Baron Arthur Ponsonby Ponsonby

The Camel and the Needle's Eye (eBook, PDF)

• Format: PDF

Produktbeschreibung

MY original intention was to collect together a number of essays on some of the most important bearings of the question of the expenditure of riches. After corresponding with those whom I had invited to join me in this undertaking, I became aware that in spite of our substantial agreement on main principles it would be difficult to secure uniformity in the treatment of the theme, and impossible to carry on any sustained argument through the varied contributions of different people writing from different points of view. Accordingly I came to the conclusion that I must renounce the co-operation of men well qualified to speak, whose knowledge and experience would have given their opinions special weight, and work out my own argument unaided.

Had I approached the subject from the standpoint of a scientific economist, I should have hesitated to enter upon such a formidable task. The more special knowledge a man has, the more conscious does he become of the impossibility of dealing adequately with his subject. But my object has been to write as one knowing no more than others who take any interest in human affairs and watch the play of social forces, as one who is no spectator in the combat he describes, and who, being himself infected with the malady he is studying, is perhaps the better able to diagnose it. I do not speak as a preacher to his congregation, as a teacher to his pupils, as a moralist to his disciples, or even as a politician to his audience, but as one man submitting his opinion for what it is worth to another.

At the same time, I am compelled by a deep conviction in the truth of my argument which passing years and the course of events only serve to strengthen, and if, by the brief suggestions contained in these pages, I can succeed in inducing anyone to examine more closely this branch of the Social Problem, which in my opinion is too often dismissed as negligible, I shall be amply repaid.
 

Produktdetails

• Verlag: iOnlineShopping.com
• Erscheinungstermin: 5. Oktober 2019
• Englisch
• ISBN-13: 9788834193358
• Artikelnr.: 59007918

Autorenporträt

British politician, author, and social activist Arthur Augustus William Harry Ponsonby, 1st Baron Ponsonby of Shulbrede (16 February 1871 - 23 March 1946). He was the son of Mary Elizabeth Bulteel, the daughter of John Crocker Bulteel, and Sir Henry Ponsonby, the private secretary to Queen Victoria. In addition, he was the great-grandson of the second Earl Grey, the third Earl of Bathurst, and the third Earl of Bessborough. His elder brother was 1st Baron Sysonby. "When war is declared, truth is the first casualty" is a quotation that is frequently attributed to Ponsonby. It was published in his book Falsehood in War-time, containing an Assortment of Lies Circulated Throughout the Nations During the Great War (1928). But at the beginning of the book, he presents this phrase-which is enclosed in quotation marks-as an epigram rather than using it himself. The nearly exact same statement made by US Senator Hiram Johnson in 1917-"The first casualty when war comes is truth"-is most likely its source. From 1882 until 1887, Ponsonby served as Queen Victoria's Page of Honour. He was raised in an Anglo-Irish household and attended Eton College.