It is then, indeed, that I feel devoutly thankful to have been born fond of writing. It is then, indeed, that I feel grateful to all the brave and generous spirits who, in every age and in every land, have fought to establish the now unquestioned freedom of the pen. – (Cheers.)

And what a noble medium the English language is. It is not possible to write a page without experiencing positive pleasure at the richness and variety, the flexibility and the profoundness of our mother-tongue. If an English writer cannot say what he has to say in English, and in simple English, depend upon it it is probably not worth saying. What a pity it is that English is not more generally studied. . . .

Now, I am a great admirer of the Greeks, although, of course, I have to depend upon what others tell me about them – (laughter), – and I would like to see our educationists imitate in one respect, at least, the Greek example. How is it that the Greeks made their language the most graceful and compendious mode of expression ever known among men? Did they spend all their time studying the languages which had preceded theirs? Did they explore with tireless persistency the ancient root dialects of the vanished world? Not at all. They studied Greek. – (Cheers.) They studied their own language. They loved it, they cherished it, they adorned it, they expanded it, and that is why it survives a model and delight to all posterity. Surely we, whose mother-tongue has already won for itself such an unequalled empire over the modern world, can learn this lesson at least from the ancient Greeks and bestow a little care and some proportion of the years of education to the study of a language which is perhaps to play a predominant part in the future progress of mankind.

‘WHAT IS SOCIETY?’

4 May 1908

Kinnaird Hall, Dundee

On 8 April Herbert Asquith succeeded Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman as Prime Minister. The same day he appointed Churchill, at the young age of 33, to be President of the Board of Trade with a seat in the Cabinet. At the time it was still the practice that newly appointed Cabinet Ministers had to seek re-election by their constituencies before they could accept an office of profit under the Crown. Churchill’s constituents were not minded to endorse him and he was defeated by 429 votes. But the Scottish city of Dundee provided him with a haven, and shortly after this speech, returned him in a by-election with a large majority. Later that summer, on 12 September, he married Miss Clementine Hazier.

And what is society? I will tell you what society is. Translated into concrete terms, Socialistic ‘society’ is a set of disagreeable individuals who obtained a majority for their caucus at some recent election, and whose officials in consequence would look on humanity through innumerable grills and pigeon-holes and across innumerable counters, and say to them, ‘Tickets, please.’ (Laughter.) Truly this grey old world has never seen so grim a joke. (Applause.) Now, ladies and gentlemen, no man can be either a collectivist or an individual. He must be both; everybody must be both a collectivist and an individualist. For certain of our affairs we must have our arrangements in common. Others we must have sacredly individual and to ourselves. (Cheers.) We have many good things in common. You have the police, the Army, the Navy, and officials – why, a President of the Board of Trade you have in common. (Applause.) But we don’t eat in common; we eat individually. (Laughter.) And we don’t ask the ladies to marry us in common. (Laughter.) And you will find the truth lies in these matters, as it always lies in difficult matters, midway between extreme formulae. It is in the nice adjustment of the respective ideas of collectivism and individualism that the problem of the world and the solution of that problem lie in the years to come.