YES, VIRGINIA, THERE IS AN ANGLOSPHERE

Mr Churchill - Peace in our hearts (The Guardian, September 4, 1939)

In this solemn hour it is a consolation to recall and to dwell upon our repeated efforts for peace. All have been ill-starred, but all have been faithful and sincere. That is of the highest moral value -(her, hear), - and not only moral value but of practical value at the present time because of the whole-hearted concurrence of scores of millions of men and women whose comradeship and brotherhood is indispensable. That is the only foundation upon which the trials and tribulations of modern war can be endured and surmounted.

This moral conviction alone affords that ever-fresh resilience which renews the strength and energy of peoples in long and doubtful and dark days. Outside the storms of war might blow and the land may be lashed with the fury of its gale, but in our own hearts this Sunday morning there is peace. (Cheers.) Our hands may be active, but our consciences are at rest. (Cheers)

Let us not mistake the gravity of the task which lies before us, the severity of the ordeal to which we shall not be found unequal.

We must expect many disappointments and many unpleasant surprises but we may be sure that the task which we have accepted is one not beyond the compass of the strength of the British Empire and the French Republic.

Thankfulness The Prime Minister said it was a sad day, and that indeed is true, but it seems to me there is another note which may be present at this moment.

That is a feeling of thankfulness that if these trials were to come upon our island there is a generation of Britons here now ready to prove it is not unworthy of those great men the fathers of our land.

This is no question of fighting for Danzig or fighting for Poland. We are fighting to save the world from the pestilence of Nazi tyranny -(Cheers)-and in defence of all that is most sacred to man.

This is no war for domination, for imperial aggrandisement for material gain, no war to shut any country out of its sunlight and means of progress. It is a war pure in its inherent quality, a war to establish on unimpeachable rocks the rights of the individual and it is a war to establish and revive the stature of man.

Perhaps it may seem a paradox that a war undertaken in the name of liberty and right should require as a necessary part of its progress the surrender for the time being of so many dearly valued liberties and rights. In these last two days the House of Commons has been voting dozens of bills which hand over to the Executive our most dearly valued personal liberties.

We are sure that these liberties will be in hands which will not abuse them, which will use them for no class or party interests- (Cheers), -which will cherish and guard them, and we look forward to the day, surely and confidently we look forward to the day, when our liberties and rights will be restored to us and when we shall be able to share them with peoples to whom such blessings are unknown. (Loud cheers.)

At the time of this speech, Churchill was eight months away from becoming Prime Minister. He was largely isolated from, and scorned by, most of the intellectual and journalistic elites of the day, who saw him as clever with words but lacking in judgment.