Henry Campbell-Bannerman quotes - page 2
I am well aware-no one is better aware-that I am poorly equipped for the duties of that position in comparison with some distinguished men who have gone before me; but there is one thing in which I will yield to none of them-namely, in my devotion to the Liberal party and my faithful adherence to Liberal principles.
Henry Campbell-Bannerman
To my mind, the dominant point of the situation is not South Africa, where we can and must win, but the critical and dangerous state of our position in Europe. I believe the Opposition can do inestimable service to the country in producing a better state of things relatively to Europe. But, to bring that about, it is absolutely essential that we should dissociate ourselves from the Raid and Chamberlainism.
Henry Campbell-Bannerman
Why are we free-traders? ... We are satisfied that it is right because it gives the freest play to individual energy and initiative and character and the largest liberty both to producer and consumer. We say that trade is injured when it is not allowed to follow its natural course, and when it is either hampered or diverted by artificial obstacles. ... We believe in free trade because we believe in the capacity of our countrymen. That at least is why I oppose protection root and branch, veiled and unveiled, one-sided or reciprocal. I oppose it in any form. Besides we have experience of fifty years, during which our prosperity has become the envy of the world.
Henry Campbell-Bannerman
Now, everybody was a "pro-Boer" who did not agree to everything Mr. Chamberlain did, and who said "Here is a people fighting gallantly for the independence of their own country; for goodness sake do not attribute every sort of evil to them while you are fighting them; when you have got them down, treat them with the respect and honour that such a people ought to receive-a people who, though they may be mistaken and entirely wrong, are conscientiously fighting for the independence of their own land." For taking this view he was called a pro-Boer. That again was a gross slander and falsehood, and that newspapers and politicians should stoop to a mean artifice of that kind was a scandal and a disgrace to the political life of to-day.
Henry Campbell-Bannerman
That policy is directed to two main objects-first, that we should clearly make known to the peoples of the belligerent States, not in vague but in definite terms, that our purpose is not conquest but conciliation, not humiliation but friendship and freedom; and in the second place, that these terms should include the re-settlement in their homes of the burghers, who by capture or the operations of war have been dispossessed, and the establishment, as soon as order is restored, of free self-governing institutions... If we are to maintain the political supremacy of the British power in South Africa-and this surely is the end and purpose of all we are doing-it can only be by conciliation and friendship; it will never be by domination and ascendancy, because the British power cannot there or elsewhere rest securely unless it rests upon the willing consent of a sympathetic and contented people.
Henry Campbell-Bannerman
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.
Henry Campbell-Bannerman
I should have thought that if there was one country in the world where property was more secure than another, it was this country, because it is at heart a justice-loving country and because it is a country in which men's hearts have neither been wholly spoilt by social wrong nor wholly hardened by wealth out of all responsiveness to social obligations. Therefore, it is a country with the will and capacity to move quickly and steadily forward along the path of social reform towards a fairer and more enlightened common life, free from the disgrace of the existence of unnecessary and unmerited misery and poverty.
Henry Campbell-Bannerman