There is a great deal of smoke; there are large clouds of highly inflammable gas. There are here and there brilliant electrical flashes; there are huge volumes of scalding water, and mud and ashes cast up in all directions. Among the mud and ashes of extravagance and nonsense there is from time to time a piece of pure gold cut up, ready smelted from the central fires of truth. I do not myself dislike this volcano. It is not a very large volcano, though it is in a continual state of eruption. What is his remedy for the evil conditions which we see before us. It is very simple and drastic – he proposes to cut off the Lord Mayor’s head. – (Laughter.) I have had the pleasure of meeting the Lord Mayor several times during his tenure of office, and although I do not doubt that a capital sentence hanging over his head would stimulate him to even greater exertions, yet I am inclined to think the work you have done deserves some better reward.

‘MY AFRICAN JOURNEY’

18 January 1908

National Liberal Club, London

Relishing his position as Colonial Under-Secretary, Churchill used the Parliamentary recess as the opportunity to visit Britain’s colonies in East Africa. He had returned just the day before and was filled with enthusiasm for all he had seen.

If you ask what is my prevailing impression – my prepondering impression – in the journey I have taken, I would say frankly it is one of astonishment. It is not the first time I have travelled abroad. I have had the opportunity of examining Africa from both ends – from the Sudan and from the South, – and I have travelled very widely over India. But I confess I have never seen countries so fertile and so beautiful outside Europe as those to which I have travelled on the journey from which you welcome me back tonight. There are parts of the East African Protectorate which in their beauty, in the coolness of the air, in the richness of the soil, in their verdure, in the abundance of running water, in their fertility – parts which absolutely surpass any of the countries which I have mentioned, and challenge comparison with the fairest regions of England, France, or Italy. (Cheers.) I have seen in Uganda a country which from end to end is a garden – inexhaustible, irrepressible, and exuberant fertility upon every side – and I cannot doubt that the great system of lakes and waterways, which you cannot fail to observe if you look at the large map of Africa, must one day become the great centre of tropical production, and play a most important part in the economic development of the whole world.

‘SOCIALISM: ‘ALL YOURS IS MINE!’

22 January 1908

Cheetham, Manchester

The fledgling Labour Party were junior partners in the Liberal administration, which constituted what would today be called a ‘Lib-Lab Pact’. In the ranks of the Labour Party there were to be found many hard-line Socialists, to whose presence in the Liberal coalition Churchill took the strongest exception, while anxious not to alienate the working-class vote.

The Socialists – the extreme and revolutionary party of Socialists – are very fond of telling us they are reviving in modern days the best principles of the Christian era. They consider they are the political embodiment of Christianity, though, to judge by the language which some of them use and the spirit of envy, hatred, and malice with which they go about their work, you would hardly imagine they had studied the teaching of the Founder of Christianity with the attention they profess to have given to the subject. – (Hear, bear.)

Electioneering in Manchester, 1908.

But there is one great difference between Socialists of the Christian era and those of which Mr Victor Grayson is the apostle. The Socialism of the Christian era was based on the idea that ‘all mine is yours’, but the Socialism of Mr Grayson is based on the idea that ‘all yours is mine’. – (Cheers.) And I go so far as to say that no movement will ever achieve any real advantage for the mass of the people that is based upon so much spite and jealousy as is the present Socialist movement in the hands of its extreme men.

‘THE PEN: ‘LIBERATOR OF MAN AND OF NATIONS’

17 February 1908

Author’s Club, London

Having moonlighted as a war-correspondent during his years in the Army, on the North-West frontier of India, on the Afghan border, in the Sudan and South Africa, Churchill had already published six significant works, including a major biography of his late father.

The fortunate people in the world – the only really fortunate people in the world, in my mind, – are those whose work is also their pleasure. The class is not a large one, not nearly so large as it is often represented to be; and authors are perhaps one of the most important elements in its composition. They enjoy in this respect at least a real harmony of life. To my mind, to be able to make your work your pleasure is the one class distinction in the world worth striving for; and I do not wonder that others are inclined to envy those happy human beings who find their livelihood in the gay effusions of their fancy, to whom every hour of labour is an hour of enjoyment, to whom repose – however necessary – is a tiresome interlude, and even a holiday is almost deprivation. Whether a man writes well or ill, has much to say or little, if he cares about writing at all, he will appreciate the pleasures of composition. To sit at one’s table on a sunny morning, with four clear hours of uninterruptible security, plenty of nice white paper, and a Squeezer pen – (laughter) – that is true happiness. The complete absorption of the mind upon an agreeable occupation – what more is there than that to desire? What does it matter what happens outside? The House of Commons may do what it likes, and so may the House of Lords. – (Laughter.) The heathen may rage furiously in every part of the globe. The bottom may be knocked clean out of the American market. Consols may fall and suffragettes may rise. – (Laughter.) Never mind, for four hours, at any rate, we will withdraw ourselves from a common, ill – governed, and disorderly world, and with the key of fancy unlock that cupboard where all the good things of the infinite are put away. – (Cheers.)

I often fortify myself amid the uncertainties and vexations of political life by believing that I possess a line of retreat into a peaceful and fertile country where no rascal can pursue and where one need never be dull or idle or even wholly without power.