Kemper Lectures
When, forty years ago, you invited Winston Churchill to address you, and to honour
him with a degree, as you have honoured me, he opened with the remark that “The
name Westminster is somehow familiar to me. I seem to have heard of it before.”
I have at least one thing in common with him, that I am also “a child of the
House of Commons.” I first attended its sessions as a schoolboy; I then
became one of its officers in 1955; and then, finally, a Member of Parliament.
I have been in Opposition and in Government. I have seen many changes since
the dominant personalities were Churchill, Eden, Attlee and Bevan. Perhaps
not all have been for the better. But there is something special about a human
institution – fallible, as all human institutions necessarily are –
which has survived in varying form some seven centuries, and has been through so
much. It has experienced Royal tyranny against which it rebelled, and civil
war; it has passed through terrible national and international crises; but it is
still there. So is Britain.
My nation had to achieve survival and prosperity by exports to maintain ourselves in a small island. We have exported food, wool, steel, textiles, coal, chemicals, and all varieties of manufactured goods. But the greatest export of all has been a burning faith in the liberty of the individual. This was our gift to the fledgling United States of America, and when certain regrettable events occurred in 1776 and thereafter, there were not lacking British Members of Parliament who took the side of those Americans who sought and were prepared to fight for those liberties. There are few instances in history when eminent men have risked all by taking the side of the enemies of the King. But it happened over the United States and it happened over India, and these huge Democracies, their histories so closely woven with that of my country, constitute a remarkable memorial to those men and women who were the exporters of Liberty.
This was what Churchill was referring to when he coined the phrase “the special relationship” 40 years ago, and spoke of the English-speaking peoples, and their links that go far beyond a common language and a common history. It is indeed special. As Louis Botha said to Lady Randolph Churchill of her son, “he and I have been out in all weathers together.” We can apply that phrase to Britain and America.
My nation had to achieve survival and prosperity by exports to maintain ourselves in a small island. We have exported food, wool, steel, textiles, coal, chemicals, and all varieties of manufactured goods. But the greatest export of all has been a burning faith in the liberty of the individual. This was our gift to the fledgling United States of America, and when certain regrettable events occurred in 1776 and thereafter, there were not lacking British Members of Parliament who took the side of those Americans who sought and were prepared to fight for those liberties. There are few instances in history when eminent men have risked all by taking the side of the enemies of the King. But it happened over the United States and it happened over India, and these huge Democracies, their histories so closely woven with that of my country, constitute a remarkable memorial to those men and women who were the exporters of Liberty.
This was what Churchill was referring to when he coined the phrase “the special relationship” 40 years ago, and spoke of the English-speaking peoples, and their links that go far beyond a common language and a common history. It is indeed special. As Louis Botha said to Lady Randolph Churchill of her son, “he and I have been out in all weathers together.” We can apply that phrase to Britain and America.