Joseph Chamberlain quotes
Joseph Chamberlain was a British politician and statesman, influential during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Known for his advocacy of social reforms and his impact on British imperial policy, he played a key role in shaping modern Britain. He left a lasting legacy through his ambitious urban reforms in Birmingham and his controversial stance on the British Empire. Here are 63 of his quotes:
I venture to claim two qualifications for the great office which I hold, which to my mind, without making invidious distinctions, is one of the most important that can be held by any Englishman; and those qualifications are that in the first place I believe in the British Empire, and in the second place I believe in the British race. I believe that the British race is the greatest of the governing races that the world has ever seen.
Joseph Chamberlain
Let it be our endeavour, let it be our task, to keep alight the torch of imperial patriotism, to hold fast the affection and the confidence of our kinsmen across the seas; so that in every vicissitude of fortune the British Empire may present an unbroken front to all her foes, and may carry on even to distant ages the glorious traditions of the British flag.
Joseph Chamberlain
It is absolutely impossible to reconcile free trade with trade unionism. You can have one or you can have the other, but you cannot have both; and I am glad to say that in saying that I have the support of a trade unionist with whom I have disagreed upon almost every other question, Mr. Keir Hardie... [I]t is not only the consumer you have got to consider. The producer is of still more importance; and to buy in the cheapest market is not the sole duty of man, and it is not in the best interest of the working classes.
Joseph Chamberlain
In 1872 we sent to the protected countries of Europe and to the United States of America 116,000,000 of exported manufactures. In 1882...it fell to 88,000,000. In 1892...it fell to 75,000,000. In 1902, last year, although the general exports had increased, the exports of manufactures had decreased again to 73½ millions. And the total result of this is that after 30 years you are sending 42½ millions of manufactures less to the protected countries than you did 30 years ago. Then there the neutral countries...they have fallen 3½ millions...you have lost altogether in your export of manufactures 46 millions. How is it that that has not impressed the people before? Because the change has been concealed by our statistics... You have failed to observe that the continuance of your trade is dependent entirely on British possessions. While these foreign countries have declined 46 millions your British possessions have increased 40 millions.
Joseph Chamberlain
If you allow this state of things to go on, what will follow? If these foreign goods come in cheaper, one of two things must follow. Either you will have to give up the conditions you have gained, either you will have to abolish and repeal the fair-wages clause of our Factory Acts, and the compensation to workmen, and either you will have to take lower wages, or you will lose work. You cannot keep your work at this higher standard of living and pay if at the same time you allow foreigners at a lower standard and lower rate of pay to send their goods freely in competition with yours.
Joseph Chamberlain
What is the whole problem as it effects the working classes of this country? It is all contained in one word-employment. Cheap food, a higher standard of living, higher wages-all these things, important as they are, are contained in the word employment. If this policy will give you more employment, all the others would be added unto you. If you lose your employment, all the others put together will not compensate you for that loss.
Joseph Chamberlain
Hitherto, the well-to-do have governed this country for their own interest; and I will do them this credit-they have achieved their object. Now I trust the time is approaching for those who work and have not. My aim in life is to make life pleasanter for this great majority; I do not care if it becomes in the process less pleasant for the well-to-do minority. Take America, for instance. Cultured persons complain that the society there is vulgar; less agreeable to the delicate tastes of delicately trained minds. But it is infinitely preferable to the ordinary worker.
Joseph Chamberlain
Lord Salisbury constitutes himself the spokesman of a class-of the class to which he himself belongs-who toil not, neither do they spin-whose fortunes, as in his case, have originated in grants made long ago, for such services as courtiers render to kings-and have since grown and increased while they have slept, by the levy of an unearned share on all that other men have done by toil and labour to add to the general wealth and prosperity of the country of which they form a part.
Joseph Chamberlain
England without an Empire! Can you conceive it? England in that case would not be the England we love. (Cheers.) If the ties of sympathy...between ourselves and our children who are soon to become great nations across the seas-if these ties were weakened or destroyed, if we suffered their affection to die from want of food, if we allowed them to drift apart-then this England of ours would sink from the comparative position which she has enjoyed throughout the centuries...she would be a fifth-rate nation existing on the sufferance of her more powerful neighbours.
Joseph Chamberlain
Is the Unionist party, the Conservative party, to be without a definite policy of social reform? It is to our party that they owe the whole of that body of legislation connected with the Factory Acts, free education, the distribution of lands in the shape of allotments and small holdings, the compensation for accidents to workmen in the course of their employment...The policy of resistance, of negation, is no sufficient answer to that Socialist opinion which is growing up amongst us-the Socialist opinion the objects of which are, after all, worthy of earnest and even favourable consideration...that policy, by whomsoever propounded, is a policy which means money, which means expenditure, it is closely connected with the third object of our party officially declared-that fiscal reform is the first constructive policy of the Unionist party.
Joseph Chamberlain
What is the good, I ask, in the name of common sense, of prohibiting sweating in this country if you allow sweated goods to come in from foreign countries? If you insist on limitation, of hours and upon precautions for security, bear in mind all these things add to the cost of production, to the difficulties of the manufacturer in selling his goods, and unless you give him some increased price, some increased advantage in compensation, then he cannot carry on competition any longer. All these conditions in the long run will result not to your advantage, for you will have no work to do, but to the advantage of the foreigner, who is not so scrupulous and who conducts his work without any of these conditions...If protected labour is good, and I think in many ways it is...then it is good to protect the results of labour, and you cannot do one without the other.
Joseph Chamberlain
The free-traders were against all State interference of any kind; they were against the Factory Act, they were opposed to the laws to prevent fraud and adulteration, especially in the interests of the working classes, they were against trade unions, they were in favour of unlimited competition, they would buy everything in the cheapest market and especially labour. ... we cannot logically and consistently attempt to defend labour against unfair competition without defending at the same time against unfair competition the product of that labour.
Joseph Chamberlain
For my own part I believe in a British Empire, in an Empire which, although it should be its first duty to cultivate friendship with all the nations of the world, should yet, even if alone, be self-sustaining and self-sufficient, able to maintain itself against the competition of all its rivals; and I do not believe in a Little England which shall be separated from all those to whom it would in the natural course look for support and affection, a Little England which would then be dependent absolutely on the mercy of those who envy its present prosperity, and who have shown they are ready to do all in their power to prevent its future union with the British races throughout the world.
Joseph Chamberlain
At the present moment the Empire is being attacked on all sides and in our isolation we must look to ourselves. (Cheers.) We must draw closer our internal relations, the ties of sentiment, the ties of sympathy, yes, and the ties of interest. (Cheers.) If by adherence to economic pedantry, to old shibboleths, we are to lose opportunities of closer union which are offered us by our colonies, if we are to put aside occasions now within our grasp, if we do not take every chance in our power to keep British trade in British hands, I am certain that we shall deserve the disasters which will infallibly come upon us.
Joseph Chamberlain
I hope we may be able sooner or later to federate, to bring together, all these great dependencies of the British Empire into one supreme and Imperial Parliament (cheers), so that they should be all units of one body, that one should feel what the others feel, that all should be equally responsible, that all should have a share in the welfare and sympathize with the welfare of every part. That is what I hope, but there is very little hope for it if you weaken the ties which now bind the central portion of the Empire together.
Joseph Chamberlain