Famous quotes

Quotes by famous people, credited to who said them. Your own quotes must not match any of these. More are added all the time. 1,158,269 quotes Who coined it · How we decide

English Italiano Polski עברית Français Português فارسی Español 中文 Русский Deutsch العربية हिन्दी 日本語 Ελληνικά Latina

Henry Campbell-Bannerman

65 quotes

“I would plainly say that most men who have looked all round this question must have seen that, as a matter of course, the two belligerent states—the two conquered states—must in some form or other become states of the British Empire. We must recognise accomplished facts, we must accept the inevitable results of the war, we must do whatever it may be which will most conduce to the permanent tranquillity and security of South Africa, and we must set before us as our chief aim, after the security of the Imperial power, the conciliation and harmonious co-operation of the two European races in South Africa. Now, how is this to be done? Is that a question which I need ask any meeting of Liberals? We need have no doubt how it is to be done—by applying our Liberal principles, the Liberal principles from which the strength of the Empire has been derived and on which it depends. Let us apply our Liberal principles... Let us restore as early as possible and let us maintain those rights of self-government which give not only life and vigour but contentment and loyalty to every colony which enjoys them.”
Henry Campbell-Bannerman (1836–1908) first seen 1900 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in Glasgow (7 June 1900), quoted in J. A. Spender, The Life of The Right Hon. Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, G.C.B. Vol. I (1923), pp. 281-282
“Now, everybody was a "pro-Boer" who did not agree to everything Mr. Chamberlain did, and who said "Here is a people fighting gallantly for the independence of their own country; for goodness sake do not attribute every sort of evil to them while you are fighting them; when you have got them down, treat them with the respect and honour that such a people ought to receive—a people who, though they may be mistaken and entirely wrong, are conscientiously fighting for the independence of their own land." For taking this view he was called a pro-Boer. That again was a gross slander and falsehood, and that newspapers and politicians should stoop to a mean artifice of that kind was a scandal and a disgrace to the political life of to-day.”
Henry Campbell-Bannerman (1836–1908) first seen 1900 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in Alyth, Perthshire during the general election campaign (6 October 1900), quoted in The Times (8 October 1900), p. 11
“That policy is directed to two main objects—first, that we should clearly make known to the peoples of the belligerent States, not in vague but in definite terms, that our purpose is not conquest but conciliation, not humiliation but friendship and freedom; and in the second place, that these terms should include the re-settlement in their homes of the burghers, who by capture or the operations of war have been dispossessed, and the establishment, as soon as order is restored, of free self-governing institutions... If we are to maintain the political supremacy of the British power in South Africa—and this surely is the end and purpose of all we are doing—it can only be by conciliation and friendship; it will never be by domination and ascendancy, because the British power cannot there or elsewhere rest securely unless it rests upon the willing consent of a sympathetic and contented people.”
Henry Campbell-Bannerman (1836–1908) first seen 1901 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech at a dinner of the Eighty and Russell Clubs in Oxford (2 March 1901), quoted in J. A. Spender, The Life of The Right Hon. Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, G.C.B. Vol. I (1923), p. 326
“What is that policy? That now that we had got the men we had been fighting against down, we should punish them as severely as possible, devastate their country, burn their homes, break up their very instruments of agriculture.. It is that we should sweep – as the Spaniards did in Cuba; and how we denounced the Spaniards! – the women and children into camps...in some of which the death-rate has risen so high as 430 in the thousand. I do not say for a moment, because I do not think for a moment, that this is the deliberate and intentional policy of His Majesty's Government...at all events, it is the thing which is being done at this moment in the name and by the authority of this most humane and Christian nation. Yesterday I asked the leader of the House of Commons when the information would be afforded, of which we are so sadly in want. My request was refused. Mr. Balfour treated us with a short disquisition on the nature of war. A phrase often used is that "war is war", but when one comes to ask about it one is told that no war is going on, that it is not war. When is a war not a war? When it is carried on by methods of barbarism in South Africa.”
Henry Campbell-Bannerman (1836–1908) first seen 1901 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the Holborn Restaurant (14 June 1901), quoted in John Wilson, C.B.: A Life of Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman (1973), p. 349
“[W]hat is the constitutional bearing of these stipulations? ...It is perfectly monstrous...It means that we abandon our fiscal independence, together with our free-trade ways; that we subside into the tenth part of a Vehmgericht which is to direct us what sugar is to be countervailed, at what rate per cent. we are to countervail it, how much is to be put on for the bounty, and how much for the tariff being in excess of the convention tariff; and this being the established order of things, the British Chancellor of the Exchequer in his robes obeys the orders that he receives from this foreign convention, in which the Britisher is only one out of ten, and the House of Commons humbly submits to the whole transaction. ("Shame.") Sir, of all the insane schemes ever offered to a free country as a boon this is surely the maddest. (Cheers.)”
Henry Campbell-Bannerman (1836–1908) first seen 1902 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech to the Cobden Club denouncing the Brussels sugar convention (28 November 1902), quoted in The Times (29 November 1902), p. 12
“Why are we free-traders? ... We are satisfied that it is right because it gives the freest play to individual energy and initiative and character and the largest liberty both to producer and consumer. We say that trade is injured when it is not allowed to follow its natural course, and when it is either hampered or diverted by artificial obstacles. ... We believe in free trade because we believe in the capacity of our countrymen. That at least is why I oppose protection root and branch, veiled and unveiled, one-sided or reciprocal. I oppose it in any form. Besides we have experience of fifty years, during which our prosperity has become the envy of the world.”
Henry Campbell-Bannerman (1836–1908) first seen 1903 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in Bolton (15 October 1903), quoted in The Times (16 October 1903), p. 6
“I hold that the growth of armaments is a great danger to the peace of the world. A policy of huge armaments keeps alive and stimulates and feeds the belief that force is the best, if not the only, solution of international differences. It is a policy that tends to inflame old sores and to create new sores. And I submit to you that as the principles of peaceful arbitration gains ground it becomes one of the highest tasks of a statesman to adjust those armaments to the newer and happier condition of things. (Cheers.) What nobler role could this great country assume than at the fitting moment to place itself at the head of a league of peace, through whose instrumentality this great work could be effected? (Cheers.)”
Henry Campbell-Bannerman (1836–1908) first seen 1905 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the Albert Hall, London, opening the Liberal Party's election campaign (21 December 1905), quoted in The Times (22 December 1905), p. 7
“[W]ith an increasing military expenditure, how can we do the work of reform that remains to be done at home and at the same time bring relief to the taxpayers? Do not let us mind if in their folly they call us “Little Englanders.” (Cheers.) I at least am patriot enough not to desire to see the weakening of my country by such a waste of money as we have had for the last ten years. What has it brought us, this waste of money for ten years? Shall I recite some links in the dismal and ugly chain? Dear money. Lower credit. Less enterprise in business and manufactures. A reduced home demand. Therefore, reduced output to meet it. Therefore, reductions in wages, increase of pauperism, non-employment. (Cheers.) The fact is, Sir, you cannot pile up debt and taxation as they have been piled up without feeling the strain in every fibre of society. We are going to have a good deal said for the next few weeks about free trade. Let me add another thing. Did you ever hear a fiscal reformer pleading for economy, or crying out for lighter taxes and fewer of them? No, Sir, if peace and retrenchment were the order of the day, Othello's occupation would be gone. (Cheers.)”
Henry Campbell-Bannerman (1836–1908) first seen 1905 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the Albert Hall, London (21 December 1905), quoted in The Times (22 December 1905), p. 7
“Expenditure calls for taxes, and taxes are the plaything of the tariff reformer. Militarism, extravagance, protection are weeds which grow in the same field, and if you want to clear the field for honest cultivation you must root them all out. For my own part, I do not believe that we should have been confronted by the spectre of protection if it had not been for the South African war. ... Depend upon it that in fighting for our open ports and for the cheap food and material upon which the welfare of the people and the prosperity of our commerce depend we are fighting against those powers, privileges, injustices, and monopolies which are unalterably opposed to the triumph of democratic principles.”
Henry Campbell-Bannerman (1836–1908) first seen 1905 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the Albert Hall, London (21 December 1905), quoted in The Times (22 December 1905), p. 7
“The right hon. gentleman is like the Bourbons. He has learned nothing. He comes back to this new House of Commons with the same airy graces – the same subtle dialectics – and the same light and frivolous way of dealing with great questions. He little knows the temper of the new House of Commons if he thinks those methods will prevail here. The right hon. gentleman has...asked certain questions which he seemed to think were posers. ...I have no direct answer to give to them. They are utterly futile, nonsensical and misleading. They are invented by the right hon. gentleman for the purpose of occupying time in this debate. I say, enough of this foolery. … Move your amendments and let us get to business.”
Henry Campbell-Bannerman (1836–1908) first seen 1906 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the House of Commons answering the Conservative leader, Arthur Balfour (12 March 1906), quoted in John Wilson, C.B.: A Life of Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman (1973), p. 497
“Now the question we have to ask ourselves is—Is the general election and its result to go for nothing? ... It is plainly intolerable, Sir, that a second Chamber should, while one Party in the State is in power, be its willing servant, and when that Party has received an unmistakable and emphatic condemnation by the country, the House of Lords should then be able to neutralise, thwart, and distort the policy which the electors have approved... A settlement of this grave question of education has been prevented, and for that calamity we know, and the country knows, upon whom the responsibility lies. But, Sir, the resources of the British Constitution are not wholly exhausted, the resources of the House of Commons are not exhausted, and I say with conviction that a way must be found, a way will be found, by which the will of the people expressed through their elected representatives in this House will be made to prevail.”
Henry Campbell-Bannerman (1836–1908) first seen 1906 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the House of Commons on the Education Bill (20 December 1906)
“[T]he concentration of human beings in towns...is contrary to nature, and...this abnormal existence is bound to issue in suffering, deterioration, and gradual destruction to the mass of the population...countless thousands of our fellow-men, and still a larger number of children...are starved of air and space and sunshine. ... This view of city life, which is gradually coming home to the heart and understanding and the conscience of our people, is so terrible that it cannot be put away. What is all our wealth and learning and the fine flower of our civilisation and our Constitution and our political theories – what are all these but dust and ashes, if the men and women, on whose labour the whole social fabric is maintained, are doomed to live and die in darkness and misery in the recesses of our great cities? We may undertake expeditions on behalf of oppressed tribes and races, we may conduct foreign missions, we may sympathise with the cause of unfortunate nationalities; but it is our own people, surely, who have the first claim upon us. ... [T]he air must be purified...the sunshine must be allowed to stream in, the water and the food must be kept pure and unadulterated, the streets light and clean. ... [T]he measure of your success in bringing these things to pass will be the measure of the arresting of the terrible powers of race degeneration which is going on in the countless sunless streets.”
Henry Campbell-Bannerman (1836–1908) first seen 1907 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in Belmont (25 January 1907), quoted in John Wilson, C.B.: A Life of Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman (1973), p. 588
“The supremacy of the people in legislation implies, in this country at any rate, the authority of the Commons. The party for which I speak has never swerved from that position, and unless you are going to fall back upon some foreign method, such as the referendum or the mandate or the plebiscite, or some other way of getting behind the backs of the elected to the electors themselves, such as was advised by both the first and third Napoleon—unless that is the example you are going to follow, then there is no course open but to recognise ungrudgingly the authority which resides in this House, and to accept the views of the nation as represented in its great interests within these walls.”
Henry Campbell-Bannerman (1836–1908) first seen 1907 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the House of Commons (24 June 1907)
“The situation, as the House knows, has been aggravated by the part taken by the right hon. Gentleman opposite... I cannot conceive of Sir Robert Peel or Mr. Disraeli treating the House of Commons as the right hon. Gentleman has treated it. Nor do I think there is any instance in which, as leaders of the Opposition, they committed what I can only call the treachery of openly calling in the other House to override this House. [Cheers; cries of "Withdraw."] ... The right hon. Gentleman's course has, however, had one indisputable effect. It has left no room for doubt, if it had ever existed before, that the second Chamber was being utilised as a mere annexe of the Unionist Party... One begins to doubt, in fact—I certainly doubt— whether he or his Party have ever fully accepted representative institutions.”
Henry Campbell-Bannerman (1836–1908) first seen 1907 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the House of Commons (24 June 1907)
“I should have thought that if there was one country in the world where property was more secure than another, it was this country, because it is at heart a justice-loving country and because it is a country in which men's hearts have neither been wholly spoilt by social wrong nor wholly hardened by wealth out of all responsiveness to social obligations. Therefore, it is a country with the will and capacity to move quickly and steadily forward along the path of social reform towards a fairer and more enlightened common life, free from the disgrace of the existence of unnecessary and unmerited misery and poverty.”
Henry Campbell-Bannerman (1836–1908) first seen 1907 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech to the Anchor Society's Colstan day anniversary celebration in Bristol (13 November 1907), quoted in The Times (14 November 1907), p. 6