I am afraid a belief is prevalent that the advancement of morality is due to the action of Government authority. If so, we are in danger of abandonin… - Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury
" "I am afraid a belief is prevalent that the advancement of morality is due to the action of Government authority. If so, we are in danger of abandoning the highest standard of morality, that of Christianity, and of seeking another in Acts of Parliament and regulations of police. Is there any country in the world in which the action of the Legislature has been able to supply the calls of the moralist and the teacher? 150 years ago the upper and middle classes of this country were as bad with regard to drunkenness as the lower classes are now. People did not then trust to legislative action, they resorted to civilization and religion. They trusted to allegiance to a principle, and in the upper and middle classes of this country at present drunkenness is not a prevailing vice. Why, then, not believe that the influences which had been so powerful with the upper and middle classes will be equally operative with the lower? I trust that in any measures your Lordships may be asked to pass, you will shrink from attempting a task which it is impossible for any Legislature to perform—namely, by the action of Government to insure morality among the people.
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About Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury
Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (3 February 1830 – 22 August 1903), styled Lord Robert Cecil before the death of his elder brother in 1865, and Viscount Cranborne from June 1865 until his father died in April 1868, was a three-time Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, during 1885–1886, 1886–1892 and 1895–1902.
Also Known As
Native Name:
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3. Marquess of Salisbury
Alternative Names:
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil
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Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoyne-Cecil
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Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury
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Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoigne Cecil, Marquis of Salisbury
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Additional quotes by Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury
[A]s long as England is true to herself now or on any future occasion, if you allow this atrocious, this mean, this treacherous revolution to pass, you will be untrue to the duty which has descended to you from a splendid ancestry, you will be untrue to your highest traditions, you will be untrue to the trust that has been bequeathed to you from the past, you will be untrue to the Empire of England.
The North is fighting for no sentimental cause—for no victory of a 'higher civilization'. It is fighting for a very ancient and vulgar object of war—for that which Russia has secured in Poland—that which Austria clings to in Venetia—that which Napoleon sought in Spain. It is a struggle for empire, conducted with a recklessness of human life which may have been paralleled in practice, but has never been avowed with equal cynicism. If any shame is left in the Americans, the first revision they will make in their constitution will be to repudiate formally the now exploded doctrine laid down in the Declaration of Independence, that 'Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed'.
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[W]e may fairly protest against any artificial action which tends to lower wages, and therefore makes a living wage more difficult to obtain. This free immigration of destitute aliens is to my mind an interference of that kind. We have a right to say that our social system is for ourselves and that we will not receive a destitute population which will lower the standard of our own population and increase the burdens we have to bear.
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