country. That may seem a rather startling statement, but I believe I can prove it. Take the case of the State, the greatest of all employers. ”

“ I believe that, if only we could shake off the fetters of a narrow and pedantic theory, and freely reshape our own system of import duties on principles of obvious common sense, we should be able at one and the same time to promote trade within the Empire, to strengthen our hands in commercial negotiations with foreign countries, and to render tardy justice to our home industries.
The Free Trader goes on the principle of placing duties on a very few articles only, articles, generally, of universal consumption, and of making those duties very high ones. ”

“ Do not let us think for a moment that we can afford such another fiasco as the late Colonial Conference. Do not let us imagine for a moment that we can go to sleep over the questions then raised, and not one of them settled, for four years, only to find ourselves unprepared when the next Conference meets. A cordial social welcome, many toasts, many dinners, are all very well in their way, but they are not enough. What is wanted is a real understanding of what our fellow countrymen across the seas are driving at, and a real attempt to meet them in their efforts to keep us a united family. ”

“ The epoch of expansion is pretty nearly past, but there remains before us a great work of development and consolidation. And that is a work which should appeal especially to Scotsmen. The Scottish people have borne a great part, great out of proportion to their numbers, in building up our common British heritage. They are taking a foremost part in it to-day. All over the world, as settlers in Canada, in Australia, or in South Africa, as administrators in India and elsewhere, they are among the sturdiest pillars on which the great Imperial fabric rests. ”