Never Give In! (76 page)
Authors: Winston Churchill
28 October 1947
Debate on the Address, House of Commons
At this point I must turn to the United States with whom our fortunes and interests are intertwined. I was sorry that the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne [Mr S. Silverman], whom I see in his place, said some weeks ago that they were ‘shabby moneylenders’. That is no service in our country nor is it true. The Americans took but little when they emigrated from Europe except what they stood up in and what they had in their souls. They came through, they tamed the wilderness, they became what old John Bright called ‘A refuge for the oppressed from every land and clime.’ They have become today the greatest State and power in the world, speaking our own language, cherishing our common law, and pursuing, like our great Dominions, in broad principle, the same ideals. And the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne calls them ‘shabby moneylenders’. It is true that they have lent us a great deal of money. They lent us £1,000 million in the First World War, a debt which we solemnly confirmed after the war, in time of peace. But all that they let drop. Then there was Lend-Lease, before they came into the second war, in all about £7,000 million.
Mr Sydney Silverman (Nelson and Colne):
What about cash-and-carry before that?
Mr Churchill
: Two years ago we borrowed another £1,000 million sterling from them, or nearly four billion dollars. I asked the other day a rhetorical question, ‘What are dollars?’ Dollars are the result of the toil and the skill of the American working man, and he is willing to give them on a very large scale to the cause of rebuilding our broken world. In many cases he gives them without much prospect of repayment. Shabby moneylenders!
‘SOCIALISM IS THE PHILOSOPHY OF FAILURE’
28 May 1948
Scottish Unionist Conference, Perth, Scotland
Churchill here repeats the phrase ‘property-owning democracy’ – later to become a key tenet of Conservative Party philosophy – and follows this up by advocating the sale of council houses to their tenants. This ‘Right to Buy’ became a reality under Margaret Thatcher but, even in the twenty-first century, there are many in the ranks of the Labour Party who wish to deny it.
We are oppressed by a deadly fallacy. Socialism is the philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance and the gospel of envy. Unless we free our country while time remains from the perverse doctrines of Socialism, there can be no hope for recovery. This island cannot maintain its population as a great power. The most energetic and the nimblest will emigrate, and we shall be left here with a board of state officials brooding over a vast mass of worried, hungry and broken human beings. Our place in the world will be lost forever, and not only our individual self-respect but our national independence will be gone. These hard-won privileges have been dear to us in the past. But all this structure of obstinacy and unwisdom erected for Party and not national aims must be viewed in the light of the supreme and dominating fact of our present position. The Socialist Government in London has become dependent upon the generosity of the capitalist system of the United States. We are not earning our own living or paying our way, nor do the Government hold out any prospect of our doing so in the immediate future. It is this terrible fact which glares upon us all. . . .
When I was here two years ago I got from the Scottish Unionist Association a pregnant phrase which struck me deeply: ‘a property-owning democracy.’ That is a broad and helpful theme for us to pursue. Owning one’s own house is not a crime. Saving up to secure and maintain independence is a virtue. Why should we not make it clear that not only houses built by private enterprise – when that is again allowed – may be purchased and obtained by instalments by their tenants who will become the owners of the freehold, but that also there should be a right to purchase council houses by instalments. Here is a positive step which should be taken. It will be most bitterly opposed by the Socialist Party who want everyone to be the tenants of the State.
‘WHAT WILL HAPPEN WHEN THEY GET THE ATOMIC BOMB?’
9 October 1948
Conservative Party Conference, Llandudno, Wales
Aware that the Soviets might be within months of securing their own atomic bomb, Churchill viewed it as a matter of the utmost urgency that steps be taken by the Western Allies, under the leadership of the United States, to ensure such weapons did not come into the hands of the rulers in the Kremlin. Only the United States had the power to
take decisive action and the moment was lost. In consequence, the world was to live for more than forty years in the Valley of the Shadow of Death – coming more than once to the brink of nuclear holocaust
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until the demise of the Soviet Union.
I hope you will give full consideration to my words. I have not always been wrong. Nothing stands between Europe today and complete subjugation to Communist tyranny but the atomic bomb in American possession. . . .
The question is asked: What will happen when they get the atomic bomb themselves and have accumulated a large store? You can judge yourselves what will happen then by what is happening now. If these things are done in the green wood, what will be done in the dry? If they can continue month after month disturbing and tormenting the world, trusting to our Christian and altruistic inhibitions against using this strange new power against them, what will they do when they themselves have large quantities of atomic bombs? What do you suppose would be the position this afternoon if it had been Communist Russia instead of free enterprise America which had created the atomic weapon? Instead of being a sombre guarantee of peace and freedom it would have become an irresistible method of human enslavement. No one in his senses can believe that we have a limitless period of time before us. We ought to bring matters to a head and make a final settlement. We ought not to go jogging along improvident, incompetent, waiting for something to turn up, by which I mean waiting for something bad for us to turn up. The Western Nations will be far more likely to reach a lasting settlement, without bloodshed, if they formulate their just demands while they have the atomic power and before the Russian Communists have got it too. . . .
As I look out upon the future of our country in the changing scene of human destiny I feel the existence of three great circles among the free nations and democracies. I almost wish I had a blackboard. I would make a picture for you. I don’t suppose it would get hung in the Royal Academy, but it would illustrate the point I am anxious for you to hold in your minds. The first circle for us is naturally the British Commonwealth and Empire, with all that that comprises. Then there is also the English-speaking world in which we, Canada, and the other British Dominions and the United States play so important a part. And finally there is United Europe. These three majestic circles are co-existent and if they are linked together there is no force or combination which could overthrow them or even challenge them. Now if you think of the three interlinked circles you will see that we are the only country which has a great part in every one of them. We stand, in fact, at the very point of junction, and here in this Island at the centre of the seaways and perhaps of the airways also, we have the opportunity of joining them all together. If we rise to the occasion in the years that are to come it may be found that once again we hold the key to opening a safe and happy future to humanity, and will gain for ourselves gratitude and fame.
12 May 1949
House of Commons
Here at last was the Treaty of the European and North American democracies that Churchill had called for at Fulton three years earlier. Had such an organisation
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with American participation – existed in the 1930s, Churchill was convinced that the Second World War (the ‘unnecessary war’, as he called it) could have been avoided.
We give our cordial welcome to the Atlantic Pact. We give our thanks to the United States for the splendid part they are playing in the world. As I said when over there the other day:
Many nations have risen to the summit of world affairs, but here is a great example where new-won supremacy has not been used for self-aggrandizement, but only further sacrifices.
The sacrifices are very great. In addition to the enormous sums sent to Europe under Marshall Aid, the Atlantic Pact entails further subsidies for military supplies which are estimated at over $1,000,000,000 up to the year 1950. All this has to be raised by taxation from the annual production of the hard-working American people, who are not all Wall Street millionaires, but are living their lives in very different parts of the country than Wall Street. I say that nothing like this process of providing these enormous sums for defence and assistance to Europe – nothing like this has ever been seen in all history. We acknowledge it with gratitude, and we must continue to play our part as we are doing in a worthy manner and to the best of our abilities. . . .
I have always myself looked forward to the fraternal association of the English-speaking world and also to the union of Europe. It is only in this way, in my view, that the peace and progress of mankind can be maintained. I gave expression to these views at Fulton in March 1946, after the remarks to which I have referred had shown the differences which had arisen with Russia. Although what I said then reads very tamely today, and falls far short of what has actually been done, and far short of what the House actually has to vote at the present time, a Motion of Censure against me was placed on the Order Paper in the name of the hon. Member for Luton [Mr Warbey] in the following terms:
World Peace and Security. – That this House considers that proposals for a military alliance between the British Commonwealth and the United States of America for the purpose of combating the spread of Communism, such as were put forward in a speech at Fulton, Missouri, USA, by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Woodford are calculated to do injury to good relations between Great Britain, USA and the USSR, and are inimical to the cause of world peace.
That is the operative part. It is quite unusual, when a Private Member is out of office, that a Motion of that kind should be placed upon the Order Paper with regard to a speech made on his own responsibility, but no fewer than 105 hon. Members of the party opposite put their names to it. I do not see them all here today; some of them are here, but, of course, I feel that there has been a large-scale process of conversion, and, naturally, I welcome converts, and so do His Majesty’s Government. They say that there is more joy over one sinner who repenteth than over ninety and nine just persons who need no repentance. Here, we have got about a hundred in a bunch, so far as I can make out, although some of them have emphasised the change of heart which they have gone through by a suitable act of penance by abstaining from attending this Debate. . . .
The situation is, therefore, from many points of view unprecedented and incalculable. Over the whole scene reigns the power of the atomic bomb, ever growing in the hands of the United States. It is this, in my view, and this alone that has given us time to take the measures of self-protection and to develop the units which make those measures possible, one of which is before us this afternoon.
21 July 1949
House of Commons
In defiance of the accords reached in Potsdam in 1945, the Soviet Union established a land-blockade of Berlin. America and Britain mounted a round-the-clock airlift to succour the citizens of the city.
I was very much struck at the way in which all Germany watched the airlift, and how all Germany saw the British and American planes flying to carry food to 2,500,000 Germans whom the Soviet Government were trying to starve. I thought that was worth all the speeches that could have been made by all the peace leaders of Europe to turn the eyes of Germany to where her true destiny lies: namely, in peaceful and honourable association with the Western democracies and with the future into which they hope to lead the world under the auspices of the United Nations organisation.
‘PRENEZ-GARDE! JE VAIS PARLER EN FRANÇAIS!’
12 August 1949
Open-air meeting, Place Kléber, Strasbourg, France
The packed crowds gave a roar of delight at Churchill’s opening words.
Prenez-garde! Je vais parler en français.
Dans cette ville ancienne, et encore marquée par les blessures de la guerre, nous sommes réunis pour former une Assemblée qui, nous I’espérons, sera un jour le Parlement de l’Europe. Nous avons fait le premier pas et c’est le premier pas qui coûte. . . .
Nos espoirs et notre travail tendent vers une époque de paix, de prospérité, de plénitude, ou l’inépuisable richesse et génie de l’Europe feront d’elle, une fois de plus, la source même et l’inspiration de la vie du monde. Dans tout cela, nous avançons avec le soutien de la puissante République au-delà de l’Atlantique, et des Etats souverains qui sont membres de l’Empire et du Commonwealth des Nations Britanniques.
