Never Give In! (6 page)

What ought to be the present policy of the Government? I take it that there is a pretty general consensus of opinion in this House that it ought to be to make it easy and honourable for the Boers to surrender, and painful and perilous for them to continue in the field. Let the Government proceed on both those lines concurrently and at full speed. I sympathise very heartily with my hon. friend the senior member for Oldham, who, in a speech delivered last year, showed great anxiety that everything should be done to make the Boers understand exactly what terms were offered to them, and I earnestly hope that the right hon. Gentleman the Colonial Secretary will leave nothing undone to bring home to those brave and unhappy men who are fighting in the field that whenever they are prepared to recognise that their small independence must be merged in the larger liberties of the British Empire, there will be a full guarantee for the security of their property and religion, an assurance of equal rights, a promise of representative institutions, and last of all, but not least of all, what the British Army would most readily accord to a brave and enduring foe – all the honours of war. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will not allow himself to be discouraged by any rebuffs which his envoys may meet with, but will persevere in endeavouring to bring before these people the conditions on which at any moment they may obtain peace and the friendship of Great Britain. Of course, we can only promise, and it rests with the Boers whether they will accept our conditions. They may refuse the generous terms offered them, and stand or fall by their old cry, ‘Death or independence!’ (
Nationalist cheers
). I do not see anything to rejoice at in that prospect, because if it be so, the war will enter upon a very sad and gloomy phase. If the Boers remain deaf to the voice of reason, and blind to the hand of friendship, if they refuse all overtures and disdain all terms, then, while we cannot help admiring their determination and endurance, we can only hope that our own race, in the pursuit of what they feel to be a righteous cause, will show determination as strong and endurance as lasting. . . .

I cannot sit down without saying how very grateful I am for the kindness and patience with which the House has heard me, and which have been extended to me, I well know, not on my own account, but because of a certain splendid memory which many hon. Members still preserve.

‘LIFTING AGAIN THE ‘TATTERED FLAG’

13 May 1901

House of Commons

Not even three months after his maiden speech, Churchill mounted a major attack on St John Brodrick, the Secretary of State for War, over his plans for a reform of the Army. He assailed what he dubbed ‘Mr Brodrick’s Army’, raising again the ‘tattered flag of retrenchment and economy’ – the cause in which his father had sacrificed his political career. It marked the first of a growing number of attacks on his own party, which culminated three years later in his ‘crossing the floor’ of the House of Commons and joining the Liberal Party.

I wish to complain very respectfully, but most urgently, that the Army Estimates involved by the scheme lately explained by the Secretary of State for War are much too high, and ought to be reduced, if not this year, certainly at the conclusion of the South African campaign. I regard it as a grave mistake in Imperial policy to spend thirty millions a year on the Army. I hold that the continued increase in Army expenditure cannot be viewed by supporters of the Government without the greatest alarm and apprehension, and by Members who represent working class constituencies without extreme dislike.

I desire to urge considerations of economy on His Majesty’s Government, and as a practical step that the number of soldiers which they propose to keep ready for expeditionary purposes should be substantially reduced. First of all I exclude altogether from this discussion the cost of the South African War. Once you are so unfortunate as to be drawn into a war, no price is too great to pay for an early and victorious peace. All economy of soldiers or supplies is the worst extravagance in war. I am concerned only with the Estimates for the ordinary service of the year, which are increasing at such a rate that it is impossible to view them without alarm. Does the House realise what British expenditure on armaments amounts to? See how our Army Estimates have grown – seventeen millions in 1894, eighteen in 1897, nineteen in 1899, twenty-four in 1900, and finally in the present year no less than twenty-nine millions eight hundred thousand. . . .

If I might be allowed to revive a half-forgotten episode – it is half-forgotten because it has passed into that period of twilight which intervenes between the bright glare of newspaper controversy and the calm rays of the lamp of history – I would recall that once upon a time a Conservative and Unionist Administration came into power supported by a large majority, nearly as powerful, and much more cohesive, than that which now supports His Majesty’s Government, and when the time came round to consider the Estimates the usual struggle took place between the great spending Departments and the Treasury. I say ‘usual’; at least it used to be so, I do not know whether it is so now. The Government of the day threw their weight on the side of the great spending Departments, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer resigned. The controversy was bitter, the struggle uncertain, but in the end the Government triumphed, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer went down for ever, and with him, as it now seems, there fell also the cause of retrenchment and economy, so that the very memory thereof seems to have perished. . . . Wise words, Sir, stand the test of time, and I am very glad the House has allowed me, after an interval of fifteen years, to lift again the tattered flag of retrenchment and economy. . . .

I stand here to please the cause of economy. I think it is about time that a voice was heard from this side of the House pleading that unpopular cause; that someone not on the bench opposite, but a Conservative by tradition, whose fortunes are linked indissolubly to the Tory party, who knows something of the majesty and power of Britain beyond the seas, upon whom rests no taint of cosmopolitanism, should stand forward and say what he can to protest against the policy of daily increasing the public burden. If such a one is to stand forward in such a cause, then, I say it humbly, but with I hope becoming pride, no one has a better right than I have, for this is a cause I have inherited, and a cause for which the late Lord Randolph Churchill made the greatest sacrifice of any Minister of modern times. . . .

The Empire which has grown up around these islands is essentially commercial and marine. The whole course of our history, the geography of the country, all the evidences of the present situation, proclaim beyond a doubt that our power and prosperity alike and together depend on the economic command of markets and the naval command of the sea; and from the highest sentimental reasons, not less than from the most ordinary practical considerations, we must avoid a servile imitation of the clanking military empires of the European continent, by which we cannot obtain the military predominance and security which is desired, but only impair and vitiate the natural sources of our strength and vigour. There is a higher reason still. There is a moral force – the Divine foundation of earthly power – which, as the human race advances, will more and more strengthen and protect those who enjoy it; which would have protected the Boers better than all their cannon and brave commandos if, instead of being ignorant, aggressive, and corrupt, they had enjoyed that high moral reputation which protected us in the dark days of the war from European interference – for, in spite of every calumny and lie uttered or printed, the truth comes to the top, and it is known alike by peoples and by rulers that on the whole British influence is healthy and kindly, and makes for the general happiness and welfare of mankind. And we shall make a fatal bargain if we allow the moral force which this country has so long exerted to become diminished, or perhaps even destroyed for the sake of the costly, trumpery, dangerous military playthings on which the Secretary of State for War has set his heart.

‘AN AGE OF GREAT EVENTS AND LITTLE MEN’

21 November 1901

Philomathic Society Dinner, Liverpool

Given that there was a Conservative Government in office, this speech is further evidence of the scant regard the new Member had for the leaders of his own Party.

One aspect of modern life which strikes me very much is the elimination of the individual. In trade, vast and formidable combinations of labour stand arrayed against even vaster and more formidable combinations of capital, and, whether they war with each other or cooperate, the individual in the end is always crushed under. Let us look into the political world and see how the combination grew and the individual steadily diminished. At one period the House of Commons possessed Pitt and Fox, Burke and Sheridan; at another, Peel and Bright, Disraeli and Gladstone. We are not quite so well off now, but Governments were never more stable and secure. I think the late Lord Randolph Churchill one of the last of the old school of politicians. . . . Nothing would be worse than that independent men should be snuffed out and that there should be only two opinions in England – the Government opinion and the Opposition opinion. The perpetually unanimous Cabinet disquiets me. I believe in personality. The House of Commons depends for its popularity, and consequently for its power, on the personality of its members.

We live in an age of great events and little men, and if we are not to become the slaves of our own systems or sink oppressed among the mechanism we ourselves created, it will only be by the bold efforts of originality, by repeated experiment, and by the dispassionate consideration of the results of sustained and unflinching thought.

‘A NAVY . . . STRONG ENOUGH TO PRESERVE THE PEACE OF THE WORLD’

17 January 1903

Oldham, Lancashire

The young Member for Oldham renews his attack on ‘Mr Brodrick’s Army’.

The failure of this Army scheme is a very serious business, and it is a matter which Parliament will have to discuss. We have frittered away money. We have wasted time. Above all, we have exhausted that public interest in the Army which the war had excited, and which might have been made the driving power of great and beneficial and sorely needed reforms. But there is one consolation, though it is, perhaps, rather a grim consolation. It was a scheme all along unsuited to our needs; it never ought to have succeeded; it never could have succeeded. From the very beginning it deserved opposition, and was doomed to failure. We did not want to have in England three army corps or soldiers to sail away and attack anybody anywhere at a moment’s notice. That is a dangerous and provocative provision. That is enough men to get us into trouble with a great European nation, and nothing like enough men to get us out again. (
Hear, hear.
) We do not want to have in England a large Regular Army for home defence. We do not want our Volunteers to remain a mere despised appendage of the War Office. (
Cheers.
) There is scarcely anything more harmful to the British Army than this perpetual imitation of the German system (
hear
,
hear
), of German uniforms, and of methods. Sometimes I think the whole Cabinet has got a touch of German measles (
laughter
), but Mr Brodrick’s case is much the worst. He is spotted from head to foot (
laughter
), and he has communicated the contagion to the Army.

Perhaps you would say to me, ‘You are very ready to tell us what kind of an Army we do not want, but will you tell us what kind of an army we do?’ Well, it is almost impossible for any one who has not got access to the machinery and knowledge of a great Department to make detailed positive propositions on such a very complicated question, but after what I have said I feel I ought to put forward some suggestions of a constructive character. First of all, the British Regular Army of the future would have to be, nearly all of it, serving abroad in the great garrisons of the Empire – India, Egypt, South Africa, and in the various fortresses and coaling stations which are so necessary to us; and for this reason we would only be able to have a very small Regular Army at home. It ought to be a very good Army (
hear, hear
)
–
perhaps much better paid and, I hope, better trained than at present; but, still, it could only be a very small Army – an Army big enough to send an expedition to fight the Mahdi or the Mad Mullah, and just the kind of Army to do that sort of thing very well, but not big enough to fight the Russians or the Germans or the French. Then we would have to entrust the defence of the soil of England from a foreign invasion to a great voluntary citizen army of Yeomanry, of Militia, and of Volunteers. (
Cheers.
) These would have to be our stand-by in the hour of need, as they have been in the South African war, and we would have to spend a great deal of money that we saved by reducing the number of Regular soldiers on making this citizen army worthy of our trust and equal to its responsibility. Last of all, and first of all, and in the middle all the time, we must place our faith and our money in the British Navy (
loud cheers
), which alone secures our island home from the foot of the spoiler, which alone safeguards the world-strewn commerce of our people and protects the wide-spread dominions of the King. (
Cheers.
) Some day, perhaps, the eminent statesmen who govern us – the men who really govern, I mean – will turn their minds to this tremendous question and will think it out with something of the care and labour and brain power, say, Mr Balfour devoted to the Education Bill or Mr Chamberlain devoted to the Workmen’s Compensation Act. (
Hear, hear.
) And whenever that fortunate day should arrive I would make so bold as to prophesy that the ambitious dreams of renewed military glory to be won by British Regulars on the Continent of Europe which distort our present Army policy will be roughly brushed aside, and that in their place will come a true conception of our varied needs and circumstances and a wiser and more thrifty employment of our resources; a professional Army to garrison the Empire; a volunteer citizen Army to defend it; and over all a British Navy, of which I need only say this – that it must be strong enough to preserve the peace of the world. (
Cheers.
)