 Speech given to the House of Commons on January 14th, 1766, by William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham. Gentlemen, sir, I have been charged with giving birth to the first Earl of Chatham. I have been charged with giving birth to the first Earl of Chatham. I have been charged with giving birth to the first Earl of Chatham. Gentlemen, sir, I have been charged with giving birth to sedition in America. They have spoken their sentiments with freedom against this unhappy act, and that freedom has become their crime. Sorry I am to hear the liberty of speech in this house imputed as a crime. No gentleman ought to be afraid to exercise it. It is a liberty by which the gentleman who culminates it might have profited, by which he ought to have profited. He ought to have desisted from this project. The gentleman tells us America is obstinate, America is almost in open rebellion. I rejoice that America has resisted. Three million of people so dead to all feelings of liberty as voluntarily to submit to be slaves would have been fit instruments to make slaves of the rest. I come not here armed at all points with law cases and acts of parliament, with a statute book doubled down in dog's ears to defend the cause of liberty. If I had, I myself would have cited the two cases of Chester and Durham. I would have cited them to have shown that even under former arbitrary reigns, parliaments were ashamed of taxing a people without their consent, and allowed them representatives. Why did the gentleman confine himself to Chester and Durham? He might have taken a higher example in Wales, Wales that never was taxed by parliament till it was incorporated. I would not debate a particular point of law with the gentleman. I know his abilities, I have been obliged to his diligent researches. But for the defence of liberty, upon a general principle, upon a constitutional principle, it is a ground on which I stand firm, on which I dare meet any man. The gentleman tells us of many who are taxed and are not represented. The India Company, merchants, stockholders, manufacturers, surely many of these are represented in other capacities, as owners of land or as freemen of boroughs. It is a misfortune that more are not equally represented, but they are all inhabitants and as such are they not virtually represented. They have connections with those that elect and they have influence over them. The gentleman mentioned the stockholders. I hope he does not reckon the debts of the nation as a part of the national estate. Since the accession of King William, many ministers, some of great, others of more moderate abilities, have taken the lead of government. None of these thought or ever dreamed of robbing the colonies of their constitutional rights. That was to mark the era of the late administration, not that there were wanting some, when I had the honour to serve His Majesty, to propose to me to burn my fingers with an American stamp act. With the enemy at their back, with our bayonets at their breasts in the day of their distress, perhaps the Americans would have submitted to the imposition, but it would have been taking an ungenerous and unjust advantage. The gentleman boasts of his bounties to America. Are not those bounties intended finally for the benefit of this kingdom? If they are not, he has misapplied the national treasures. I am no courtier of America. I stand up for this kingdom. I maintain that the Parliament has a right to bind, to restrain America. Our legislative power over the colonies is sovereign and supreme. When it ceases to be sovereign and supreme, I would advise every gentleman to sell his lands, if he can, and embark for that country. When two countries are connected together, like England and her colonies, without being incorporated, the one must necessarily govern. The greater must rule the less, but so rule it as not to contradict the fundamental principles that are common to both. If the gentleman does not understand the difference between external and internal taxes, I cannot help it, but there is a plain distinction between taxes levied for the purpose of raising a revenue and duties imposed for the regulation of trade for the accommodation of the subject, although in the consequences some revenue might incidentally arise from the latter. The gentleman asks when were the colonies emancipated, but I desire to know when were they made slaves, but I dwell not upon words. When I had the honour of serving his Majesty, I availed myself of the means of information which I derived from my office. I speak, therefore, from knowledge. My materials were good. I was at pains to collect, to digest, to consider them, and I will be bold to affirm that the profits to Great Britain from the trade of the colonies through all its branches is two millions a year. This is the fund that carried you triumphantly through the last war. You owe this to America. This is the price America pays you for her protection, and shall a miserable financier come with a boast that he can bring a peppercorn into the Exchequer to the loss of millions to the nation? I dare not say how much higher these profits may be augmented. Omitting the immense increase of people by natural population and the immigration from every part of Europe, I am convinced the whole commercial system of America may be altered to advantage. You have prohibited where you ought to have encouraged. Encouraged where you ought to have prohibited. Improper restraints have been laid on the continent in favour of the islands. You have but two nations to trade with in America. Would you had twenty? Let acts of parliament in consequence of treaties remain, but let not an English minister become a custom house officer for Spain or any foreign power. Much is wrong. Much may be amended for the general good of the whole. The gentleman must not wonder he was not contradicted when, as minister, he asserted the right of parliament to tax America. I know not how it is, but there is a modesty in this house which does not choose to contradict a minister. I wish gentlemen would get the better of this modesty. Even that chair, sir, sometimes looks toward St. James. If they do not, perhaps a collective body may begin to abate of its respect for the representative. A great deal has been said without doors of the power of the strength of America. It is a topic that ought to be cautiously meddled with. In a good cause, on a sound bottom, the forces of this country can crush America to atoms. I know the valor of your troops. I know the skill of your officers. There is not a company of foot that has served in America out of which you may not pick a man of sufficient knowledge and experience to make him governor of a colony there. But on this ground, on the Stamp Act, when so many here will think a crying injustice, I am one who will lift up my hands against it. In such a cause, your success would be hazardous. America, if she fell, would fall like a strong man. She would embrace the pillars of the state and pull down the Constitution along with her. Is this your boasted piece? Not to sheed the sword in its scabbard, but to sheed it in the bowels of your countrymen? Will you quarrel with yourselves now the whole House of Bourbon is united against you? The Americans have not acted in all things with prudence and temper. They have been wronged. They have been driven to madness by injustice. Will you punish them for the madness you have occasioned? Rather, let prudence and temper come first from this side. I will undertake for America that she will follow the example. There are two lines in a ballad of priors of a man's behavior to his wife, so applicable to you and your colonies that I cannot help repeating them. Be to her faults a little blind, be to her virtues very kind. Upon the whole, I will beg leave to tell the House what is really my opinion. It is that the Stamp Act be repealed absolutely, totally, and immediately, that the reason for the repeal should be assigned because it was founded on an erroneous principle. At the same time, let the sovereign authority of this country over the colonies be asserted in as strong terms as can be devised, and be made to extend every point of legislation whatsoever, that we may bind their trade, confine their manufacturers, and exercise every power whatsoever, except that of taking money out of their pockets without their consent. End of Speech. It is always a matter of regret to me to find myself on a public question, opposed to those who are called, sometimes by the way of honour, and sometimes in what is intended for ridicule, the philanthropists of all persons who take part in public affairs. They are those for whom, on the whole, I feel the greatest amount of respect, for their characteristic is that they devote their time, their labour, and much of their money to objects purely public, with a less admixture of either personal or class selfishness than any other class of politicians, whatever. On almost all the great questions, scarcely any politicians are so steady and almost uniformly to be found on the side of right, and they seldom err, but by an exaggerated application of some just and highly important principle. On the very subject that is now occupying us, we all know what signal service they have rendered. It is through their efforts that our criminal laws, which within my memory hanged people for stealing in a dwelling-house to the value of forty shillings, laws by virtue of which rows of human beings might be seen suspended in front of Nugget by those who ascended or descended Ludgate Hill, have so greatly relaxed their most revolting and most impolitic ferocity that aggravated murder is now practically the only crime which is punished with death by any of our lawful tribunals, and we are even now deliberating whether that extreme penalty should be retained in that solitary case. This vast gain not only to humanity, but to the ends of penal justice we owe to the philanthropists, and if they are mistaken, as I cannot but think they are, in the present instance, it is only in not perceiving the right time and place for stopping in a career hitherto so eminently beneficial. Sir, there is a point at which I conceive that career ought to stop. When there has been brought home to any one by conclusive evidence, the greatest crime known to the law, and when the attendant circumstances suggest no palatation of the guilt, no hope that the culprit may even yet not be unworthy to live among mankind, nothing to make it probable that the crime was an exception to his general character rather than a consequence of it, then I confess it appears to me that to deprive the criminal of the life of which he has proved himself to be unworthy, solemnly to blot him out from the fellowship of mankind and from the catalog of the living is the most appropriate, as it is certainly the most impressive, mode in which society can attach so great a crime the penal consequences which for the security of life it is indispensable to annex to it. I defend this penalty when confined to atrocious cases on the very ground on which it is commonly attacked on that of humanity to the criminal, as beyond comparison the least cruel mode in which it is possible adequately to deter from the crime. If in our horror of inflicting death we endeavor to devise some punishment for the living criminal which shall act on the human mind with a detriment force at all comparable to that of death, we are driven to inflections less severe indeed in appearance and therefore less efficacious, but far more cruel in reality. Few I think would venture to propose as a punishment for aggravated murder less than imprisonment with hard labor for life. That is the fate through which a murderer would be consigned by the mercy which shrinks from putting him to death, but has it been sufficiently considered what sort of a mercy this is and what kind of life it leads to him. If indeed the punishment is not really inflicted, if it becomes the sham which a few years ago such punishments were rapidly becoming, then indeed its adoption would be almost tantamount to going up the attempt to repress murder as it must be if it is to be facious. It will be so shocking that when the memory of the crime is no longer fresh there will be almost inseparable difficulty in executing it. What comparison can there really be in point of severity between consigning a man to the short pang of a rapid death and immuring him in a living tomb there to linger out what may be a long life in the harshest and most monotonous toil without any of its alleviations or rewards? Debarred from all pleasant sights and sounds and cut off from all earthly hope except a slight mitigation of bodily restraint or a small improvement of diet, yet even such a lot as this, because there is no one moment at which the suffering is of terrifying intensity, and above all, because it does not contain the element so imposing to the imagination of the unknown, is universally reputed to be a milder punishment than death stands in all codes as a mitigation of the capital penalty and is thankfully accepted as such. For it is characteristic of all punishments which depend on duration for their efficacy, all, therefore, which are not corporal or pecuniary, that they are more rigorous than they seem, while it is, on the contrary, one of the strongest recommendations a punishment can have, that it should seem more rigorous than it is. For its practical power depends far less on what it is than on what it seems. There is not, I should think, any human inflection which makes an impression on the imagination so entirely out of proportion to its real severity as the punishment of death. The punishment must be mild indeed, which does not add more to the sum of human misery than is necessary or directly added by the execution of a criminal. As my honorable friend the member for Northampton, Charles Gilpin, has himself remarked, The most that human laws can do to anyone in the matter of death is to hasten it. The man would have died at any rate, not so very much later, and on the average, I fear, with a considerably greater amount of bodily suffering. Society is asking, then, to denude itself of an instrument of punishment which, in the grave cases, to which alone it is suitable, affects its purpose at a less cost of human suffering than any other, which, while it inspires more terror, is less cruel in actual fact than any punishment which we should think of substituting for it. My honorable friend says that it does not inspire terror, and that experience proves it to be a failure, but the influence of a punishment is not to be estimated by its effect on hardened criminals, those whose habitual way of life keeps them, so to speak, at all times within sight of the gallows. Do grow to care less about it, as, to compare good things with bad, an old soldier is not much afflicted by the chance of dying in battle, and cannot afford to admit that it is often said about the indifference of professional criminals to the gallows. Though of that indifference, one third is probably bravado, and another third confidence that they shall have the luck to escape. It is quite probable that the remaining third is real, but the efficacy of a punishment which acts principally through the imagination is chiefly to be measured by the impression it makes on those who are still innocent. By the horror with which it surrounds the first promptings of guilt, the restraining influence it exercises over the beginning of the thought which, if indulged, would become a temptation, the check which it exerts over the graded declination towards the state, never suddenly attained, in which crime no longer revolts, and punishment no longer terrifies. As for what is called the failure of death punishment, who is able to judge of that? We partly know who those are whom it has not deterred, but who is there who knows whom it has deterred, or how many human beings it has saved who would have lived to be murderers if that awful association had not been thrown around the idea of murder from their earliest infancy. We must not forget that the most important fact loses its power over the imagination if it is made too cheap. When a punishment fit only for the most atrocious crimes is lavished on small offenses until human feeling recoils from it, then indeed it ceases to intimidate, because it ceases to be believed in. The failure of capital punishment in cases of theft is easily accounted for. The thief did not believe that it would be inflicted. He had learned by experience that jurors would perjure themselves rather than find him guilty, that judges would seize any excuse for not sentencing him to death, or for recommending him to mercy, and that if neither juror nor judges were merciful there were still hopes from an authority above both. When things had come to this pass, it was high time to give up the vain attempt. When it is impossible to inflict a punishment, or when its infliction becomes a public scandal, the idle threat cannot too soon disappear from the statute book. And in the case of the host of offenses, which were formerly capital, I heartily rejoice that it did become impracticable to execute the law. If the same state of public feeling comes to exist in the case of murder, if the time comes when jurors refuse to find a murderer guilty, when judges will not sentence him to death, or will recommend him to mercy, or when, if juries and judges do not inflict from their duty, home secretaries under pressure of deputations and memorials shrink from theirs, and the threat becomes, as it became in the other cases, a mere Bertram Fulman. Then indeed it may become necessary to do in this case what has been done in those, to abrogate this penalty. That time may come. My honorable friend thinks that it has nearly come. I hardly know whether he lamented it or boasted of it, but he and his friends are entitled to the boast, for if it comes it will be their doing. And they will have gained what I cannot but call a fatal victory, for they will have achieved it by bringing about, if they will forgive me for saying so, an innervation, an effeminacy in the general mind of the country. For what else than effeminacy is it to be much more shocked by taking a man's life than by depriving him of all that makes life desirable or valuable? Is death, then, the greatest of all earthly ills? Usquik Adnan More Miseram est. Is it indeed so dreadful a thing to die? Has it not been from of old one chief part of a manly education to make us despise death, teaching us to account it, if an evil at all? By no means, high on the list of evils, in all events as an inevitable one, and to hold as it were our lives in our hands, ready to be given or risked at any moment, for a sufficiently worthy object. I am sure that my honorable friends know all this as well, and have as much of all these feelings as any of the rest of us, possibly more. But I cannot think that this is likely to be the effect of their teaching on the general mind. I cannot think that the cultivating of a peculiar sensitiveness of conscience on this one point over and above what results from the general cultivation of the moral sentiments is permanently consistent with assigning in our own minds to the fact of death no more than the degree of relative importance which belongs to it among the other incidents of our humanity. The men of old cared too little about death, and gave their own lives or took those of others with equal recklessness. Our danger is of the opposite kind. Least we should be so much shocked by death, in general and in the abstract, as to care too much about it in individual cases. Both those of other people and of our own which call for its being risked, and I am not putting things at the worst, for it is proved by the experience of other countries that honour of the executioner by no means necessarily implies honour of the assassin. The stronghold, as we all know, of hired assassination in the eighteenth century was Italy, yet it is sad that in some of the Italian populations the infliction of death by sentence of law was in the highest degree offensive and revolting to popular feelings. Much has been said of the sanctity of human life and the absurdity of supposing that we can teach respect for life by ourselves destroying it. But I am surprised at the employment of this argument, for it is one which might be brought against any punishment whatever. It is not human life only, not human life as such that ought to be sacred to us, but human feelings. The human capacity of suffering is what we should cause to be respected, not the mere capacity of existing, and we may imagine somebody asking how we can teach people not to inflict suffering by ourselves inflicting it. But to this I should answer, all of us would answer, that to deter by suffering from inflicting suffering is not only possible, but the very purpose of penal justice. Does finding a criminal show want of respect for property or imprisoning him for personal freedom? Just as unreasonable is it to think that to take the life of a man who has taken that of another is to show want of regard for human life. We show on the contrary, most emphatically, our regard for it by the adoption of a rule that he who violates that right in another forfeits it for himself. And that while no other crime that he can commit deprives him of his right to life, this shall. There is one argument against capital punishment, even in extreme cases, which I cannot deny to have weight, on which my honorable friend, justly laid great stress, and which never can be entirely got rid of. It is this, that if by error of justice an innocent person is put to death, the mistake can never be corrected, all compensation, all reparation for the wrong is impossible. This would be indeed a serious objection if these miserable mistakes among the most tragical occurrences in the whole round of human affairs could not be made extraordinarily rare. The argument is invincible, where the mode of criminal procedure is dangerous to the innocent, or where the courts of justice are not trusted. And this probably is the reason why the objection to an irreparable punishment began, as I believe it did, earlier, and is more intense and more widely diffused in some parts of the continent of Europe than it is here. There are on the continent great and enlightened countries in which the criminal procedure is not so favorable to innocence, does not afford the same security against Erone's conviction as it does among us. Countries where courts of justice seem to think that they fail in their duty unless they find somebody guilty, and in their really laudable desire to hunt guilt from its hiding places, expose themselves to a serious danger of condemning the innocent. If our own procedure and courts of justice afforded ground for similar apprehension, I should be the first to join in withdrawing the power of inflicting irreparable punishment from such tribunals. But we all know that the defects of our procedure are the very opposite. Our rules of evidence are even too favorable to the prisoner, and juries and judges carry out the maxim, it is better that ten guilty should escape than that one innocent person should suffer. Not only to the letter, but beyond the letter, judges are most anxious to point out and juries to allow for the barest possibility of a prisoner's innocence. No human judgment is infallible. Such sad cases as my honorable friend cited will sometimes occur, but in so grave a case as that of murder, the accused in our system has always the benefit of the nearest shadow of a doubt. And this suggests another consideration, very germane to the question. The very fact that death punishment is more shocking than any other to the imagination necessarily renders the courts of justice more scrupulous in requiring the fullest evidence of guilt. Even that which is the greatest objection to capital punishment, the impossibility of correcting an error once committed, must make and does make juries and judges more careful in forming their opinion and more jealous in their scrutiny of the evidence. If the substitution of penal servitude for death in cases of murder should cause any declaration in this conscientious scrupulosity, there would be a great evil to set against the real, but I hope rare. Advantage of being able to make reparation to a condemned prisoner who was afterwards discovered to be innocent in order that the possibility of correction may be kept open whether the chance of this sad contingency is more than infinitesimal. It is quite right that the judge should recommend to the crown commutation of the sentence, not solely when the proof of guilt is open to the smallest suspicion, but whenever there remains anything unexplained and mysterious in the case, rising a desire for more life or making it likely that further information may at some future time be obtained. I would also suggest that whenever the sentence is commuted, the grounds for commutation should in some authentic form be made known to the public. This much I willingly concede to my honorable friend, but on the question of total abolition, I am inclined to hope that the feeling of the country is not with him and that the limitation of death punishment to the cases referred to in the bill of last year will be generally considered sufficient. The mania which existed a short time ago, preparing down all of our punishments, seems to have reached its limits and not before it was time. We were in danger of being left without any effectual punishment except for small offenses. What was formerly our chief secondary punishment, transportation, before it was abolished, had become almost a reward. Penal servitude, the substitute for it, was becoming, to the classes who were principally subjected to it, almost normal. So comfortable did we make our prisons, and so easy had it become to get quickly out of them, flogging a most objectionable punishment in ordinary cases, but a particularly appropriate one for crimes of brutality, especially crimes against women, we would not hear of, except to be sure in the case of garotaers, for whose peculiar benefit we established it in a hurry immediately after a member of parliament had been garoted. With this exception, offenses, even of an atrocious kind against the person, has my honorable and learned friend, the member for Oxford, Mr. Natie, well remarked. Not only were, but still are, visited with penalties so ludicrously inadequate as to be almost an encouragement to the crime. I think, sir, that in the case of most offenses except those against property, there is more need of strengthening our punishments than of weakening them, and that, severer sentences, with an apportionment of them to the different kinds of offenses, which shall approve itself better than at present to the moral sentiments of the community, are the kind of reform of which our penal system now stands in need. I therefore vote against the amendment. End of speech. I do not blame him for that. Not only he, but even the viceroy in his long speech, went over the same ground, and in as emphatic a manner as possible, portrayed what he called the sufferings and hardships and cruel wrongs of the Anglo-Indians, and in everywhere possible emphasise the demands of the Anglo-Indian servants. But it never occurred to either the honourable member for Hull or the viceroy that there is another side to the picture. And if these Anglo-Indians are suffering, there are also other people who are suffering far more. What is the position of the Indians themselves from the fall in this exchange? Have the honourable member or the viceroy, or any of the English gentlemen who are talking about this subject, given a single thought to the effect which is being produced upon the peoples of India? Certainly not, as I suppose you would say. Here is this long statement by the honourable member for Hull, in which he has portrayed in very strong terms the sufferings of the Anglo-Indian servants, but he has not said one single word as to what the Indians themselves have suffered. And not only the honourable member, but the viceroy also, as I have already said, emphasised as strongly as possible the sufferings, and used all the strong words to be found in the English vocabulary with regard to the hardships of the English servants. But in these long speeches there has been not one word of pity or sympathy with regard to those from whose pocket whatever is demanded has to be paid, and what these people themselves have already suffered. Lord Macaulay has said that the heaviest of all Yorks is the York of the stranger. So long as this house does not understand that the York as it at present exists practically in India is the heaviest of all Yorks, India has no future, India has no hope. You may say oh oh, but you have never been, fortunately, and I hope and pray you may never be in the condition in which India is placed in your hands. Wait a little please. The saddest part of the picture is that while the British people and the British Parliament do not wish and have not willed that India shall be governed on the principle of the heaviest York is the York of the stranger, yet it is so. It is distinctly laid down what the policy is to be, and this Parliament has actually willed sixty years ago that the rule over India ought to be the rule of justice, righteousness, beneficence. That was repeated again in the great proclamation of 1858. But what has been the actual practice? What has been done by those who have been thus instructed? The actual practice has been to make this York the heaviest York, the York of the stranger. Has the honorable gentleman who cries oh ever been in such a condition as we are? If he has not he can never understand it. I pray that you may never feel that York. You have been free from it ever since the time when the Normans became assimilated with the English people. From that time forward you have been a free people, and I hope and pray you may ever remain so. But at the same time it is difficult for you to even surmise the condition of the people of India. It is within your power to make this rule a rule of justice and honour, and at the same time beneficent and profitable both to yourselves and to us. But I cannot now enter further into that point. The Honourable Member for Hull introduced the subject of the poverty of the people of India and treated it with a light heart. That is exactly the question that has to be thought out by me upon the floor of this house, but the time is not now. I cannot now enter into a debate upon that point because you, Mr Speaker, would very properly call me to order. I can only intimate my point and give you some high testimony upon that subject. I will not go into my reasons, but only quote you the testimony of some of the highest financiers of India. First of all, a viceroy like Lord Lawrence has distinctly stated in those words. It was in the year 1864, India is on the whole a very poor country. The mass of the population enjoy only a scanty subsistence. Then, again, in 1873, he repeated his opinion before the Finance Committee that the mass of the people were so miserably poor that they had barely the means of subsistence. It was as much as a man could do to feed his family, or half feed them, let alone spending money on what might be called luxuries or conveniences. Then, coming down to a more recent date, to the days of Lord Cromer, these are the words of Lord Cromer in 1882. It has been calculated that the average income per head of population in India is not more than 27 rupees a year, and though I am not prepared to pledge myself to the absolute accuracy of a calculation of this sort, it is sufficiently accurate to justify the conclusion that the tax-paying community is exceedingly poor. To derive any very large increase of revenue from so poor a population as this is obviously impossible, and if it were possible, would be unjustifiable. Later on, this authority goes on to show the extreme poverty of the mass of the people. Then he reverts back again to the question of the salt tax in India. He would ask honourable members to think what 27 rupees per annum was to support a person, and then he would ask whether a few annas was nothing to such poor people. There is the testimony of your highest Finance Minister, Lord Cromer, who is able to give a very satisfactory account of the work he is doing in Egypt, but was not able to give much encouragement as to India. And when we ask for information from the government that would satisfactorily show whether, under the most highly praised administration in the world, and after 100 years of this administration, India is poor or not, a Finance Minister as late as 1882 expresses the same opinion as was expressed long ago. Nothing more can be said than that India is extremely poor. These are the words of your own Finance Ministers. Now take the conclusion to which Lord Cromer came in 1882, an extract from which I have read to you with regard to the income of India being not more than 27 rupees per head per annum. This calculation is based upon a note prepared by the present Finance Minister, and I ask the Government of India, I ask the Under Secretary of State for India, for a return here in this house of that note. It is only by complete information given by the Government, in conformative with the requirements of this house, which requires that a complete statement of the moral and material progress of India should be laid upon the table every year, that honourable members can become acquainted with the actual condition of India. We have it every year of a kind it is not worth the paper it is printed on. There is a certain half-truth line of view always expressed in it, but the information that is required is what is the actual income of the country from year to year. My wish, sir, is to compare figures and see whether the country is improving or becoming poorer. But such information as is needed is not given. I have asked for this return, and what is the answer given? That it is out of date. That is to say, that while this note of 1881 was the basis upon which this public statement was made by Lord Cromer, this return is not to be given to us. I now ask again that this return should be given to us, and also a similar return for 1891, that we may compare and judge whether India is really making any progress or not. Until you get this complete information before the house year by year, you will not be able to form a correct judgement as to the improvement of India. So far we have, however, these higher financial authorities telling us that India is the poorest country in the world, that it is even poorer than Russia. I trust that these facts are sufficient to satisfy honourable gentlemen. Again, never has England spent so far as I know, and so far as my information goes, never has there been a single farthing spent out of the British Exchequer, either for the acquirement of India, or for the maintenance of it, or administration, or in any manner connected with India, whilst at the same time hundreds of millions of the wealth of India have been constantly poured into this country. Whether any country in the world could stand such drain as India is subjected to is utterly out of the question. If England itself, with all its wealth, was subjected to such a drain as India is subjected to, it would be reduced to extreme poverty before long. When the necessary information is before this house, I shall be able to show how, during the whole of this century, Englishmen themselves have pointed out that India was kept impoverished. Now, what has been the effect upon the natives of India, the taxpayers themselves, from the fall in exchange? During the twenty years from 1873 up to the present day, there has been a heavy loss in exchange in the remittances for home charges. I am not here tonight discussing the justice or injustice of the home charges. I am taking the home charges as their stand, and taking the effect upon the Indian taxpayers. The people live on a very scanty subsistence, and according to your highest financial authorities, they are extremely poor. Yet in their ordinary condition they have to pay one hundred million rupees to the Anglo-Indian servants for salaries and etc., of a thousand rupees and upwards per annum, and salaries under a thousand rupees besides. There is a large military expenditure to be kept up, and you have other payments under the system of the York of the Stranger. All this means a great loss of wealth, wisdom, work and capacity to India. I hope the House will be able to take all these points into consideration. Now let us see what a further heavy burden is put upon India by this fall in the exchange. There has been already, during the last twenty years, about six hundred and fifty million rupees lost to the taxpayer on account of this fall of the exchange, and before next year is over it will be something like one billion rupees. And with these heavy burdens, under which the taxpayers of India are groaning, you do not pay the slightest attention to them. You simply think of the sufferings and hardships of your own fellow countrymen, for which I do not blame you at all. It is only natural you should feel for them, but at the same time you ought to have some heart and some justice to consider from what sources this money has to be made up. You do not give a single thought to the sufferings of the men who are being ground to the very dust, as Sagarant Duff once truly said. To these people who are being literally ground and crushed to dust and powder you wish to add a still heavier burden. They have already suffered greatly from these causes. Can you have the heart to do it? They are a poor people living on a scanty subsistence, merely hewers of wood and drawers of water. I can say nothing more. I leave the matter to your sense of justice, to your heart to consider whether it is right or proper that you should put still more burdens upon these poor people already so low. I have said there has not been a single shilling spent out of the British Exchequer upon India during all this long connection. But I should make this one exception. On the occasion of the last Afghan war, the then Prime Minister, who is also now, offered and gave five million pounds towards the expenses that were put upon us by the war. But that was only about one fourth of the expenses of that iniquitous war. We suffered very heavily by that Afghan war and heavy military expenses are going on without check or hindrance. Had the British people to pay, which they must pay at least in some fair proportion, we would have heard on this very floor a great deal about them. Now the house is asked by the Honourable Member for Hull to put another burden upon the Indian taxpayer. What is the use of asking this? The fact is the viceroy has already committed himself in as strong language as he could that he would do something for the Anglo-Indians, whether the burden upon the poor taxpayers becomes greater or not. He has not said a word about the sufferings of the poor Indian taxpayer. He has not even thought of him. The one thing he said in his long speech was that he did not yet add to the taxation simply because he thought it would be a temporary difficulty. But if it became a permanent difficulty and as the Anglo-Indian services could not tolerate the suffering they have been put to, he would determine to do something for them by additional taxation. Very well then, says the Honourable Member for Hull, we must do something. You should not put the expense on the poor native taxpayer who has no vote. One right Honourable Member talked about the vote and that it is just because the poor Indian has no vote that there is so little heed for him. He is truly helpless and crushed down with every possible burden. If Honourable Gentleman here, after drawing millions from the native taxpayer, intend to put this additional burden upon him, then I can only say heaven serve him. With regard to the proposed relief, I would like to direct the attention of Honourable Gentleman to the words of the viceroy, in which he almost wholly commits himself to do something. In the first of that admission, what is the good of a committee? The viceroy says that whatever may be the report of Lord Herschel's committee, he is determined that if the present state of things continues, the distress which has been borne for some time passed by the officials cannot continue to be tolerated. Well, after that you may appoint committees, but what the result will be is perfectly clear. You have a committee of Europeans. You have European witnesses, European interests and all the European sympathy. We know very well what the result will be of the deliberations of such a committee. We have had ample experience of those committees in the past. At all gatherings which had been held, where the interests of Europeans and Indians clashed, we know very well that the Indians had gone to the wall. There has hardly been an instance in which a commission has sat on such a matter as this and decided in a manner that can be called impartial and unbiased. I can quite understand that Honourable Gentleman should become impatient. A committee is not required to prove the cases the Honourable Member of Fahul has brought forward. No doubt there is a great deal of suffering, but I ask you not to drag the relief from those who are already crushed or, as he himself said, not to be liberal with other wretched people's money. I appeal to the British people in this instance to say that it is proper, right and just that the British Exchequer should find the amount of money wanted. I will give a special reason for this. Every farthing that will be paid for this relief will be spent in this country. It will be simply passing from one hand to another. On the other hand, if you put the burden on the Indians, it means that every farthing taken out of their scanty subsistence will be carried away from India to this country and thus our distress and our poverty will be enhanced. The money given for this relief will not be spent in India but in this country and I appeal to your justice, to your honour and to your conscience whether it will be right to put such additional burden on the taxpayer of India. At the present exchange he has lost nearly one billion rupees. I appeal to honourable gentlemen of this house to the British people at large that in this case especially it will be the right and proper and humane thing to give this relief to Anglo-Indian servants from the British Exchequer. The motion is for a committee. You may have it but it is merely a farce. The whole thing is a foregone conclusion. Do not put additional taxation on these poor people. The pressure at present upon them is already far too heavy. Lastly, the only effective and permanent remedy for our wars is to remove the cause. The inordinately heavy foreign agency must be reduced to reasonable dimensions and then there will be no burden and no problem of loss by exchange. Remove the yoke of the stranger and make it the rule of the benefactor and you will be as much blessed and benefited as we. End of speech. Recording by Jess Mills, 17th January 2009 Which by Viscountess Aster. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Hannah Dowell. Speech given to the House of Commons on the 24th of February 1920 by Viscountess Aster. I shall not begin by craving the indulgence of the House. I am only too conscious of the indulgence and the courtesy of the House. I know that it was very difficult for some honourable members to receive the first Lady MP into the House. It was almost as difficult for some of them as it was the Lady MP herself to come in. Honourable members, however, should not be frightened of what Plymouth sends out into the world. After all, I suppose when Drake and Raleigh wanted to set out on their venturesome careers some cautious person said Do not do it. It has never been tried before. You stay at home, my sons, cruising around in home waters. I have no doubt that the same thing occurred when the Pilgrim Father set out. I have no doubt that there were cautious Christian brethren who did not understand their going into the wide seas to worship God in their own way. But, on the whole, the world is all the better for those venturesome and courageous West Country people. And I would like to say that I am quite certain that the women of the whole world will not forget that it was the fighting men of Devon who dared to send the first woman to represent women in the mother of Parliaments. Now, as the West Country people are a courageous lot, it is only right that one of their representatives should show some courage and I am perfectly aware that it does take a bit of courage to address the house on that vexed question, drink. However, I dare do it. The Honourable Member is more than polite. In fact, I should say he goes almost a bit too far. However, I will consider his proposal if I can convert him. The issue raised by the Honourable Member is really quite clear, although I admit that he did not make it as clear as I would have liked. Do we want the welfare of the community or do we want the prosperity of the trade? Do we want national efficiency or do we want national inefficiency? That is what it comes to. So I hope to be able to persuade the House. Are we really trying for a better world or are we going to slip back to the same old world before 1914? I think that the Honourable Member is not moving with the times. He speaks of vexatious laws and restrictions. I quite agree with him that most laws are vexatious. When we want to go fifty or sixty miles an hour down the Bath Road, it is very tiresome when we come to a village to have to go to ten miles an hour. Why do we have to do it? It is for the good of the community. We might kill children. He talks about the restrictions. I maintain that they brought a great deal of good to the community. There were two gains. First, there were the moral gains. I should like to tell you about them. The convictions of drunkenness among women during the war were reduced to one fifth after these vexatious restrictions were brought in. I take women because, as the Honourable Member has said, most of the men were away fighting. Does the House realise what that means? The convictions of drunkenness among women were reduced to one fifth at a time when many women, thousands of them, were earning more than they had ever dreamed of earning in their lives. Which generally means, so they say in industrial communities, that there is more spent on drink. But also, women were going through not only a physical strain but the most awful mental torches. Then the deaths from delirium tremors were greatly reduced. I do not know whether Honourable Members have seen the torches of delirium tremors, but it is a national gain if you can reduce them. The deaths of children from overlaying were halved. That was after these vexatious restrictions were brought in. These are some of the gains that you can set out on paper. I could talk for five hours on the moral gains. I will not do it, but I could talk for hours on the moral gains which you cannot put on paper. They are so enormous. I am perfectly certain if Honourable Members would really stop to think that they would not cavill at these vexatious restrictions. Already we have lost some of these gains. The convictions among women have doubled in the last year since the restrictions have been slightly modified and they are four times as many among men. That is something that I should like the House to think of. Think what these increased in convictions mean. Just think twice as many convictions among women. Does the House realise what that means? How I wish that I was really a narrator. I would like to tell you about drink. I have as good a sense of humour as any other Honourable Member. But when I think of the ruin and the desolation and the misery which drink brings into the houses of the working men and women as well as of the well-to-do, I find this a little difficult to be humourous. It was only the other day I had been down to my constituency that I was coming back from what they call the poorer parts of the town and I stopped outside a public house where I saw a child about five years old waiting for its mother. It did not have to wait long. Presently she reeled out. The child went forward to her but it soon retreated. Oh, the oaths and curses of that poor woman and the shrieks of that child as it fled from her. That is not an easy thing to forget. That is what goes on when you have increased drunkenness among women. I am thinking of the women and children. I am not so tremendously excited about what you call the freedom of the men. The men will get their freedom. I do not want to rob them of anything that is good. I only want to ask them to consider others. There is a story, no, I had better not give it. I do not really want to harrow the feelings of the house. But I do want honourable members to think about these things. What really happens? It is the most terrible thing to talk about it. The freedom of the subject. We, the women, know, and the men know, thousands of us in the country who work amongst the slums and in the prisons and hospitals. We know where John Barley Corn, as you are pleased to call him, leads to. It is not a paradise. It promises heaven, and too often it leads to hell. I will not go on, because it would not be quite fair. But I do beg honourable members to think of these things, and when they are talking about freedom, to think of the children. After all, the thought of every man for himself is a thoroughly materialistic doctrine. There is a doctrine of going out to look for the lost sheep. I feel somehow that it is a better spirit to go on with than to be always clamouring about the freedom of the subject. We talk about our war gains and efficiency. You talk about liquor control. What was it set up for? It was set up for national efficiency. It was not set up for temperance. It did pretty well. The War Office and the Admiralty both commended the liquor control board for having greatly gained that for which it was set up. No one would call the War Office or the Admiralty pussy-foots. There are several among them, but you can hardly look upon them as prejudiced pussy-foots. In 1916, the liquor control board unanimously reported that they had enormously increased efficiency by the regulations which the Honourable Gentleman opposite once swept away. The liquor board said more, and I would like Honourable Members, who are always talking about national efficiency in the economy, to think of this. I want to see whether you are in earnest about this matter or whether it is camouflage. The liquor control board said that the state could not get the maximum of efficiency so long as the drink trade was in private hands. That is what they said. Why did they say so? It is simple. You cannot reconcile the interests of the state with the interests of the trade. If you could, there never would have been any licensing laws. There would never have been any drink question. Why can you not reconcile the two? I will tell you. Because, Mr Deputy Speaker, the interests of the trade is to sell as much of its goods as possible. No one can say that it is to the interests of the state. I do not blame the trade, but one must say that its interest is absolutely opposed to the interests of the state. The real lesson for the country, so far as drink is concerned, is that the state purchase is the largest amount of progress with the least amount of unrest. That is really what is meant by our war lessons. The Honourable Member spoke of Carlisle. What was the result at Carlisle? The areas all around Carlisle, nearly every one of them, who were originally against the liquor control board's acquisition of the Carlisle area subsequently asked to be taken in. That is really the result of Carlisle. I am glad the Honourable Member mentioned Carlisle. I hope someone who follows will deal with all the facts and figures of Carlisle, because they are something of which to be very proud. There are certain things at Carlisle which we are not able to get anywhere else in England. That is wonderful. I could go on for hours, but as I say, having got to the indulgence of the house, I will not try it too far. The Honourable Baronet talks about pacifists and temperance men not being fighting men. I notice that he is a little frightened of revolutions. What makes revolutions? Reactionaries make revolutions. Then the Honourable Gentleman talks about the working man. I suppose when he refers to working men he takes the broad interpretation taken by my labour friends, which interpretation includes anything from a countess to a docker. I know a good deal about the working man. I would not insult him by telling him, so long as you can prove to him that the conditions of women and children have improved under these restrictions, that he was not willing to have them. I have never found him so. I have spent five years amongst working men in hospitals. I admit that the country is not right for and does not now want prohibition. The Honourable Member is perfectly right there. I am not pressing for prohibition. I am far too intelligent for that. Frankly, I say that I believe that men will get nearer the Paradise they seek if they try to get it through a greater inspiration than drink. I hope very much from the bottom of my heart that at some time the people of England will come to prohibition. I believe myself that it will come. I say so, frankly. I am not frightened of saying it. I am not afraid at all of working men. I have told them it for five years, and they know perfectly well what I think. I hope the time will come when the working man will go dry, but we are not yet ready. Do not let Honourable Members to see themselves for one minute. The working man is as good a father as any other man. Show him the figures. Show him what the liquor control board has done for women and children. Tell him the truth. Do not always tell him that his liberty is being taken away and that the rich man wants to get more work out of him. It is not true, and you know it. I am all for telling the truth, no matter how disagreeable it is. What I find is that if you care enough about people, they will listen to the truth. I think the whole world is sick of lies. I believe that you have got to like men, or you cannot say boo without insulting them. The Honourable Member has said that he and his friends were willing during the war to put up with drink control for the purpose of winning the war. It is not true. Ever since the liquor control board started, the Honourable Member and his friends have been kicking against it. Oh yes, oh yes, it's you, sir, who are deceiving. It is not I, and if it is not the liquor control board. All during the war, when the government and the Admiralty and the war office said that the liquor control board was helping efficiency and helping win the war, what did you do in the Great War you and your friends know? Sir, the Honourable Member and his friends were always kicking against the liquor control board. Oh yes, look in the official report. And you will see that you were always complaining. And at the time of the nation's dire peril, you were trying always to hamper the liquor control board. No. You have not got a pretty record, you and your friends. I'm not saying that there were not some perfectly patriotic brewers there were. But I do say that there were some brewers who were really were all during the war kicking against restrictions of any kind. That's perfectly true, and the Honourable Member knows it himself. It is really not a pretty story. I thought the Honourable Member was going to complain about the hardships of the trade, but he did not do so. I have, however, heard others do it, and I can tell you that the drink trade, in spite of its hardships, manages to profiteer to the tune of many millions out of the working men. That is what they did in the Great War. The brewery companies which were nearly ruined before the war have now got millions. Yes, that is so, and any Honourable Members can look into it, and they will see it for themselves. I am not blaming them, but I think if the Honourable Member and his friends are the real friends of the working men, they will urge the brewers to disgorge some of their war-profits. What are they doing with their war-profits? They are advertising. There are very offensive posters put up by the brewers, but I will not deal with them, except to dwell on those which are most likely to mislead the country. There is the poster of a fine English working man pointing to a reformed public house with a beautiful cheerful fire, where it is said that he can get tea, coffee and buns. Do you think the brewing trade are going to press the sale of tea, coffee and buns? The brewers are spending thousands of pounds in induced Parliament to let them make their public houses more attractive and more profitable. And this, in spite of the record of convictions amongst women being double, and amongst men four times what they were, I do not believe that the Government or the House is going to play their game. I do not think the country is really ripe for prohibition, but I am certain it is ripe for drastic drink reforms. I know what I am talking about, and you must remember that women vote now and we mean to use it and use it wisely, not for the benefit of any section of society, but for the benefit of the whole. I want to see what the Government is going to do. As the House knows, I am a great admirer of this Prime Minister, and one of the reasons I have always admired him was the way he faced this vexed question of drink during the war. I know that politicians are a little frightened of the trade and of this sort of thing, but the Prime Minister was not. He came out and said during the war that the state could not afford to let go its hold on the trade, which had beaten them in the past. I want the Prime Minister to remember those words when he introduces his drink bill. He also said that drink was a greater enemy than the German submarine. I want to see that the drink submarine does not torpedo the Prime Minister. I want to see whether the Prime Minister is master in his own house. I do not believe that the Prime Minister is in the stranglehold of the trade and the profiteers. It is not the trade and the profiteers who put the Prime Minister where he is. There are thousands of people who really believe in him over this drink question, and they trust him. I do not know whether there are many honourable members who feel that way, but I do, and I can tell the House that my name is an American in the country. There is a real awakening throughout the country. You can laugh. But there really are people in England and thousands of them who want to see the country better, and they are willing to give up their appetites. If you all do it, then you have to face this question of drink. If you want national efficiency, you will have to oppose excessive drink for that alone. You know that. When lepers are intoxicated, do you have the maximum out of them? I do ask honourable members not to misread the spirit of the times. Do not go around saying that you want England a country fit for heroes to live in. Do not talk about it unless you mean to do it. I do not want to rob the honourable member opposite of anything that has given him pleasure. I do not really want to take the joy out of the world or happiness or anything that really makes the betterment of the world. But you know, and I know it really promises everything and gives you nothing. You know it, and the house knows it, and the world is beginning to recognise it. We have no right to think this question in terms of our appetite and we have to think of it in something bigger than that. I want you to think of the effect of these restrictions in terms of women and babies. Think of the thousands of children whose fathers even had to put up with more than these vexatious restraints who lay down their lives. Think of their fatherless children. Supposing they were your children or my children. Would you want them to grow up with the trade flourishing? I do not believe the house would. I do not want you to look on your lady member as a fanatic or a lunatic. I am simply trying to speak for the hundreds of women and children throughout the country who cannot speak for themselves. I want to tell you that I do know the working man and I know that if you do not try to fool him if you tell him the truth about drink he would be as willing as anybody else to put up with the so-called vexatious restrictions. End of Speech Recording by Hannah Dowell. This is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Secrets A speech given by Stanley Baldwin MP British Prime Minister on the question of disarmament given to the House of Commons on the 23rd of July 1923. Very little if anything has been said today about one of the greatest difficulties that we find facing us in dealing with this question. And that is that fighting instinct which is part of human nature. I propose to say a few words about that first with a view to explaining how in my view we have to attempt to eradicate it or at least to combat it so as to produce that will to peace without which all efforts by legislation, arbitration, rule or otherwise must be vain. That fighting instinct in man is the instinct of the tiger. It dates from his creation and was probably given to him to enable him to fight for the survival of his species for the provision of space in which to bring up his race and to provide food for it and we find through the ages that this instinct whether in democracy or empire or among individuals has had full play. We find it even among men whose political views can be classed as pacifist and that is the reason why we have often found in history that men of pacifist views were advocating policies which must end if carried through to their logical conclusion in war. I need only remind honourable members that there was a considerable agitation some little time ago with which I personally had great sympathy and which was conducted very largely by those who in all other respects were of a peculiarly pacifist turn of mind and that was this country if there is any work to be done in this world it is always our country and I am thankful for that that this country should in some way or other rescue Armenia the only means by which Armenia could have been rescued was at the point of the sword I may remind honourable members that for the 30 years preceding one of the longest and bloodiest struggles in history the civil war in America the antislavery agitation in the northeastern states was very largely if not entirely in the hands of professional pacifists and anti militarists and when the agitation had brought matters to the point that it meant either surrendering the principle of antislavery the pacifist quite rightly in my view said it shall be war realising as was said during the late war that there are times when moral issues may even triumph over peace in the same way some of those today who are loudest in their protestations of international pacifism are loudest in their protestations that nothing but a class war can save society no truer word was ever said by a philosopher than was said by Kant a century ago or more that we are civilised to the point of wearisomeness but before we can be immoralised we have a long way to go it is to moralise the world that we all desire and I have merely mentioned these innate characteristics of human nature to make us realise as I think we sometimes fail to do what difficulties there are before us in carrying out a policy with which everyone in this house is in sympathy we have to remember one more thing besides that that since the war we must not make the mistake of thinking that what may be war weariness is necessarily an excess of innate goodwill and we cannot help noting that there has arisen in Europe in the few years since the peace a strong local feeling in different places of an extreme nationalism which unless corrected may bear in what is not of itself an evil thing the seeds of much future peril for the peace and harmony of Europe but taking into full consideration these points on which I have touched somewhat summarily I think there are compensations and I think before I have finished I shall be able to show that the human race is progressing though slowly and is full of a conscious though hardly as yet articulate desire for future progress in the same direction I have often thought with reference to the late war that one of the most terrible effects of it possibly a double effect has been that it has shown the whole world how thin is the crust of civilization on which this generation is walking the realization of that must have come with an appalling shock to most of us here but more than that there is not a man in this house who does not remember the first air raids and the first use of poisoned gas and the cry that went up from this country we know how before the war ended we were all using both these means of imposing our will upon our enemy we realize that when men have their backs to the wall they will adopt any means for self preservation but they was left behind an uncomfortable feeling in the hearts of millions of men throughout Europe that whatever had been the result of the war we had all of us slipped down in our views of what constituted civilization we could not help feeling that future wars might provide with further discoveries in science a more rapid descent for the human race there came a feeling which I know is felt in all quarters of this house that if our civilization is to be saved even at its present level it behoves all people in all nations to do what they can by joining hands to save what we have that we may use it as the vantage ground for further progress rather than run the risk of all of us hiding in the abyss together the conscience of the world is not stilled yet but on the government side of the house there rests a responsibility which cannot in the nature of things be felt by those who sit in opposition we have to remember that a great deal of what has been said today and if I may use the phrase in all good faith some of the dreams that have been mentioned today are no new thing we have to remember that in the French wars of Queen Anne's reign there was just the same longing for and the same dream of universal peace that so many of us feel today one hundred years ago that same feeling in different forms animated many different breasts Napoleon at St Helena dreams too late for him but dreams of a united Europe with a united congress on the American model of which he would be the chief and the dictator at Vienna such dreams were heard of the Tsar Alexandra a prototype of the late Tsar whose dreams of peace were shattered only to cruelly propounded a scheme of holy alliance which at that time came to nothing because he spoke to a world that was not yet ready for it we believe that any attempt at this moment to convene an international conference would not only not lead to success but would lead to an indefinite postponement of any possibility of achieving the ends of all desire in my view the moment cannot arise to approach this problem with any chance of success until the conditions of Europe with regard to repatriations and the security of frontiers is settled and I feel that it would be hopeless to expect a definitely favourable answer to give only two instances and I do not wish on this occasion to be more explicit from France for instance because she had obtained a settlement of repatriation and security or from Poland until she could feel that her frontiers were secure against a gigantic and powerful neighbour along her eastern borders the first step to be taken is the step that we are taking now that is to attempt a settlement of these existing problems of reparation and in taking that step I am animated by as ardent a desire as it may lead ultimately and at no distant date to the consideration of these questions which we have been discussing today as I am desirous of it leading to a discussion of the settlement of those questions which have kept the countries of Europe apart during all the years which have succeeded the great war let us never forget that sometimes in the darkest day the beginnings of better things are not only attempted but successfully achieved it was in the darkest days of the struggle of the 30 years war which has worked on international law and led to the foundation of that science which though it has not brought peace to the world has yet brought into being a code which has helped the world in its peaceful development and will continue to do so it has been during those dark days of the last three or four years that the Washington conference was held which has led to a limitation of naval armaments that until that conference was held I am convinced the statesmen of all countries would have considered to be impossible impossible even to have been debated and impossible in its fulfillment this year some of the most valuable exploratory work has been done and is being done by the League of Nations the League of Nations has been occupied in considering this very question of disarmament and the possibility of linking it up with guarantees of security universal in their application as such guarantees must be and such a universality is indeed a first and absolute essential to make any prospect hopeful of limitation of armaments now those efforts of the League of Nations are on the point of taking concrete form in the shape of proposed treaties which will be submitted to the governments of Europe for their consideration probably after the meeting in September of the General Assembly of the League of Nations I can promise at least for this government and I am certain that the same will be true of all the leading governments of Europe that the work of the League of Nations has done the forming which their work will be presented will be examined not only with the sympathy and the interest that such work deserves but with an earnest desire at the first moment when it appears to be practical that the aims of the League are not an exact forming which they have suggested they should be brought about shall be brought into effect in Europe as was well said by the honourable member for Preston in the course of his speech there is one great instrument of peace in this world and that is the British Empire it is a great instrument not only in its size and its population and its wealth but more than ever a great instrument in this that it is not only an empire but it is a large assembly of free nations not all of the same kin or the same tongue but animated largely by a common purpose and all alike equally desirous of seeing extended in every corner that empire or commonwealth those ideas of liberty and justice and freedom which we believe are in our hearts and which we hope to see spread throughout our empire and throughout the world in that collection of nations which now spreads throughout the world there is something of hope for the human race because though it may seem a dream it may yet some day be possible for peoples in so distracted a continent as Europe to feel there may be something for them to learn from the development from the union and from the ideals of our great empire and we may possibly be able to show them a better way which in years to come they may tread to find the solution that today seems so difficult as I have tried to explain to the house we cannot see our way to accept this motion and take immediate steps believing as we do that such steps would be rather a bar to future progress than a help yet I do say this that when we are sufficiently fortunate as I pray we may be to have seen brought about with our aid such a settlement in European conditions as I indicated earlier on then the time will be ripe and we shall be ready to take our part in so far as we can whether through such schemes as have been proposed already or through others in bringing about that limitation of armaments which we believe to be essential for the future progress of civilized mankind it is an easy thing to say as many men say today that this country should cut herself adrift from Europe but we must remember that our island story is told and that with the advent of the airplane we ceased to be an island whether we like it or not we are indissolbably bound to Europe and we shall have to use and continue to use our best endeavors to bring to that confident that peace in which we and millions of men up and down Europe have an equal belief and an equal faith End of speech Speech by Margaret Bonfield This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Hannah Dowell Speech given to the House of Commons on the 21st of January 1924 by Miss Margaret Bonfield MP I feel I must apologize for intervening in this battle of the giants I am certainly suffering under the depression of the funeral dirge on the right honourable member for Paisley Mr Asquith to which we have just listened. The points on which I wish to address this House have very little to do with these intellectuals installations, but they have a great deal to do the suffering that is going on in this country at the present time amongst the unemployed women. Unemployment amongst women I recognise is only a small part of a very large problem, but at the same time those of us who have to face unemployed women day after day realise that for the unemployed women it is the most vital question before the country and my criticism of the government is that in this small problem there was much that could have been done to mitigate the lot of women with very little expense, but with a certain amount of administrative common sense and they have consistently refused to do that little. We have round about a quarter of a million women who have been unemployed during the last three years. The number has varied from time to time, but some of them have been almost continuously unemployed. There were things that could have been done, extensions of schemes that were already in operation, but what is the record of the government? In 1921 by dint of great pressure from the Central Committee on Women's Employment backed up by the Trade Union Congress and by large bodies of entirely non-political public opinion we succeeded in getting a grant of £50,000 allocated to the Central Committee. In 1922 we secured after tremendous pressure and agitation which ought to have been entirely unnecessary another grant of £50,000. At the end of December the Central Committee had spent from the funds at its disposal £150,000. The first £50,000 from the government was conditional on the Central Committee providing £2 to every £1 of the government. The second was conditional upon the Central Committee putting £1 to every £1 of the government. With the United Fund we have succeeded in passing through various classes about 15,500 people. There are at present not more than 1,000 persons in the training classes and the last returns show that there are still 250,000 unemployed women many of whom are again facing a black winter. These small grants were given conditional upon certain training schemes being confined entirely to the development and supply of domestic servants. I am not quarrelling with the necessity for securing domestic work training to become the report published by the Committee of Inquiry into the conditions of domestic service. It is a sane and practical report which has faced facts and realised that there is a curious psychological situation that has to be met as well as merely a shortage of labour. The recommendations in the report show a grasp of the whole problem which I hope a future government will take into account. But the Central Committee could call the Homemakers. We were not permitted to have any money at all for that category which would have been so helpful in great areas like Lancashire and Nottingham, Cradley Heath and elsewhere. We have a certain number of classes there and we have been able to help a certain number of women but this has had to be done entirely out of the funds raised voluntarily and controlled by the Central Committee on Women's Unemployment. The war made an enormous difference in the first position of women in this respect. I do not think honourable members realise quite what it means today, for example, to be in the clothing trades compared to what it was 15 years ago. In the clothing trades mass production has developed enormously and the war accentuated that development. Power machines are the rule rather than the exception and the specialisation of processes has gone on to such an extent that women who have devoted years to clothing trade are now in the position of an option of doing only a 30th or even an 80th part of a garment and they are kept at that task. Here is a great avenue for helpfulness. The unemployed women in the clothing trade could have been helped by the immediate development of technical classes under the education authorities where they could learn at least to be able to visualise the processes of the whole garment and go back to the labour market and learn at the 80 or more processes in the making up of clothes. That would strengthen the efficiency of the labour supply in the clothing trade and would be an enormous advantage not only to the individual but to the general efficiency of the clothing trade as a whole. There are other categories of workers in regard to whom there is room for government action. There are women in clerical work many of whom were brought into government departments during the war as the women were put to do work of a certain elementary kind that did not give them the necessary training or experience to enable them to continue clerical work at the end of the war. These women above all others require opportunities for developing technical and general knowledge. In their case classes could have been formed at very little cost. Such classes would have helped to keep up the morale and strengthen the efficiency of the women. Above all, probably, criticism ought to be directed against the government and administration in regard to their handling of the juvenile question. Boys and girls alike have been at the mercy of a world into which they were turned out of schools with no place in industry ready to receive them. On boys and girls in their most formative years of their lives when their characters were influenced by environment there could have been nothing but a disintegrating and deteriorating effect. Here too, with a little coordination between the Ministry of Labour and the Ministry of Education and any other department that could have been useful in the matter surely it might have been possible to build up not merely an enormous extension of continuation classwork but some opportunities might have been given to the cleverer amongst the children to qualify for better and more extended opportunities of service to the state. We feel that the absence of any coordinated effort to deal with the juvenile unemployment will go down as one of the grievous marks I must say a word with regard to inspection it is very important that we should make laws and that those laws should be good but they are useless if they are not administered properly In connection with the legislation that has grown up in the 20th century inspection has been a vital part of the completion of the law Take the whole of the ramification under the Trade Boards Act The underlying principle enabled the organised workers to work with the organised employers to get something like a basic rate filling in the morass of the sweated industries and getting some sort of firm foundation on which afterwards by united action the workers could be maintained and the standard of life raised We had many employers who welcomed the coming of the trade boards because they recognised those who desired to deal justly with their people were being saved from a particularly mean and unfair kind of competition but the success of the trade boards depends upon the enforcement of their awards and the enforcement is the business of the inspectors What has happened in the trade board department? We have given to the cave commission again and again evidence from the department itself that the staff of inspectors were totally inadequate to deal with the vast problems connected with the trade board inspection We had the humiliating situation last year when there was a flagrant case of violation in connection with the tailing trade board rate It was not the fault of the inspectors but the government department decided that the thing was too difficult and that it was not possible to conduct a prosecution if they had to deal with a log rate So the union took up the matter instead The union won and got an award It was proved beyond a doubt that it was possible to estimate whether or not the workers were receiving less than the trade board's rate The mischief of the lack of inspection lies in the steady undermining of respect for the law when that law has been entered into by both employers and workers These protective laws are in the interests not merely of the individual concerned but of the whole community If we are to advance we want more of that kind of legislation but we must insist that when we have got it it should be fully operative We want, therefore a very large extension of the inspectorate Is it not ironical that in the very year when factory inspections are subject to international inquiry when the government sends its representatives to Geneva to consider recommendations and covenants laying down the basis of an international system of factory inspections at a time when the whole world has had its attention directed to the British system of factory inspection Many of us are proud of the record which our inspectors have laid down for it is a fine tradition and I had the opportunity in Geneva of meeting inspects from different countries of the world and they explained that they were anxious to follow the British method and to develop the British system Is it not ironical that in the year when this has happened we find a niggledy policy adopted by the government which has crippled, hampered and brought sometimes into disrepute the very system of which we should be so proud It is a matter of deep regret that these administrative details have been allowed to escape the attention of the government because it did not feel the importance of the matter That is one reason why I am very glad that honourable members on this side of that house are willing to take office It is not a matter of statistics or of dialectics but of safeguarding what has been won by tremendous effort and sacrifice on the part of those who are dead and gone If I am not regarded as impertinent in the first weeks of my membership of this house I would say that the speech of the honourable member for Barrow Mr. D. G. Somerville brought vividly to my mind a conversation that I had with the right honourable gentleman who lately represented Noel Hampton He said that for him an election was a mental rest cure I am bound to say after the speech of the honourable member for Barrow that I felt his mental rest cure had not yet been completed I am astounded that the right honourable gentleman who last addressed the house should still imagine that the country has rejected socialism I am a socialist of 30 years standing and today I am a more convinced socialist than ever I was Every general election appears to bring out a larger assortment of entirely imaginary evils based upon entirely imaginary facts produced by members of the party opposite It is surely time that we should have perfectly clear cut divisions Here I echo very cordially the sentiments expressed by the honourable member for the English universities from Conway with regard to the intellectual differences Goodness me there will always be enough of them to keep us busy and alive and to provide a subject for debate in the House of Commons There are and will be fundamental differences Why then? Let us waste the time of the country and of the House by discussing things that have no reality discussing possible evils that nobody really believes will ever come to pass Take down to the fundamental differences between those who believe that certain industries will be better under public control than under private control and those who do not believe that can ever come That is a real difference an understandable difference an intelligible difference and I am quite sure this country is debating that difference End of Speech Recording by Hannah Dowell Speech by Stanley Baldwin MP This is a LibriVox recording or LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Jill Cooper Speech given to the House of Commons on the 10th November 1932 by Stanley Baldwin I find myself at the close of a most interesting debate which has been well worthwhile I should not have regretted a second day of it because there have been a number of most interesting individual contributions in profound agreement with one or two of the opening observations of the right honourable gentleman who has just sat down disarmament in my view will not stop war that is a matter of the will to peace that is absolutely right as I have often said there are two natural instincts that make for the preservation of the race the reproduction of the species and the preservation of the species by fighting for its safety that is why the gentleman is perfectly right that the fighting instinct is the oldest that we have in our nature that is what we are up against and I agree with him in that though he did not actually say it in that way the highest duty of statesmanship is to work to remove the causes of war we shall all be in agreement with that that is the difficult and constant duty of statesmen that is where true statesmanship is shown but what you can do by disarming and what we all hope to do is this to make it more difficult to start to make it pay less to continue and to that end I think we ought to direct our minds I have studied these matters for many years my duty has made me chairman for five years of the committee of imperial defence and I sat continuously for ten years on that committee except during the period when the present opposition were in power there is no subject which interests me more deeply nor is there one which is more fraught being or ill being of the human race what the world suffers from and I have said this before is a sense of fear a want of confidence and it is a fear held instinctively and without knowledge very often but in my view and I have slowly and deliberately come to this conclusion there is no one thing more responsible for that fear I am speaking now what the honourable gentleman the member for Limehouse called the common people of whom I am chief there is no greater cause of that fear than the fear of the air up to the time of the last war civilians were exempt from the worst perils of war they suffered sometimes from hunger sometimes from the loss of sons and relatives serving in the army but now in addition they suffer from the fear not only of being killed themselves but what is perhaps worse for a man the fear of seeing his wife and children killed from the air these feelings exist among the ordinary people throughout the whole civilised world and I doubt if many of those who have that fear realise one or two things with reference to its cause one is the appalling speed which the air has brought into modern warfare the speed of air attack compared with the attack of an army is as the speed of a motor car to that of a foreign hand and in the next war you will find that any town which is in within reach of an aerodrome can be bombed within the first five minutes of war from the air to an extent which was inconceivable in the last war and the question will be whose morale will be shattered quickest by that preliminary bombing I think it is also well for the man in the street to realise that there is no power on earth that can protect him from being bombed whatever people may tell him the bomber will always get through and it is very easy to understand that if you realise the area of space I said that any town within reach of an aerodrome could be bombed by any large town you like in this island or on the continent within such reach for the defence of that town and its suburbs you have to split up the air into sectors for defence calculate that the bombing aeroplanes will be at least 20,000 feet high in the air and perhaps higher and it is a matter of simple mathematical calculation or I will omit the word simple that you will have sectors from 10 to hundreds of millions of cubic miles to defend I am not a mathematician as the house will see I mean tens or hundreds of cubic miles now imagine 100 cubic miles covered with cloud and fog and you can calculate how many aeroplanes you would have to throw into that to have much chance of catching odd aeroplanes as they fly through it it cannot be done and there is no expert in Europe who will say that it can the only defence is in offence which means that you have to kill more women and children more quickly than the enemy if you want to save yourselves I just mentioned that at the beginning of what I have to say that people may realise what is waiting for them when the next war comes the result of all this is and the knowledge of it which is probably more widespread on the continent than in these islands is that in many parts of the continent I am told open preparations are being made to educate the population how best to seek protection they are being told by lectures they have considered I understand the evacuation of whole populated areas which may find themselves in the zone of fire and I think I remember to have seen in some of our English illustrated papers pictures of various experiments in protection that are being made on the continent there is one very interesting feature of that there was the Geneva gas protocol signed by 28 countries in June 1925 and yet I find that in these experiments on the continent people are being taught the necessary precautions to take against the use of gas dropped from the air I may have something to say on that later on I will not pretend that we are not taking our precautions in this country we have done it we have made our investigations much more quietly and hitherto without any publicity but considering the years that are required to make your preparations any government of this country in the present circumstances of the world would have been guilty of criminal negligence had they neglected to make their preparations the same is true of other nations what more potent cause of fear can there be than this kind of thing that is going on on the continent and fear is a very dangerous thing it is quite true that it may act as a deterrent in people's minds against war but it is much more likely to act to make them want to increase armaments to protect them against the terrors that they know may be launched against them we have to remember that aerial warfare is still in its infancy and its potentialities are incalculable and inconceivable how have nations tried to deal with this terror of the air I confess that the more I have studied this question the more depressed I have been at the perfectly futile attempts that have been made to deal with this problem the amount of time that has been wasted at Geneva in discussing questions such as the reduction of the size of aeroplanes the prohibition of the bombardment of the civil population the prohibition of bombing have really reduced me to despair what would be the only result of reducing the size of aeroplanes as soon as we work at this firm of warfare immediately every scientific man in the country will turn to making a high explosive bomb about the size of a walnut and as powerful as a bomb of big dimensions and our last state may be just as bad as the first the prohibition of the bombardment of the civil population the next thing talked about is impracticable so long as any bombing exists at all we remember in the last war areas where munitions were made they now play a part in war that they never played in previous wars and it is essential to an enemy to knock those areas out so long as they can be knocked out by bombing and no other way you will never in the practice of war stop that form of bombing the prohibition of bombing aeroplanes or bombing leads you to two very obvious considerations when you examine the question the first difficulty about that is this will any form of prohibition of bombing whether by a convention, treaty agreement or anything you like be effective in war frankly I doubt it and in doubting it I make no reflection on the good faith of either ourselves or any other country if a man has a potential weapon and has his back to the wall and is going to be killed he will use that weapon whatever it is and whatever undertaking is given about it experience has shown us that the stern test of war will break down all conventions I will remind the house of the instance which I gave a few weeks ago of the preparations that are being made in the case of bombing with gas a material forbidden by the Geneva protocol of 1925 to come a little more closely to home let me remind the house of the declaration of London which was in existence in 1914 whittled away bit by bit until the last fragment dropped into the sea in the early spring of 1916 it was never ratified no but we regarded it as binding let me also remind the house as I have reminded them before of two things in the last war we all remember the cry that was raised when gas was first used and it was not long before we used it we remember also the cry that was raised before when towns were first bombed it was not long before we replied and naturally no one regretted seeing it done more than I did it was an extraordinary instance of the psychological change that comes over all of us in times of war so I rule out any prospect of relief from these horrors by any agreement of what we may call local restraint of that kind as far as the air is concerned there is, as has been most truly said, no way complete disarmament except the abolition of flying now that again is impossible we have never known mankind to go back on a new invention it might be a good thing for this world as I have heard some of the most distinguished men in the air service say if man had never learned to fly but he has learned to fly and there is no more important question not only before this house but before every man, woman and child in Europe then what are we going to do with this power what are we going to do with it I make no excuse for bringing this subject forward tonight to ventilate it in this first assembly in the world in the hope that perhaps what is said here may be read in other countries and be considered and pondered because on the solution of this question hangs not only in my view our civilization but before that terrible day comes there hangs the lesser question but a difficult one of the possible rearmament of Germany has been strictly wrapped up together that brings me to the next point there have been some paragraphs in the press which look as though they were half inspired by a which I mean it looks as if somebody had been talking about something he had no right to talk about to someone who did not quite comprehend him in which a suggestion was put forward for the abolition of the air forces of the world and the international control of civil aviation let me put that in a slightly different way I am firmly convinced myself and have been for some time that if it were possible the air forces ought all to be abolished but if they were they would still be civil aviation and in civil aviation there are the potential bombers it is all very well using the phrase international control but nobody knows quite what it means and the subject has never been investigated that is my answer to my right honourable and gallant friend the member for the Drake division of Plymouth to whose speech I listened with very much interest in my view it is necessary for the nations of the world concerned and I will make a remark about that in a moment to devote the whole of their minds to this question of civil aviation to see if it is possible so to control civil aviation that such disarmament will be feasible I said the nations whom it concerns because this is not a subject on which a nation that has no air force or no air sense has any qualification to express a view I think that such investigation should only be made by the nations who have air forces and who possess an air sense and undoubtedly although she has not an air force Germany should be a participant in any such discussions as might take place such an investigation would be under the most favourable circumstances bound to last a long time for there is no more difficult or more intricate subject even assuming that all the participants were desirous of coming to a conclusion so in the meantime there will arise the question of disarmament only and on that I will say but a word my right honourable and gallant friend the member of the Drake division raised a point there he pointed out quite truly that this country had never even carried out the very modest program which was adopted by Mr Bona Law's government in 1922 or 23 as the then minimum requisite in the opinion of the government for the safety of this country he expressed the fear the very natural and proper fear lest we with a comparatively small air force among the large air forces of the world should disarm from that point and that the vast difference between our strength and the strength of some other nations would remain relatively as great as it is today that kind of disarmament does not recommend itself to the government I may assure him that the point which he made has been very present to our minds and that in my view the position is amply safeguarded I would make only one or two other observations on this subject my desire having been to attract the minds of people to the subject it has never really been much discussed or thought out and yet to my mind it is far the most important of all the questions of disarmament because all disarmament hangs on the air as long as the air exists you cannot rid of the fear of which I spoke and which I believe to be the parent of many troubles one cannot help reflecting that after the hundreds of millions of years during which the human race has been on this earth it is only within our generation that we have secured the mastery of the air I certainly do not know how the youth of the world may feel but it is not a cheerful thought to the older men that having got the mastery of the air we are going to defile the earth from the air as we have defiled the soil during all the years that mankind has been on it this is a question for the younger men far more than it is for us they are the young men who fly in the air future generations will fly in the air more and more few of my colleagues around me here probably will see another great war I do not think that we have seen the last great war but I do not think there will be one just yet at any rate if it does come we should be too old to be of use to anyone what about the younger men how will they investigate this matter it is they who will have to fight and it is they who will have to fight this bloody issue of war it is reality for them to decide they are the majority upon the earth and the matter touches them far more closely the instrument is in their hands there are some instruments so terrible that mankind has resolved not to use them I myself happen to know of at least three inventions deliberately proposed for use in the last war that were never used potent to a degree and inhuman if the conscience of the young men should ever come to feel with regard to this one instrument that it is evil and should go the thing will be done but if they do not feel like that well as I say the future is in their hands but when the next war comes and European civilization is wiped out as it will be and by no force more than by that force then do not let them lay the blame upon the old men let them remember that they they principally or they alone are responsible for the terrors that have fallen upon the earth End of speech Recording by Jill Cooper Essex, England