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 Britai… - Henry Campbell-Bannerman

There would be, in fact, in Scotland, when this Bill received its full development, a purely and entirely denominational system of education. There was only one solution of the difficulty, and that was this—the State should cease to undertake the religious education of children. The Scottish people were, perhaps, more than any other imbued with the spirit of religion; there was no country where religious and moral training was more highly prized... In that country it would, therefore, be perfectly safe to leave religious instruction to voluntary effort... If they had, instead of adopting a course of compromise, adhered to their own principles, and thrown themselves on the loyal support of their own party, they would not only have carried their Bill, but—what was of far more importance—they would have laid down sound lines upon which, by common consent, might have been built a national system of education for each of the three divisions of the kingdom.

I am enough son of my country and have enough of the Shorter Catechism still sticking about my inside to do my best when a thing comes straight to me.

[T]here is and has been this popular feeling in Ireland extending gradually and steadily against our rule; and it is this spirit which constitutes the difficulty of government in Ireland. Let not the House think that it has anything whatever to do with crime and disorder... [N]o strengthening of legal powers, no exercise of law, whether exceptional or ordinary, can operate in check of a growing national feeling such as this. If you try to check it you will probably do nothing but exasperate it and make it stronger. And when, in addition to all this, on looking closely into what the object of this national sentiment is, we find that there is nothing in it mischievous or unreasonable, and that the object it has in view—which is the self-government of Ireland—is one which is in conformity with equity, reason, and common sense, I say we are called upon to go a step further, and, when we find our difficulty arising from this source, we ought to try whether by yielding to the wishes of the Irish people we may not take the shortest way to bring quiet and good government to that country.