Enoch Powell's "Rivers of Blood" Speech: 50th Anniversary
Remnant Review
Fifty years ago today, Enoch Powell, a member of the House of Commons, delivered what became the most controversial speech in post-war Britain. He spoke against the policy of open immigration into Great Britain from Commonwealth countries. It became known as the “Rivers of Blood” speech because of its closing words from Virgil’s classic poem, The Aeneid. At the age of 25 in 1937, he became a full professor in ancient Greek in Australia. He read Latin, too.
As I look ahead, I am filled with foreboding. Like the Roman, I seem to see ‘the River Tiber foaming with much blood’. That tragic and intractable phenomenon which we watch with horror on the other side of the Atlantic but which there is interwoven with the history and existence of the States itself, is coming upon us here by our own volition and our own neglect. Indeed, it has all but come. In numerical terms, it will be of American proportions long before the end of the century. Only resolute and urgent action will avert it even now. Whether there will be the public will to demand and obtain that action, I do not know. All I know is that to see, and not to speak, would be the great betrayal.
There was no public action. Immigration contunued, as he predicted.
The speech made him a national figure. Wikipedia summarizes:
Powell became a national figure following his 20 April 1968 address to the General Meeting of the West Midlands Area Conservative Political Centre, which became known as the "Rivers of Blood" speech. It pointedly criticised mass immigration into the UK, especially from the New Commonwealth and opposed the then-proposed anti-discrimination legislation Race Relations Bill being mooted at the time. In response, Conservative Party leader Edward Heath sacked Powell from his position as Shadow Defence Secretary (1965–1968) in the Conservative opposition.In the aftermath of the Rivers of Blood speech, several polls suggested that between 67 and 82% of the UK population agreed with Powell's opinions.
I did a search for this: “The most controversial speech in post-war Britain.” The top two links on both Google and Bing were this speech. On DuckDuckGo, it was the top five links.
The printed copy of the speech is here.
The BBC announced that it would present a professional narrator's reading of the speech today. There was no full recording of it. There were protests.
MY BRIEF DEBATE WITH POWELL
Powell was a great speaker in the British tradition of great political orators. I heard him in 1967 at Harry Schultz’s gold investment conference, which was held in southern California. He spoke on monetary policy. He clearly was a follower of Friedman, not Mises. He was a promoter of floating exchange rates and the simultaneous abolition of the last traces of the gold exchange standard. I recognized that the requirement that the Treasury redeeming dollars at a fixed rate was an inhibitor on the expansion of the money supply. While I favored an increase from $35 an ounce to $70 -- devaluation -- I did not want the link severed completely. Powell had way too much confidence in central bankers.
In the Q&A session after his speech, I challenged him on this. He was adamant that his position was correct. I did not choose to argue, since the person behind a podium always has the advantage by default. Besides, I was 25 years old. Who was I? But I knew that rhetorical eloquence is no substitute for logic when setting policy, although it does win public debates. I also knew that I would not want to be his challenger on the floor of the House of Commons. It would take both logic and rhetorical skill to beat him.
Less than two years later, he gave a speech at the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE). The speech was reprinted in The Freeman.. At the end, he made this assessment:
However, the principal context in which inflation appears in this whole debate is the belief that fixed rates of exchange are a safeguard against domestic inflation, and—according to taste—either prevent the politicians from indulging in it or force them to keep control upon it. There are three answers to this, at different levels. One is that fixed rates of exchange demonstrably do not prevent domestic inflation, and that there is no correlation between the stability or otherwise of domestic prices in various countries and their showing in deficit or surplus under the system of fixed exchange rates.
Two years and two weeks after this article appeared, Nixon unilaterally "closed the gold window" by announcing that the Treasury would no longer allow central banks to buy gold with their dollars. That ended the last trace of the international gold standard. Then began the greatest decade of peacetime monetary inflation and price inflation in American history.
Powell, like Friedman, was dead wrong about the ability of floating exchange rates to prevent price inflation in a world without the dollar's legal link to gold.
I learned early not to trust Powell's predictions or his rhetoric.
BAD PREDICTIONS
He began with an account of a constituent who told him that, if he had the money, he would emigrate. Then he said this: “In this country in fifteen or twenty years time the black man will have the whip hand over the white man.”
According to the latest figures, 87% of Great Britain is white or white/British. About 3% is black. About 7% is Asian.
As in the United States, which is about 12% black, there are postal codes that are mostly black. These neighborhoods have higher rates of poverty and crime than the average neighborhoods do. This is no secret in either the United States or Great Britain. These statistical and sociological facts do not receive much discussion in the white-dominated media, but the public knows this to be the case, especially the residents in these postal codes.
Blacks do not hold the whip over whites in Great Britain. Whatever influence over policy that certain politically well-organized black minorities have gained in the British government has been due to the whites who control Parliament. This is equally true in the United States, except for this: the white-dominated courts have greater policy-making influence than Congress possesses. Congress could take back this influence by a majority vote, Constitutionally speaking. It can remove the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court on any issue other than regulating ambassadors. But Congress chooses not to. The Constitution is clear:
In all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a State shall be Party, the supreme Court shall have original Jurisdiction. In all the other Cases before mentioned, the supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact, with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make. (Article 2, Section 2)
Therefore, in both Great Britain and the United States, whites hold the political whip. They cannot legitimately evade the responsibility associated with bad decisions of the political-judicial order.
Powell continued. He switched his prediction from blacks to Asians. He offered no explanation for this switch.
As time goes on, the proportion of this total who are immigrant descendants, those born in England, who arrived here by exactly the same route as the rest of us, will rapidly increase. Already by 1985 those born here would constitute the majority. It is this fact above all which creates the extreme urgency of action now, of just that kind of action which is hardest for politicians to take, action where the difficulties lie in the present but the evils to be prevented or minimized lie several parliaments ahead.
The demographic evidence does not sustain his prediction – not today, and surely not in 1985.
EMPTY CHURCHES, FULL MOSQUES
This was the headline of a news site in the United Arab Emirates in 2009. But is it true? Yes. Is it significant? Not in terms of comparative influence. Here is statistical reality.
The people with no supernatural religion now outnumber the self-professed Christians.
It is no doubt true that some Church of England church buildings are close to empty. That is because the self-professed Christians who belong to the Church of England are not serious about their faith. This includes the clergy. Emptiness begins inside the members’ hearts and minds before it is visible in the buildings.
LOCALISM
One of the tenets of conservatism in the broadest sense is the emphasis on localism. Conservatism historically has resisted nationalization, let alone internationalization. This goes back to medieval culture. The common law upholds it. This outlook was basic to Edmund Burke’s critique of the French Revolution in his classic statement of conservative political philosophy, Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790). Powell abandoned this outlook toward the end of his speech.
Now we are seeing the growth of positive forces acting against integration, of vested interests in the preservation and sharpening of racial and religious differences, with a view to the exercise of actual domination, first over fellow-immigrants and then over the rest of the population. The cloud no bigger than a man’s hand, that can so rapidly overcast the sky, has been visible recently in Wolverhampton and has shown signs of spreading quickly. The words I am about to use, verbatim as they appeared in the local press of 17th February [1968], are not mine, but those of a Labour Member of Parliament who is a Minister in the Government. ‘The Sikh community’s campaign to maintain customs inappropriate in Britain is much to be regretted. Working in Britain, particularly in the public services, they should be prepared to accept the terms and conditions of their employment. To claim special communal rights (or should one say rites?) leads to a dangerous fragmentation within society. This communalism is a canker; whether practised by one colour or another it is to be strongly condemned.’ All credit to John Stonehouse for having had the insight to perceive that, and the courage to say it.
What “dangerous fragmentation” did he have in mind? The Labor politician worried about unnamed “public services,” by which he meant the dole provided by the post-war British welfare state that the Labor government constructed, 1945-1951, and which Churchill’s conservative government left intact when he took over. The solution to that should have been clear to Powell: roll back the welfare state. But he did not mention this.
The rule of civil law does not allow practices that are prohibited by law. For example, polygamy is illegal in Western nations. Islamic families must conform. Murder is illegal. There is no religious exemption. But if residents of a neighborhood want to practice non-violent, non-invasive customs, why should any politician complain?
CONCLUSION
Powell’s speech did not hold up in 1968. It surely was not validated by what has happened since then.
The two major problems in Great Britain in 1968 were the decline of Christianity and the triumph of the welfare state. Powell was part of the first problem. While a member of the Church of England, he rejected its fundamental tenets. He denied the crucifixion of Christ. He said the Jews stoned Christ. The Romans were innocent. This exonerated Pontius Pilate. It also contradicted the Nicene creed: "he was crucified for us under Pontius Pilate."
These same two problems afflict Great Britain. Salvation by law – specifically, civil law – has replaced salvation by grace. The state has replaced the church. This is Great Britain’s crucial problem. Powell did not see this in 1968. The voters do not see it today.