Henry Campbell-Bannerman Quotes

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.

[W]e must give to the Irish people, in one form or another, the self-government they desire.

The evils attending the traffic in offices had been well known in past times; Parliament, in its wisdom, had raised barriers against them; and the present House was asked to pull these barriers down, and to renounce the principle which hitherto had governed the public service of England, Naval, Military, and Civil—the principle that men entered the service not that the poor man might make gain, nor that the rich man might indulge his fancy, but in order that rich and poor alike might do their duty.

We want two things. We want relief from the pressure of excessive taxation, and at the same time we want money to meet our own domestic needs at home, which have been too long starved and neglected owing to the demands on the taxpayer for military purposes abroad.

Scotsmen...had played a not inglorious part in the work which they were destined to share of creating a common Empire and building up a united Britain... [T]he two countries [Scotland and England] had seen the growth of relations of mutual interest, mutual respect, and mutual understanding; and whoever tested the combination by its results in any field of thought or action or effort in learning, in literature, in statesmanship, in commerce, in the arts of peace or on the battlefield, must acknowledge that it had been a mighty combination, exercising a profound effect for good upon the world.

If an Imperialist means a man who would maintain at the highest pitch the power by land and sea of the Empire, who would secure perfect safety for these islands from hostile attack, but who is not content to confine his view to these islands; who would preserve the territorial integrity and interests of the Empire; who would guard our rights of trade either within the Empire or beyond its bounds; and who would strengthen by every means in his power the ties that bind us to our kinsmen in every quarter of the globe—if that is to be an Imperialist, then, ladies and gentlemen, there is not a man here, there is not a man in this great Liberal meeting, who is not as unflinching an Imperialist as those who have the word always on their lips. We are not afraid of the responsibilities of Empire, we are proud to be the guardians of the heritage handed down by our fathers, nay, we do not shrink from adding to it if duty or honour compels us; but we abjure the vulgar and bastard Imperialism of irritation, and provocation, and aggression, of clever tricks and manoeuvres against neighbours, and of grabbing everything even if we have no use for it ourselves.

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.

The greatest of British interests is peace.

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.

The bonds of mutual understanding and esteem are strengthening between the peoples, and the time is approaching when nothing can hold back from them the knowledge that it is they who are the victims of war and militarism; that war in its tawdry triumphs scatters the fruits of their labour, breaks down the paths of progress, and turns the fire of constructive energy into a destroying force.

There are many who croak that the decadence of the Empire has commenced. I am no believer in anything of that sort. If the glory of this country is founded on foreign aggression, if it is supported by military force, if it be dependent on our power of extorting unwilling allegiance from members of our race in distant quarters of the globe—if all this is to be glory that is to attach to a Christian nation like this—if this is the glory, I rejoice that it is passing away. I am not sneering at all at the past history of our country, I am aware that in the past we have acted according to the spirit of the age and we have shown ourselves equal to any other nation. But let us not revert to that state of things; let us not go back instead of forward. Let us rather show other nations a more excellent way; let us set ourselves to encourage a brotherly, friendly, generous spirit among the nations, and at home let us apply ourselves to the reduction of that jealousy and distrust which at present exist, and to the promotion of a more friendly spirit among all classes; and let us above all attack the tremendous task that we have before us in the conquering of the monster of ignorance and vice which exists amongst us.

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.

My own conviction is that it is only by local parliaments & local executives in each of the three kingdoms that we can settle H[ome] R[ule] at all... [M]y experience is that everywhere I go the body of a meeting favours Scotch H.R. ... It is not a doctrine imposed on the people by us for our purposes: it is a genuine growth of popular opinion... Scotch Home Rule involves English H. Rule; and that not one in a thousand Englishmen has ever grasped the idea of having a local Parlt. as apart from the common Imperial Parlt., so that Scotch Home Rule must wait until the sluggish mind of John Bull is educated up to that point. Nothing rash, but nothing discouraging, is therefore, I think, what ought to be our motto.

This is not, I say, a sectarian question, it is a national question; it is not a question of aggrandizing or denuding any individual sect, it is a question of raising the efficiency of the Universities as national instruments of education; and I firmly believe that the infusion of new blood, which will result from the adoption of this policy, will speedily bring their teaching organization into greater harmony with the times... We wish to see the Universities thrown altogether open to the nation; and thus, while the nation derives the full benefit of the high traditional position of those great institutions, my hope is, that the freer and fuller life of the nation will in turn react on the Universities, and render them better qualified to fill their high position.

I am half-surprised to find that as I go on I get more and more confirmed in the old advanced Liberal principles, economic, social, & political, with which I entered Parliament 30 years ago.