F. E. Smith, 1st Earl of Birkenhead Quotes (1872-1930)

“Nature has no cure for this sort of madness, though I have known a legacy from a rich relative work wonders.”

“...votes are to swords exactly what bank notes are to gold—the one is effective only because the other is believed to be behind it.”

“Instead of seeing that men got enough to eat the Government spent the whole Session in securing that they should have nothing to drink.”

“Judge: I've listened to you for an hour and I'm none wiser.
Smith: None the wiser, perhaps, my lord but certainly better informed.”

“Judge: What do you suppose I am on the Bench for, Mr. Smith?
Smith: It is not for me, Your Honour, to attempt to fathom the inscrutable workings of Providence.”

“Judge: You are extremely offensive, young man!
Smith: As a matter of fact we both are; and the only difference between us is that I am trying to be, and you can't help it.”

“It would be possible to say without exaggeration that the miners' leaders were the stupidest men in England if we had not frequent occasion to meet the owners.”

“We have the highest authority for believing that the meek shall inherit the earth; though I have never found any particular corroboration of this aphorism in the records of Somerset House.”

“High Court judge presiding in a sodomy case, seeking advice on sentencing: "Could you tell me, what do you think one ought to give a man who allows himself to be buggered?"
Smith: "Oh, thirty shillings or two pounds; whatever you happen to have on you."”

“Like you, I believe strongly that where there is a revolutionary element expressed in action, one must act resolutely. My reading of Indian history has led me to believe that a Government founded so completely as ours is upon prestige can stand almost anything except the suspicion of weakness.”

“It appears that we are to reconcile ourselves to the fact that we are to have 1,300,000 unemployed in this country. There are no unemployed in the United States of America, no unemployed at all in France. There are hardly any unemployed in Italy. The United States of America, France, and Italy are protectionist countries. We are a free-trade import country.”

“An economic creed in an imperfect world must be at least equally adapted to the purposes of war as to the purposes of peace. ... when war came in 1914, what was the situation of this country? The free-trade system had wholly failed to equip the Government of this country with the many instruments which were absolutely vital for the purposes of conducting war.”

“Either we must make up our minds that we will not take part in a European war under any circumstances, or we must have national service; but we cannot make up our minds on the first of these points unless we are prepared to do what our ancestors to their eternal glory refused to do in the days of Napoleon, acquiesce in the hegemony of Europe by one titanic Power.”

“We stand for the State and for the unity which, whether in the form of kingdom or empire or class solidarity, the State alone can bring. Above all stands the State and in that phrase lies the essence of Toryism. Our ancestors left it to us, and not the least potent method of preserving it is to link the conception of State Toryism with the practice of Social Reform.”

“As the Tories happened to be right then, and their opponents happened to be wrong, as they had been wrong at every moment in the nation's history when similar issues had arisen, was he to remain silent when men were preaching the same crazy doctrine that there would be no more war and when he looked round and saw wars and threats of wars? Whenever he met such sentimental folly he would castigate it.”

“I have always placed my highest and most permanent hopes upon the eternity of the Communal situation. The greater the political progress made by the Hindus, the greater, in my judgment, will the Moslem distrust and discontent become. All the conferences in all the world cannot bridge over the unbridgeable, and between these two communities lies a chasm which cannot be crossed by the resources of modern political engineering.”

“Who are we that we should invite Germany to acquiesce in the principles of "Uti Possidetis" at a moment when we possess comparatively everything and they possess comparatively nothing? It is a law as old as the world's history that those who hold valuable possessions coveted by others will hold them so long as, and no longer than, they are able to protect them by the strong arm.”

“Free trade had once and for all broken down. Even when combined with depredation it did not pay; it could not find them the money to pay this year's national bills. The Conservative party had one alternative to a Budget which destroyed capital—the alternative of men who had watched the history of tariffs in Europe and America for 30 years, and learnt the great lesson upon which Bismarck taught his fellow-countrymen.”

“I entertain no doubt that Tariff Reform would considerably alleviate these evils, but I have never believed that it will end them. Which party in the State stands to lose most by their continuance? Is it not evident that the party, to whom stability and content are vital, is far more deeply concerned to restore happier conditions than the party which lives upon discontent and the promulgation of class hatred? A contented proletariat should be one of the first objects of enlightened Conservative policy.”

“The Conservative Party is the parent of trade unionism, just as it is the author of the Factory Acts. At every stage in the history of the nineteenth century it is to Toryism that trade unionism has looked for help and support against the oppressions of the Manchester School of liberalism, which cared nothing for the interests of the state, and regarded men as brute beasts whose labour could be bought and sold at the cheapest price, irrespective of all other considerations.”

“I have read the Liberal programme. They talk of cooperation between employer and employed. That is not the problem. There is no use in cooperating when there is no work to be done. There is no use in imposing capital levies upon a capital which every year dwindles and disappears. ... The problem that awaits the people of this country is to increase the markets within which their goods can find employment, and you will never increase those markets until you have enabled our working people on equal terms and our manufacturers on equal terms to deal with the working people and manufacturers of the world.”

“An MP had been elected as a Unionist candidate, but when Parliament re-assembled, he had immediately "crossed the floor" without seeking re-election.
Smith said:"He entered the House not on the crest of a wave, but rather by means of an opportune dive. Everyone in the House must appreciate his presence, for there could be no greater compliment paid to it than that he should be in our midst, when his heart is far away. And it should be obvious to all who know the honourable gentleman's scrupulous sense of honour, that his one desire at present is to be amongst his constituents, who are understood to be at least as anxious to meet him."”

“The Glasgow address ["Idealism in International Politics"] represented a true conception of Tory policy. ... During those black years from 1906 to 1914 he and other members of this party warned the country that the deadly and growing menace of German armaments might involve, unless steps were taken to correct it, the imminent destruction of this country and Empire. How were their warnings treated? Foolish idealists told them there was no menace. ... But while Liberals and Socialists passed resolutions calling for reduction of armaments, the Tories, not so deceived, insisted on the supreme importance of strengthening the Army and the Navy.”