"I ask every Gentleman...whether it is possible that you can continue to raise from the people of this country £60,000,000 sterling per annum of taxes more than an equal population is called upon to pay for its Government and its policy in the United States, and that we can go on with safety to our institutions, or that the people can hear the strain of that enormous pressure? ... [T]his insane and wicked policy, which requires that you should abstract from the labour and the industry of the people of England this enormous, incredible, and ruinous sum from year to year. ... You will have an exiled Royal family—you will have an overthrown aristocracy—and you will have a period of recurring revolution; and there is no path so straight, so downward, so slippery, so easily travelled to all these misfortunes as the path which we are now following, year after year adding to these enormous expenses until the time will come when there will be some change throughout the country, when men will open their eyes, will ask who has deceived them, defrauded them, pillaged them. And then you will have to pay the penalty which all men in the upper classes of society in every country have had to pay when they have not maintained the rights of the great body of the people in this particular, and when they have not fulfilled the duties which devolved upon them as the governing classes of the country."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Speech in the House of Commons (2 August 1860)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Bright
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
John Bright
John Bright (November 16, 1811 – March 27, 1889) was a British Radical and Liberal statesman, one of the greatest orators of his generation and a promoter of free trade policies.
90 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by John Bright →
Related Quotes
"To the Working Men of Rochdale: A deep sympathy with you in your present circumstances induces me to address you. Lis…"
"I do not see that it is possible, nor can I discover that it would be right, for me now to withdraw from the cause in…"
"I believe that the intelligence of the people in Scotland is superior to the intelligence of the people in England. I…"
"The Corn Law is as great a robbery of the man who follows the plough as it is of him who minds the loom...If there be…"
"Rich and great people can take care of themselves; but the poor and defenceless—the men with small cottages and large…"
"I am amused to find the fuss our Darlington friends and relatives are making about the Education Bill. Edward Pease, …"
"I am a working man as much as you. My father was as poor as any man in this crowd. He was of your own body, entirely.…"
"If a man have three or four children, he has just three or four times as much interest in having the Corn Laws abolis…"
"Going into the House last night, the caution lately given me by a poor but honest Scotchman struck me. He said to me,…"
"As to the Income Tax, my opinion is that the needful revenue would be fairly and most fairly raised if paid by proper…"