Speeches, etc.

Margaret Thatcher

HC S [Earl of Avon (tributes]

Document type: Speeches, interviews, etc.
Venue: House of Commons
Source: Hansard HC [923/39-42]
Editorial comments: 1601-10.
Importance ranking: Major
Word count: 1119
[column 39]

Mrs. Margaret Thatcher (Finchley)

May we on this side of the House join James Callaghanthe Prime Minister in paying tribute to Lord Avon? The death of Anthony Eden, as most of us still think of him, takes from us a distinguished statesman, a gifted parliamentarian and a courageous politician. We honour and mourn him today knowing that his like may never come among us again.

When Anthony Eden came into the House in 1923 at the age of 26 he had already distinguished himself as a brave and gallant soldier. He had gone straight from school at the age of 18 to serve in the Great War. At 19 he was an adjutant, and at 20 a brigade major. He fought in the battle of the Somme and the the Messines. In war, as in peace, the Eden courage never failed. Like many of his contemporaries, the lessons of those early experiences were etched on his mind, and he always remembered those who had served with him and who had sacrificed so much. His great ideal was of a new international order between nations founded on mutual respect, mutual undertakings and mutually honoured. Signatures on treaties would offer hope for a new era, but an enduring peace could be achieved only by carrying out the obligations assumed.

Anthony Eden 's association with the Foreign Office began early as a PPS, and he became one of our youngest Foreign Secretaries, at the age of 38. News that he had resigned after only two years shocked Britain. He was the first Foreign Secretary for 60 years to resign on a matter of principle, and the deci[column 40]sion was the more significant when we recall that in 1938 it was Britain, not America, that played the leading rôle in world affairs. Perhaps it was Winston Churchill, that master of the illuminating phrase, who best captured the feelings of many people at that time. To him, Eden seemed to embody the “life-hope” of the British nation. He described him as

“one strong, young figure standing up against long dismal drawling tides of drift and surrender.”

While it is right to lay emphasis on Anthony Eden 's action in resigning his great office at an early age, we must not forget his achievements at the Foreign Office during the post-war period, between the years of 1951 and 1955. Then, he used to great advantage both his masterly diplomacy and the good will and authority which this country had acquired by supreme exertion in war. His patient handling of the Persian dispute, his expert negotiations at Geneva on Indo-China, his timely offer of a British contribution on land in Europe, after France had rejected the proposals for a European Defence Community, were all personal triumphs for him, and enhanced Britain's international standing.

After longer experience as Foreign Secretary than any previous Prime Minister save Palmerston, Anthony Eden entered on the highest office. In home affairs, many of us will remember him for the emphasis that he gave during that period to individual responsibility and decision. He, more than anyone else, impressed upon the country the merits of a property-owning democracy. In overseas matters, his judgments on the Middle East were, and will be, the subject of debate for many years, but that the principal aim of his every action and policy was the benefit of Britain and the good of the international community has never been in dispute.

We must not overlook Anthony Eden 's great talents as a parliamentarian. Others can bear witness to his skilled performance in debate. He records himself that he much preferred to wind up debates than to open them and that he disliked scripted speeches. In 1956, although the scenes in the House distressed him, he retained his natural dignity and composure throughout, and early in 1957, when he was forced to leave office through ill-health, the late Hugh [column 41]Gaitskell, himself an outstanding parliamentarian, paid a moving tribute to him.

For part of the last war Anthony Eden added the job of being Leader of the House to his many other duties. His energy and zeal were prodigious because, as well as being Foreign Secretary, he was one of the six or seven members of the War Cabinet and a member of the Defence Committee. It was while serving in the War Cabinet that he developed a great admiration for the late Lord Attlee, Herbert Morrison, and, particularly, Ernest Bevin, who later succeeded him as Foreign Secretary. They were very close.

He experienced again, although in a different sphere, some of the comradeship of his previous war years. Of those he had written:

“War promoted working together into something good and true and rare, the like of which was never to be met within civil life.”

After the end of the war in Europe, fate was to deal Anthony Eden its cruellest blow. In the war that he had striven to avoid his son Simon was killed in the Royal Air Force in Burma. The Eden courage had passed from generation to generation.

It is difficult to do justice to the many facets of Anthony Eden 's personality. There was a natural reserve about him, but no one who spent any time in his company failed to respond to his charm and sensibility. Those who knew him well speak of his tenacity and refusal to indulge in self-pity, his warm appreciation of the qualities of colleagues and opponents alike, his discerning taste in literature and painting, his abiding interest in the universities, and especially in Birmingham University of which he was Chancellor for more than a quarter of a century, his accessibility, his fairness and understanding, and his unfeigned dislike for tyrannies, bullying and intolerance.

Anthony Eden spent most of the last 20 years of his life at his home in the country. Lady Avon, herself a remarkably gifted person, dedicated all her time to caring for him. Her devotion must surely be one of the deeply inspiring examples of our time. To her we can offer only sympathy and admiration, however inadequate those feelings may seem in proportion to her grievous loss. [column 42]

We are grateful that the Prime Minister and the Royal Air Force enabled Lord Avon to spend his last days in the surroundings of the English countryside that he loved; that same countryside of which his poet contemporary Rupert Brooke, when faced with the possibility of death in the Great War, had written:

“And think, this heart, all evil shed away, A pulse in the eternal mind, no less Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given.

Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;

And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,

In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.”