The supremacy of the people in legislation implies, in this country at any rate, the authority of the Commons. The party for which I speak has never … - Henry Campbell-Bannerman

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The supremacy of the people in legislation implies, in this country at any rate, the authority of the Commons. The party for which I speak has never swerved from that position, and unless you are going to fall back upon some foreign method, such as the referendum or the mandate or the plebiscite, or some other way of getting behind the backs of the elected to the electors themselves, such as was advised by both the first and third Napoleon—unless that is the example you are going to follow, then there is no course open but to recognise ungrudgingly the authority which resides in this House, and to accept the views of the nation as represented in its great interests within these walls.

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]hat is the constitutional bearing of these stipulations? ...It is perfectly monstrous...It means that we abandon our fiscal independence, together with our free-trade ways; that we subside into the tenth part of a Vehmgericht which is to direct us what sugar is to be countervailed, at what rate per cent. we are to countervail it, how much is to be put on for the bounty, and how much for the tariff being in excess of the convention tariff; and this being the established order of things, the British Chancellor of the Exchequer in his robes obeys the orders that he receives from this foreign convention, in which the Britisher is only one out of ten, and the House of Commons humbly submits to the whole transaction. ("Shame.") Sir, of all the insane schemes ever offered to a free country as a boon this is surely the maddest. (Cheers.)

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