Mr. Gladstone has shown us in many cases how his high authority, his knowledge of affairs, his firm grasp of principles, his marvellous mastery of de… - Henry Campbell-Bannerman

We are not extreme revolutionaries, although we do not shrink from formidable changes... We are not foes of property, but we are anxious to see property more righteously apportioned. If that is effected, property will be safer than it is.

[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.)

The situation, as the House knows, has been aggravated by the part taken by the right hon. Gentleman opposite... I cannot conceive of Sir Robert Peel or Mr. Disraeli treating the House of Commons as the right hon. Gentleman has treated it. Nor do I think there is any instance in which, as leaders of the Opposition, they committed what I can only call the treachery of openly calling in the other House to override this House. [Cheers; cries of "Withdraw."] ... The right hon. Gentleman's course has, however, had one indisputable effect. It has left no room for doubt, if it had ever existed before, that the second Chamber was being utilised as a mere annexe of the Unionist Party... One begins to doubt, in fact—I certainly doubt— whether he or his Party have ever fully accepted representative institutions.