Quote#Nature
[W]hat really determines the Foreign Policy of this country is the…
Quote byEdward Grey, 1st Viscount Grey of Fallodon · 1862–1933
Commonly attributed — not confirmed in an authoritative edition. Cited on Wikiquote to: Minutes of the meeting of the Committee of Imperial Defence (26 May 1911), quoted in British Documents on the Origins of the War, 1898-1914. Vol . VI, Anglo-German Tension: Armaments and Negotiation, 1907-12, eds. G. P. Gooch and Harold Temperley (1930), p. 782.
English (original)
[W]hat really determines the Foreign Policy of this country is the question of sea power. It is the Naval question which underlies the whole of our European Foreign Policy.
— Edward Grey, 1st Viscount Grey of Fallodon
More from Edward Grey, 1st Viscount Grey of Fallodon
[T]he real root of Liberalism is fairness.
My own personal feeling is that we are justified in any measures which will result in taking the Congo out of the hands of the King. He has forfeited every claim to it he ever had; and to take the Congo away from him without compensation …
If, when the time comes, the United States proposes the reduction or limitation of Armaments as a subject for consideration, I am sure that our delegates will be instructed cordially to support the proposal. And the initiative of the …
[T]here is no comparison between the importance of the German Navy to Germany, and the importance of our Navy to us. Our Navy to us is what their Army is to them. To have a strong Navy would increase their prestige, their diplomatic …
If, on the other hand, by some misfortune or blunder our Entente with France were to be broken up, France will have to make her own terms with Germany. And Germany will again be in a position to keep us on bad terms with Germany and …
Mr. Lloyd George is a colleague with whom I have always been on the best of terms personally, and the Budget raises the money required in a way which presses much less, I believe, upon the poorer classes than any alternative that could be …