Quote#Money & Wealth
...votes are to swords exactly what bank notes are to gold—the one is…
Quote byF. E. Smith, 1st Earl of Birkenhead · 1872–1930
Commonly attributed — not confirmed in an authoritative edition. Cited on Wikiquote to: Speech in the House of Commons (11 July 1910).
English (original)
...votes are to swords exactly what bank notes are to gold—the one is effective only because the other is believed to be behind it.
— F. E. Smith, 1st Earl of Birkenhead
More from F. E. Smith, 1st Earl of Birkenhead
An economic creed in an imperfect world must be at least equally adapted to the purposes of war as to the purposes of peace. ... when war came in 1914, what was the situation of this country? The free-trade system had wholly failed to …
The world continues to offer glittering prizes to those who have stout hearts and sharp swords
Instead of seeing that men got enough to eat the Government spent the whole Session in securing that they should have nothing to drink.
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 …
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. …
It appears that we are to reconcile ourselves to the fact that we are to have 1,300,000 unemployed in this country. There are no unemployed in the United States of America, no unemployed at all in France. There are hardly any unemployed in …