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Ernest Bevin Quotes

1881–1951 England

Ernest Bevin (9 March 1881 – 14 April 1951) was a British statesman, Labour politician, and trade union leader. He co-founded and served as general secretary of the powerful Transport and General Workers' Union from 1922 to 1940, and as Minister of Labour in Winston Churchill's coalition government during World War II.

England

Also known as: Bevin, Ernest

Random Ernest Bevin quote

11 quotes

There should be a study of a house directly elected by the people of the world to whom the nations are accountable.

The most conservative man in the world is the British Trade Unionist when you want to change him.

So long as I have any power at all I will never be a party to treating the Army in the future as it has been treated in the past. They broke up in peace-time the very foundations of the Army structure, and expected to build it up during war-time with the enemy at the gates.

My policy is to be able to take a ticket at Victoria station and go anywhere I damn well please!

If the workers see themselves faced with defeat through starvation, they will prefer to go down fighting rather than fainting — and whether or not we leaders agree.

It is placing the Executive and the Movement in an absolutely wrong position to be taking your conscience round from body to body asking to be told what you ought to do with it.

From the day Hitler came to power, I have felt that the democratic countries would have to face war... I cannot see any way of stopping Hitler and the other dictators except by force.

We need 720,000 men continuously employed in this industry... This is where you boys come in... [O]ur fighting men will not be able to achieve their purpose unless we get an adequate supply of coal.

The fact of it is that all of us agreed to save 6d. in the Income Tax by breaking up the Army in peace-time and not having it prepared when war broke out...I will never be a party to it again.

They say Gladstone was at the Treasury from 1860 to 1930. I'm going to be Minister of Labour from 1940 to 1990.

If I may again refer to the different political concepts, there is, I think rather unfortunately, running through all the speeches and writings of our Soviet friends the theory that they alone represent the workers — that they alone are democratic.

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Ernest Bevin (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.