F. E. Smith, 1st Earl of Birkenhead

Frederick Edwin Smith, 1st Earl of Birkenhead, GCSI, PC (July 12, 1872–September 30, 1930) was a British Conservative statesman and lawyer of the early 20th century. He was a skilled orator, noted for his staunch opposition to Irish nationalism, his wit, pugnacious views, and hard living and drinking. He is perhaps best remembered today as Winston Churchill's greatest personal and political friend until Smith's untimely death at age 58.

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• We are asked to permit a hundred men to go round to the house of a man who wishes to exercise the common law right in this country to sell his labour where and when he chooses, and to 'advise' him or 'peacefully persuade' him not to work. If peaceful persuasion is the real object, why are a hundred men required to do it? ... Every honest man knows why trade unions insist on the right to a strong numerical picket. It is because they rely for their objects neither on peacefulness nor persuasion. Those whom they picket cannot be peacefully persuaded. They understand with great precision their own objects, and their own interests, and they are not in the least likely to be persuaded by the representatives of trade unions, with different objects and different interests. But, though arguments may never persuade them, numbers may easily intimidate them. And it is just because argument has failed, and intimidation has succeeded, that the Labour Party insists upon its right to picket unlimited in respect of numbers.
  • Speech in the House of Commons against the Trade Disputes Bill (30 March, 1906).
  • F. E. Smith, The Speeches of Lord Birkenhead (Cassell, 1929), pp. 15-22.

• 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.
  • F. E. Smith, 'Industrial Unrest' in Unionist Policy and other essays, 1913.

• 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.
  • F. E. Smith, 'Future of the Conservative Party' in Unionist Policy and other essays, 1913.

• Politically, economically and philosophically the motive of self-interest not only is but must...and ought to be the mainspring of human conduct...For as long a time as the records of history have been preserved human societies passed through a ceaseless process of evolution and adjustment. This process has sometimes been pacific, but more often it has resulted from warlike disturbance. The strength of different nations, measured in terms of arms, varies from century to century. The world continues to offer glittering prizes to those who have stout hearts and sharp swords; it is therefore extremely improbable that the experience of future ages will differ in any material respect from that which has happened since the twilight of the human race...it is for us who, in our history have proved ourselves a martial...people...to maintain in our own hands the adequate means for our own protection and...to march with heads erect and bright eyes along the road of our imperial destiny.
  • 'Idealism in International Politics', Rectoral Address at Glasgow University (7 November, 1923).

• To me it is frankly inconceivable that India will ever be fit for Dominion self-government.
  • In a letter of 24 November, 1924. Quoted in H. Montgomery Hyde, Lord Reading (Heinemann, 1967), p. 382.

• The greater the political progress made by the Hindus, the greater, in my judgement, will be the Moslem discontent and antagonism. All the conferences in the world cannot bridge over the unbridgeable, and between those two countries lies a chasm which cannot be crossed by the resources of modern political engineering.
  • In 1925, quoted in H. Montgomery Hyde, Lord Reading (Heinemann, 1967), p. 387.

• I have always placed my highest and most permanent hopes upon the eternity of the Communal situation.
  • Letter to Lord Reading, March 1925. Quoted in H. Montgomery Hyde, Lord Reading (Heinemann, 1967), p. 387.

• It would be possible to say without exaggeration that the miners' leaders were the stupidest men in England if we had not frequent occassion to meet the owners.
  • In 1925. Quoted in C. L. Mowat, Britain between the Wars (1955), p. 300.