Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury Quotes

For two hundred years these tests had been constantly and cheerfully subscribed by some six generations of clergymen. All these men, all the great lights of the Church since 1662, were by the sweeping denunciation of his hon. Friend accused without exception of having been compelled to tamper with their consciences. ... That long experience was the best answer to the statements which had been made. They might depend upon it that an experience of two hundred years was a better guide than the experience of his hon. Friends the Members for Canterbury or Plymouth. Oxford life was but three years in duration, and it was the experience of three years against that of two hundred. Two hundred years furnished a better average of the ordinary tendencies of humanity.

In the supreme struggle of social order against anarchy, we cannot deny to the champions of civilised society the moral latitude which is by common consent accorded to armed men fighting for their country against a foreign foe.

The terror of the Russian name has enabled them to subdue the people of Merv. The terror of the English name has disappeared since the Government retreated from Kandahar. (Cheers.) They will not learn that these tribes, these vast uncivilized multitudes, are not governed merely by the sword. They are governed by their imagination. (Hear, hear.) They are governed by their fears. They ask themselves, "Which is the Power which is strong and advancing?" and "Which is the Power which is irresolute and retreating?" They saw Russia advancing every succeeding year, they saw England giving up the advantages she had gained, and they concluded that it was for their interest to conciliate and obey Russia, and that they might safely treat England with contempt. In all these matters the Government have equally failed. (Hear, hear.) In the Transvaal and in Zululand and in Afghanistan they reversed our policy and their action is stamped with the brand of impotence, and it is impotence which they have succeeded in persuading the Asiatic is the chief characteristic of the policy of Great Britain. (Cheers.)

[A]s long as England is true to herself now or on any future occasion, if you allow this atrocious, this mean, this treacherous revolution to pass, you will be untrue to the duty which has descended to you from a splendid ancestry, you will be untrue to your highest traditions, you will be untrue to the trust that has been bequeathed to you from the past, you will be untrue to the Empire of England.

One thing at least is clear—that no one believes in our good intentions. We are often told to secure ourselves by their affections, not by force. Our great-grand children may be privileged to do it, but not we.

The elective principle—government by representation—is not an Eastern idea; it does not fit Eastern traditions or Eastern minds.

We are trustees for the British Empire. We have received that trust with all its strength, all its glory, all its traditions; and the one thing we have to care for is that we pass them untarnished to our successors.

We have heard from the opposite Bench several very animated appeals to this House, and several constitutional lectures as to our duties. The noble Earl the late Foreign Secretary (the Earl of Clarendon) went so far, as I understood him, as to tell us that we must watch public opinion more closely, and pay greater attention to the majorities in the other House of Parliament. My Lords, it occurs to me to ask the noble Earl whether he has considered for what purpose this House exists, and whether he would be willing to go through the humiliation of being a mere echo and supple tool of the other House in order to secure for himself the luxury of mock legislation? I agree with my noble Friend the noble Earl (the Earl of Derby) below me that it were better not to be than submit to such a slavery.

The hurricane that has swept us away is so strange & new a phenomenon that we shall not for some time understand its real meaning. ... It seems to me to be inspired by some definite desire for change: & means business. It may disappear as rapidly as it came: or it may be the beginning of a serious war of classes. Gladstone is doing all he can to give it the latter meaning.

The days and weeks of screwed-up smiles and laboured courtesy, the mock geniality, the hearty shake of the filthy hand, the chuckling reply that must be made to the coarse joke, the loathsome, choking compliment that must be paid to the grimy wife and sluttish daughter, the indispensable flattery of the vilest religious prejudices, the wholesale deglutition of hypocritical pledges.

To give 'the suffrage' to a poor man is to give him as large a part in determining that legislation which is mainly concerned with property as the banker whose name is known on every Exchange in Europe, as the merchant whose ships are in every sea, as the landowner who owns the soil of a whole manufacturing town. An extension of the suffrage to the working classes means that upon a question of taxation, or expenditure, or upon a measure vitally affecting commerce, two day-labourers shall outvote Baron Rothschild. ... The bestowal upon any class of a voting power disproportionate to their stake in the country, must infallibly give that class a power pro tanto of using taxation as an instrument of plunder, and expenditure and legislation as a fountain of gain.

I see it stated on good authority that there are no less than 12 millions of men, of armed men, maintained by the five Powers of Continental Europe. I do not say that this should diminish our confidence in peace, but I feel that there is a general impression pervading the community—one of those wide public impressions affecting every mind and every class which carries by its very universality the warrant of its truth—which tells us that in the midst of so much preparation we must not remain unprepared. (Cheers.) ... Your preparation is for the purpose of meeting any force which, by any sinister and unforeseen contingency, may be brought against you; and in proportion as the forces which might be brought against you increase in volume and in power, in that proportion is laid upon you the stern and inevitable necessity of increasing your preparations also. (Cheers.)

I earnestly urge that, in pressing our right over those countries, we are not actuated by any merely ambitious view of extending the boundaries of the British Empire, or the grandeur of the claims which that Empire can put forward. There is a much more solid reason: to keep our trade, our industries alive we must open new sources of consumption in the more untrodden portions of the earth, and we are the only nation that can occupy those countries without shutting them to all the world besides. If we occupy a distant, large, and uncivilised country and attempt to make it subservient to the purposes of commerce, we injure no others, because all others are as free to use it for commercial purposes as ourselves. But there are other countries which, if they occupy any of these regions, entirely shut it out from British commerce, as though the access to it was physically impossible. In the interests of our industry and our trade...I earnestly hope we shall do all we can to maintain, push forward, and strengthen our power in these rich and extensive regions, and that we shall not by any weakness, or feebleness, or undue economy now forfeit the brilliant hopes which a stronger policy might give us in the future.

[Most legislation] will have the effect of surrounding the industry which it touches with precautions and investigations, inspections and regulations, in which it will be slowly enveloped and stifled.

What advantage does my noble Friend think could be derived by humanity, civilization or commerce from leaving the vast tracts of territory which he has described to be simply wandered over by naked savages or to be the hunting ground of slavers?