Mr President, Lord Home, George YoungerSecretary of State, my lords, ladies and gentlemen-
First, Mr President I must thank you most warmly for that splendid remarkable, stimulating—if non-sycophantic-speech that you made in proposing the toast to Her Majesty's ministers. But if that's non-sycophantic, I wonder what a sycophantic one would have been!
I'm sorry I can't satisfy you by telling you the date of the next election, but no good general would warn the enemy of the time of the next attack … . and anyway, I don't know!
You said that we are very proud to be conservatives—we are. For only those who wish to conserve the best of the past have an abiding and enduring interest in creating the best of the future.
It is indeed a joy to celebrate with you tonight this very special milestone in the history of our party here in Scotland. For as George Younger, and you Mr President have reminded us, it was here in Edinburgh, one hundred years ago this week, that the national union of conservative associations for Scotland was born.
And how doubly appropriate that this celebration dinner should coincide with the feast of the patron saint of Scotland. [end p1]
For the St Andrew of legend could have been one of nature's Scottish tories. The sort of man who would never take “no” for an answer: a man of courage and plain-speaking rather than a man of tact—it was after all, for making a Christian of the wife of the Roman Consul of Patras against the express orders of that gentleman himself that St Andrew and the saltire made acquaintance. [end p2]
The early 1880s were not an easy time for toryism in Scotland. Just eighteen months before the launching of the national union, Gladstone had stormed through the lowlands carrying all before him in the midlothian campaign—much assisted, as I read the other day, by the liberal party's local energy in building houses for the sole purpose of installing liberal tenants with the right to vote: A tradition to which the modern Scottish labour party, with its dedication to massive council housing estates, is the natural heir— [end p3] small wonder that they so bitterly oppose this government's conferment upon those tenants of the right to buy their homes'.
But the Scottish tory party of the 1880s fought back to write Disraeli's concept of tory democracy across the map of Scotland and to break the liberals' long monopoly of Scottish representation at Westminster.
And how splendid it is to have with us tonight as our George YoungerSecretary of State, the bearer of a name so famous in the annals of your party. [end p4]
His family motto is: labentibus junior annis. I was taught Latin by an Edinburgh headmistress. But as you all were not taught Latin by an Edinburgh headmistress it might be convenient if I were to translate. Being interpreted it means: Younger as the years go by.
Nor is he the only Scotsman around the Cabinet table, for it was a Whitelaw who became the very first conservative elected for the city of Glasgow, and I believe that his great William WhitelawGrandson's proudest moment was the day he played himself into office as captain of the royal and ancient at st. Andrews. [end p5]
And let me add my word of thanks to Alec Home. I can only say to you tonight that a political party which can boast a statesman held in such universal affection, respect and honour as Alec has some special secret strength.
At Chequers, the country home of Prime Ministers each Prime Minister has a window to display his own crest. Alec 's has on it the home family motto: “true to the end” . that says it all. [end p6]
In his delightful autobiography, “The Way the Wind Blows” , Alec recalls his appointment by Winston Churchill as the first Minister of State for Scotland. Winston gave him the following terse directive: “Go and quell those turbulent Scots, and don't come back until you have done it.”
That was not a directive that I felt it necessary to give to George Younger when he was appointed as your Secretary of State. [end p7]
Like the founding fathers of your party you have a major challenge to confront and overcome.
For Scotland's pioneering achievements in the first industrial revolution left the Scots economy dangerously dependent on industries like coal which faced natural exhaustion, and shipbuilding which faced cyclical decline.
And while successive post-war governments—and particularly tory governments, be it noted—have devoted large resources to diversify employment this side of the border, much of it has inevitably come from branch factories which have proved dangerously [end p8] vulnerable to the cold winds of worldwide recession.
That is but one side of the picture. For while too many trades contract, some of the most famous names in Scottish industry have been proving their ability to fight back and win the vital orders in the markets of the world in the teeth of cut-throat international competition.
Firms like John Brown engineering, (and how delighted I am that we were able, by patient negotiation with our American allies, to lift the shadow of trade sanctions from that splendid company); and firms like NEI Parsons and the Howden group, both doing well [end p9]
Down in the borders, Russell Fairgrieve 's old colleagues from the woollen textile industry have been successfully boosting exports by consolidating a proven reputation for the highest quality, and in the electronics industry, where the pioneering investments around Edinburgh and Glenrothes in the 1950s and early 1960s are now coming to maturity, “made in Scotland” has become a label borne with pride and taken at its worth. [end p10]
Meanwhile, far off the North-East coast Scottish ingenuity and perseverance in the most inhospitable waters have turned the north sea into one of the major oil provinces of the world, bringing work and orders to thousands of Scottish businesses, large and small, untold revenues to Geoffrey Howe, and massive export earnings too.
These are the achievements of individual Scots: For jobs and markets are not won in whitehall, nor even—dare I say it—in St Andrew 's house. [end p11]
Our task as politicians is to shape the climate in which Scottish thrift and enterprise can earn their due rewards again. And that we have done: By scrapping confiscatory taxation: By dismantling the abuses of monopoly: By better balance in the books of public spending: And, above all, by the steady restoration of more honest money.
There is also a role for modern government as customer and ambassador for private industry: [end p12] And I can assure you that none is more practised in this than George Younger and his Scottish office team.
I have already referred to the successful action mounted on behalf of John Brown engineering: but it is also very largely thanks to George and his colleagues that firms like Nippon Electric and Wang U.K. Were encouraged to set up shop in Scotland.
And for all I know George and his colleagues may have had a word with Geoffrey Howe and his colleagues at the treasury to secure the recent important duty concession for Scottish whisky. [end p13]
Certainly, with the voices of George and his colleagues at the Scottish office and with the law officers—Hamish Gray at energy, Alick Buchanan-Smith at agriculture, Malcolm Rifkind at the foreign office and Ian Sproat at trade—you need never fear that Scotland's priorities and interests could go unnoticed in the Cabinet and committees of this government. They're all doing a splendid job.
And even though the office of Secretary of State for Scotland exists for another thousand years, there will never be a better Secretary of State than George Younger.
Of course employment and emergence from the recession are bound to be at the centre of all our pre-occupations at this time. [end p14]
But we need also to remember that extra jobs and higher living standards would simply not be worth having if the price were forfeiting our fundamental freedoms. Earlier this year, in the icy waters of the South Atlantic; several scores of brave young Scots gave their lives to prove that unprovoked aggression would not prevail. Their courage and skill were an inspiration to us all: And we shall always remember and mourn their loss. [end p15]
But let there be no doubt about it: Their sacrifice has made our world a safer place for all of us.
I know there are those who say that safety lies in disarming on our own. Let us, they urge, become the first to cast aside the nuclear shield, and others then will follow. Would that it were true:
Maybe we shall live to see the day when a CND candidate secures election to the supreme Soviet: When the citizens of Eastern Europe are [end p16] once more allowed governments of their choosing: When the captains of the Kremlin have opinion polls to read and to heed.
But until that day dawns there is no substitute for effective defence and deterrence to aggression.
Your government stands ready, with our allies, to join sincerely in negotiation with the new leadership of Russia. Of course there should be better ways to spend our taxes than on weapons of destruction: [end p17]
Let us hope and pray that Mr Brezhnev 's successors will see the folly of spending twice as much as any Western nation on weaponry when they cannot even feed their own people.
But I have to agree with my immediate James Callaghanpredecessor when he tells his party that to imagine that a gesture of nuclear disarmament by Britain alone would transform intentions in the Kremlin is pure fantasy. Indeed, Yuri AndropovRussia's new ruler has left no room for doubt. [end p18]
“Let no-one,” he told us last week, “expect unilateral disarmament from us. We are not naive people.”
Neither, Mr Andropov, are we conservatives. We shall never relax our guard.
The freedom and justice, which are the essentials of our way of life, are worth defending. And we are prepared to defend them.
But if the first duty of government is to defend the realm, its second duty let us not forget, is to seek to give our people the assurance of sound money. [end p19]
In the last few days the exchange markets of the world have been passing through a turbulent phase.
That is a feature of a world of floating rates for currency. Changes in expections about the international price for oil: Changes in interest rates on both sides of the Atlantic—these are factors which will from time to time, cause movements from which a major international currency like our own cannot be immune. [end p20]
We do not have—we cannot have—a rate for sterling which we ourselves can fix regardless.
But on one point there should be no shadow of doubt. This government is not in the business of searching for competitiveness by devaluing our currency. That's a road that's been tried too often in the past. And all that's happened is that any hope of gain through cheaper prices for our exports has been swept aside by rising costs at home. [end p21]
So those who attribute to us ambition to see our currency devalued by 7 per cent, or by 10 per cent, or whatever figure takes their fancy, are talking utter nonsense. They simply do not understand the purpose of this government.
Of course, why should they? They were never steadfast themselves. There are opposition voices calling for a massive fall in sterling. I can only say tonight that any party which expects to have its claims to govern taken seriously must regret the day it lets such dangerous and irresponsible notions see the light. [end p22]
The destruction of the savings of the nation could never be the way to build the jobs of the future.
Indeed it would be hard to think of super ways to condemn our children to impoverishment and worklessness and debt.
The purpose of this government—and we've proved it—is to continue on the course to stable prices.
By firm restraint of public spending, by steadily reducing the sums we borrow: and by the sensible control of money.
They say, the ubiquitous ‘they’, that between now and the next election we will weaken in our purpose.
Mr President, so long as I am first lord of the treasury, we will not. [end p23]
I am afraid I'm going to lose my reputation for making short speeches. And I don't know what that man in the Perth cattlemarket is going to say if I do.
Tonight we look forward to your second hundred years. Just as your forebears in the edinburgh of 1882 could not foresee the micro-chip or television or nuclear power or North Sea oil, so today we cannot foresee how Scots will live and work and play a hundred years from now.
But of this I think, we can be sure.
That the traditional Scottish values of thrift and application, of fair-dealing and self advancement, will be as much in demand as ever—and not only here is Scotland a hundred years from now.
And those are the values of which your party will always be the guardian.
So though perhaps, we shall not be there to celebrate your [end p24] bicentenary, I've no doubt there'll be a Younger there, a Lothian—or would it be an Ancram?—a home and?—why not?—a Whitelaw too, to sing the praises of their forebears gathered here tonight.
And who knows? There might even be a Thatcher—to keep the house in good order … . and dry!