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 h… - Henry Campbell-Bannerman

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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.

English
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About Henry Campbell-Bannerman

Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman GCB (September 7, 1836 – April 22, 1908) was a British Liberal statesman who served as Prime Minister from December 5, 1905 until resigning due to ill health on April 3, 1908. No previous First Lord of the Treasury had been officially called "Prime Minister"; this term only came into official usage after he took office. In the 1906 general election he led the Liberal Party to their biggest ever majority.

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Alternative Names: Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman
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Additional quotes by Henry Campbell-Bannerman

[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.)

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.

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.

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