The affairs of the world do not stand still... I could not go, as the representative of His Majesty's Government, to meeting after meeting of the League of Nations, to conference after conference with the representatives of foreign countries, and say, 'Great Britain is without a policy. We have not yet been able to meet all the governments of the Empire, and we can do nothing'. That might be possible for an Empire wholly removed from Europe, which existed in a different hemisphere. It was not possible for an Empire the heart of which lies in Europe.

Speech in the House of Commons, 1925. Hansard, Parliamentary Debates (House of Commons), Fifth Series, Vol. 188, cols. 520-1.