William Ewart Gladstone Quotes

[I]f it be true that, at periods now long past, England has had her full share of influence in stimulating by her example the martial struggles of the world, may she likewise be forward, now and hereafter, to show that she has profited by the heavy lessons of experience, and to be—if, indeed, in the designs of Providence, she is elected to that office—the standard-bearer of the nations upon the fruitful paths of peace, industry, and commerce.

I have even the hope that...the sense of justice which abides tenaciously in the masses will never knowingly join hands with the Fiend of Jingoism.

I affirm that Welsh nationality is as great a reality as English nationality. It may not be as big a reality in that it does not extend over so large a country, but with the traditions and history of Wales, with the language of Wales (hear, hear), with the religion of Wales (cheers), with the feelings of Wales, I maintain that the Welsh nationality is as true as the nationality of Scotland, to which by blood I exclusively belong.

[Y]ours is an ancient language, and the language is connected with an ancient history, and it is connected with an ancient music and with an ancient literature. I say that...it is a venerable relic of the past, and there is no greater folly circulating upon the earth, either at this moment or at any other time, than the disposition to under value the past and to break those links which unite the human beings of the present day with the generations that have passed away and have been called to their account. If we wish really to promote the progress of civilization never let us neglect, never let us undervalue, never let us cease to reverence the past. Rely upon it the man who does not worthily estimate his own dead forefathers will himself do very little to add credit or honour to his country... [Y]our laudable and patriotic efforts will come to be more and more understood and regarded by the English people at large, and that prosperity and honour will attend the meetings by which you endeavour to preserve and to commemorate the ancient history, the ancient deeds, and the ancient literature of your country, the Principality of Wales.

Ireland, Ireland! That cloud in the west! That coming storm! That minister of God's retribution upon cruel, inveterate, and but half-atoned injustice! Ireland forces upon us those great social and great religious questions—God grant that we may have courage to look them in the face, and to work through them.

When we speak of general war, we don't mean real progress on the road of freedom, the real, moral, and social advancement of man, achieved by force. This may be the intention, but how rarely is it the result of general war! We mean this:—That the face of nature is stained with human gore—we mean that taxation is increased and industry diminished—we know that it means that burdens unreasonable and untold are entailed on late posterity—we know that it means that demoralization is let loose, that families are broken up, that lusts become unbridled in every country to which that war is extended.

Do you suppose that we are ignorant that, in every contested election that has happened since the case of Mr. Bradlaugh came up, you have gained votes and we have lost them? You are perfectly aware of it. We are no less aware of it. But, if you are perfectly aware of it, is not some credit to be given to us who are giving you the same under circumstances rather more difficult — is not some credit to be given to us for presumptive integrity and purity of motive? Sir, the Liberal Party has suffered, and is suffering, on this account. It is not the first time in its history. It is the old story over again. In every controversy that has arisen about the extension of religious toleration, and about the abatement and removal of disqualifications, in every controversy relating to religious toleration and religious disabilities, the Liberal Party has suffered before, and it is now, perhaps, suffering again; and yet it has not been a Party which, upon the whole, has had, during the last half century, the smallest or the feeblest hold upon the affections and approval of the people. Who suffered from the Protestantism of the country? It was that Party — with valuable aid from individuals, but only individuals, who forfeited their popularity on that account — it was that Party who fought the battle of freedom in the case of the great Roman Catholic controversy, when the name of Protestantism was invoked with quite as great effect as the name of Theism is now, and the Petitions poured in quite as freely then as at present. Protestantism stood the shock of the Act of 1829. Then came on the battle of Christianity, and the Christianity of the country was said to be sacrificed by the Liberal Party. There are Gentlemen on the other side of the House who seem to have forgotten all that has occurred, and who are pluming themselves on the admission of Jews into Parliament, as if they had not resisted it with perfect honesty — I make no charge against their honour, and impute no unworthy motive — as if they had not resisted it with quite as much resolution as they are exhibiting on the present occasion. Sir, what I hope is this — that the Liberal Party will not be deterred, by fear or favour, from working steadily onward in the path which it believes to be the path of equity and justice. There is no greater honour to a man than to suffer for what he thinks to be righteous; and there is no greater honour to a Party than to suffer in the endeavour to give effect to the principles which they believe to be just.

[I was] a youth in his twenty third year, young of his age, who had seen little or nothing of the world, who resigned himself to politics, but whose desire had been for the ministry of God. The remains of this desire operated unfortunately. They made me tend to glorify in an extravagant manner and degree not only the religious character of the State, which in reality stood low, but also the religious mission of the Conservative party. There was, to my eyes, a certain element of AntiChrist in the Reform Act and that Act was cordially hated. ... It was only under the (second) Government of Sir Robert Peel that I learned how impotent [and] barren was the conservative office for the Church.

Whether Protection is a universal poison, or whether it may be conceived to operate as food in cases where it is granted for a few years in order to shelter the first investments in a new industry, I do not now inquire. We at least have never seen or known it in that mitigated form. With us it has sheltered nothing but the most selfish instincts of class against the just demands of the public welfare. These it has supplied with strongholds, from whose portals our producers have too generally marched forth in the day of need, armed from head to foot with power and influence largely gotten at the expense of the community, to do battle with a perverted prowess, against nature, liberty, and justice.

I am inclined to say that the personal attendance and intervention of women in election proceedings, even apart from any suspicion of the wider objects of many of the promoters of the present movement, would be a practical evil not only of the gravest, but even of an intolerable character.

For real dangers the people of England and Scotland form perhaps the bravest people in the world. At any rate, there is no people in the world to whom they are prepared to surrender or to whom one would ask them to surrender the palm of bravery. But I am sorry to say there is another aspect of the case, and for imaginary dangers there is no people in the world who in a degree is anything like the English in regard to being the victim of absurd and idle fancies. It is notorious all over the world. The French, we think, are an excitable people; but the French stand by in amazement at the passion of fear and fury into which an Englishman will get him when he is dealing with an imaginary danger.

The county election was raging. ... I was circulating in the mob as a volunteer (like all the other undergraduates) on the side of Norreys. I held forth to a working man, possibly a forty shilling freeholder, on the established text, reform was revolution. To corroborate my doctrine I said, “Why, look at the revolutions in foreign countries”, meaning of course France and Belgium. The man looked hard at me and said these very words: “Damn all foreign countries: what has old England to do with foreign countries?” This is not the only time when I have received an important lesson from a humble source.

On the side adverse to the Government are found...in profuse abundance, station, title, wealth, social influence, the professions, or the large majority of them—in a word, the spirit and power of class. These are the main body of the opposing host. Nor is that all. As knights of old had squires, so in the great army of class each enrolled soldier has, as a rule, dependents. The adverse host, then, consists of class and the dependents of class. But this formidable army is in the bulk of its constituent parts the same...that has fought in every one of the great political battles of the last 60 years, and has been defeated. We have had great controversies before this great controversy—on free trade, free navigation, public education, religious equality in civil matters, extension of the suffrage to its present basis. On these and many other great issues the classes have fought uniformly on the wrong side, and have uniformly been beaten by a power more difficult to marshal, but resistless when marshalled—by the upright sense of the nation.

The serious disintegration of the Liberal party did not begin in 1886. For a long time the wealthy and the powerful had been detaching themselves from the body of the Liberal party, and finding their most natural associations in Toryism, in stagnation, and in resistance. For many of them it was a perfect godsend when Home Rule turned up and supplied them with a plausible excuse for doing ostensibly or even ostentatiously that which in their hearts they had been longing for an excuse to do.

My opinion is and has long been that the vital principle of the Liberal party, like that of Greek art, is action, and that nothing but action will ever make it worthy of the name of a party.