As to war itself, a direct preparation for actual hostilities, I must only repeat here what I have said elsewhere, that from the beginning of this st… - Henry Campbell-Bannerman

The proper way to lead the Boers into harmony with us and restore contentment and prosperity to the whole community was to leave them alone as far as possible—to leave them with their old form of government, with their own ways, with their own machinery of government—in order that the burgher, when he went about his daily life, should discern as little as possible the difference between that which happened to him as a British subject and that which happened to him when he was the subject of an independent State.

For ten years they [the Conservative Party] have been supported by an immense majority in the House of Commons. ... The period over which we are looking back presents itself to me, I confess, as a well-nigh unbroken expanse of mismanagement; of legislation conducted for the benefit of privileged classes and powerful interests; of wars and adventures abroad hastily embarked upon and recklessly pursued. The legacy which they have bequeathed to their successors...is in the main a legacy of embarrassment, an accumulation of public mischief appalling in its extent and ramifications.

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.