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.

Speech to the Labour Party conference (1 October 1935), quoted in Labour Party Annual Conference Report 1935, p. 178. Bevin was criticising George Lansbury. Lansbury, a pacifist, was publicly agonising about the need to confront fascist Italy over Abyssinia; Bevin's speech convinced the conference to back sanctions, and when the vote went against him, Lansbury resigned as Leader of the Labour Party.