(1) Thatcher Archive: CCOPR 883/77
Our heritage is under attack—our common heritage. The basic values of a free society, a decent society, are threatened.
There is nothing new in this. Every generation must meet these challenges afresh. If it faces them boldly, it emerges strengthened, its values reaffirmed in terms of the present.
For between lasting values and changing circumstances there must be constant dialogue.
No generation can hope to live solely off the moral capital laid down by its predecessors, any more than it can live off the physical and financial capital it has inherited.
To renew is to conserve. We must turn over our moral capital once in every generation if we are to preserve its value.
The free enterprise economy which underlies our prosperity and underpins our freedoms can survive only in a society devoted to personal liberties under just laws. Yet the material benefits which flow from the free economy are not in themselves sufficient to inspire men and women to fight in its defence.
To fight and to make sacrifices men need an ideal. They will fight for freedom as they will fight for flag or religion, because freedom is based on more than economic and political convenience; it embodies the sanctity and uniqueness of the individual, a keystone of Western society. [end p2]
When freedom is valued for its own sake, other benefits flow from it.
We inherit from preceding generations: we wish to pass on that heritage renewed and strengthened.
Keynes, who had so much influence on the post-War generation, is reputed to have said: “In the long run, we are all dead.” But in the long run, our children and their children will live; let it be in freedom.
Never have our basic values, the Christian values which rest on Hebrew and Hellenic foundations, been so menaced as they are today. Family life, the innocence of children, public decency, respect for the law, pride in good work, patriotism, democracy—all are under attack.
If they are overwhelmed, the free market economy cannot survive, and the kind of life our economic efforts serve would perish.
Some criticism of our institutions comes from honest questioning and the desire to improve and to remove manifest imperfections. But much of the attack is wholly destructive, impelled by the desire to vandalise and to defile. This reflects the dark side of human nature, never far below the surface, ready to seep out when the conventions of society weaken.
To defeat the wreckers we need moral courage based on tested beliefs and values. Armed with this courage, we can stand up to threat, sneer and defamation.
Our forebears stood up against much worse, and won.
BBC Radio News 0700 10 September 1977:
BBC material paraphrased for reason of copyright.
MT told the ESU she had a “a major hope for a more vibrant economic society in Britain” and said that Britain might become “the Texas of Europe” if government didn't get too involved in the oil industry.