Anglicans From The United Kingdom

"Confidence depends upon the people in whom you are to confide. You would not confide free representative institutions to the Hottentots, for instance. Nor, going higher up the scale, would you confide them to the Oriental nations whom you are governing in India—although finer specimens of human character you will hardly find than some of those who belong to these nations, but who are simply not suited to the particular kind of confidence of which I am speaking. Well, I doubt whether you could confide representative institutions to the Russians with any great security. You have done it to the Greeks, but I do not know whether the result has been absolutely what you wish. And when you come to narrow it down you will find that this which is called self-government, but which is really government by the majority, works admirably well when it is confided to people who are of Teutonic race, but that it does not work so well when people of other races are called upon to join in it."

"Mr. Parnell said the other night, that Ireland is a "nation". Well, if a nation only means a certain number of individuals collected between certain latitudes and longitudes, I admit in that sense Ireland is a nation. But if there is anything further necessary—if to make a nation you require a past united history, traditions in which you can all join, achievements of which you all are proud, interests which you share in common, and sympathies which belong to all—then emphatically Ireland is not a nation; Ireland is two nations."

"The truth is that the connection of Ireland with England has been full of trouble, and I fear there is no remedy. ... It is a chronic disease, and even if it is not to be cured we have proved in the past that we can get on with it and yet carry on our Empire to a vast pitch of prosperity. What has been done in the past can be done in the future. ... [D]o not let us attempt to cure it by a measure which will put this island into a condition which never during 700 years of our history has existed—which will hand over those who have had the courage to defend us to the maltreatment of their worst enemies, and which will establish at our very doors a post—a hostile post—which will be at the pleasure of any foreign power which may sometimes be hostile to us."

"I believe that any repeal of the Union [with Ireland] or any substantial tampering with it is fraught with danger to this country. That has always been the opinion of the Conservative party and always will remain so. It is granting a separate government and separate executive. ... The result is that the [Protestant] minority will not only have laws passed of which they disapprove, but they will have to depend on the toleration and good will of their enemies for the common privileges of civilised life and securities."

"We give our confidence to the people of England because they have always been loyal to the Queen, have always loved the law, and have always been passionately attached to the Empire. (Cheers.) Has that characterised the Irish dominant faction? ... Why they have always sought support from time to time from whatever nation happened to be in hostility to England—first the Spaniards, then the French, and now the Americans."

"There is a state in Europe which has had very often to hear the word autonomy, which has had more than once to grant Home Rule and to see separation following Home Rule. The state I have referred to is...the Empire of Turkey. (Cheers.) Let any one who thinks that separation is consistent with the strength and prosperity of the country look to its effect, its repeated effect when applied to another country. ... Turkey had first to give autonomy to Roumania, autonomy was followed by independence; it had to give autonomy to Servia, autonomy was followed by independence. ... Turkey is a decaying empire; England, I hope, is not. (Cheers.) But I want to point out to you by a striking and conspicuous example that this process of giving autonomy to provinces which is certain to slide into separation is not consistent with the prosperity or the maintenance of an empire. (Cheers.)"

"[T]here is no middle term between government at Westminster and independent and entirely separate government at Dublin. (Cheers.) If you do not have a government in some form or other issuing from this centre, you must have absolute separation."

"There are other countries in the world where your Empire is maintained by the faith which men have that those who take your side will be supported and upheld. Whenever the thought crosses you that you can safely abandon those who for centuries have taken your side in Ireland, I beseech you to think of India, I beseech you to think of the effect it will have if the suspicion can get abroad there that, should convenience once dictate such a policy, like the Loyalists of Ireland, will be flung aside like a sucked orange when their purpose has been fulfilled."

"The disease is not in Ireland. The disease is here—in Westminster. If you had pursued—if you would now pursue—any steady, unvarying, and consistent policy with regard to Ireland, you would find that the problems that that country offered to you in respect of government are not greater than the problems of government which have been successively overcome by every Government in the world. There is nothing in them of that extraordinary or extreme character that should set at defiance the resources of civilization. But it is necessary, above all things, that the play of our Party system shall not call into question the foundations upon which our polity rests. It is necessary that men should not be able to speculate on the change of Party to Party in the hope of altering the fundamental laws on which the union of the United Kingdom is based. If you have instability of purpose, if you have a policy shifting from five years to five years with each change in the wheel of political fortune, or the humour of political Parties in this country, you are drifting straight to a ruin which will engulf England and Ireland alike. Your hope is not so much in this or that particular plan or panacea for restoring order, or maintaining law, or reviving the conditions of civilized life in Ireland. Your hope is in this—that Parliament shall school itself to adopt a steady, consistent policy, and maintain it when it is once adopted. A resolution of that kind manfully carried out will restore that prosperity to which Ireland has for so long been a stranger."

"I never admired the political transformation scenes of 1829, 1846, 1867; and I certainly do not wish to be the chief agent in adding a fourth to the history of the Tory party."

"[S]omehow or other another prospect of unlimited vestry confiscation, something like the three acres and a cow, seems to have affected the electorate of this country. ... The discussion that has taken place has pretty well convinced those who did not know it before, that small tenancies were not the source of unbounded wealth and happiness to those who had the privilege of enjoying them; and I have noticed that the offer has fallen perfectly flat on those agricultural labourers who know what they are doing. Their observation was, "Give me three or four acres? I cannot live upon that.""

"The traditions of our party are well known. The integrity of the Empire is more precious to us than any other possessions. (Cheers.) If I may add another consideration, we are bound by motives not only of expediency, not only of legal principles, but by motives of honour, to protect the minority, if such exist, who have fallen into unpopularity and danger because they have maintained either as champions or as instruments the policy which England has deliberately elected to pursue. (Cheers.)"

"As to religious education, which Mr. Morley desires to get rid of, it is one of our most cherished privileges. (Loud cheers.) I am not speaking for my own alone. What I claim I would extend equally to the Nonconformists of Wales or the Roman Catholics of Ireland. But I do claim that whatever Church or form of Christianity they belong to, there should be given the opportunity to educate the people in the belief of Christianity which they profess, instead of giving them a lifeless, boiled down, mechanical, unreal religious teaching which is prevalent in the Board schools."

"If I like to drink beer it is no reason that I should be prevented from taking it because my neighbour does not like it. If you sacrifice liberty on the matter of alcohol you will eventually sacrifice it on more important matters also, and those advantages of civil and religious liberty for which we have fought hard will gradually be whittled away."

"[I]t is idle to attempt to dispose of a particular proposal by saying that it is Socialistic. Prove that it is against public policy; show that it discourages thrift; above all, show that it interferes with justice, that it benefits one class by injuring another—do these things, and you have proved your case. But do not imagine that by merely affixing to it the reproach of Socialism you can seriously affect the progress of any great legislative movement, or destroy those high arguments which are derived from the noblest principles of philanthropy and religion."

"He certainly agrees with your Majesty in thinking that the [Irish] Nationalists cannot be trusted: and that any bargain with them would be full of danger."

"Remember what it is for which we struggle. In the first place, it is for the maintenance of religion. You know there is an old proverb, "You may know a man by his associates," and you may notice, if you will follow the course of literature, that infidels are always Liberals."

"My idea of the manner of dealing with Russia is not to extract from her promises which she will not keep (cheers), but to say to her, "There is a point to which you shall not go (cheers), and if you go we will spare neither men nor money until you go back." (Loud cheers.)"

"Egypt stands in a peculiar position. It is the road to India. The condition of Egypt can never be indifferent to us; and, more than that, after all the sacrifices that we have made, after all the efforts that this country has put forth, after the position that we have taken up in the eyes of the world, we have a right, and it is our duty to insist upon it, that our influence shall be predominant in Egypt."

"Now the terrible responsibility and blame rests upon the Government, because they were warned in March and April of the danger to General Gordon; because they received every intimation which men could reasonably look for that his danger would be extreme; and because they delayed from March and April right down to the 15th of August before they took a single measure to relieve him. What were they doing all that time? It is very difficult to conceive. ... Some people think there were divisions in the Cabinet, and that, after division on division, a decision was put off lest the Cabinet should be broken up. I am rather inclined to think that it was due to the peculiar position of the Prime Minister [William Gladstone]. He came in as the apostle of the Midlothian campaign, loaded with all the doctrines and all the follies of that pilgrimage."

"You only have to go on working together as you have hitherto done, not allowing yourselves to be discouraged by any temporary reverses, not believing that any evil day, when it comes, must necessarily be permanent, but trying to convince—what is truth—that in the steadiness and stability of our institutions lies the great hope of industry of the working man (hear, hear)—trying to impress upon him that any adventurous policy or change at home which sets class against class, and fills all men's minds with disquiet and mistrust, is a dangerous thing for industry, and is the most certain poison which trade and commerce can suffer under. (Hear, hear.) If you can bring these facts before the minds of the working men they will observe as time goes on that a policy which appeals to discontent does not produce internal prosperity. (Hear, hear.) They will see that a policy which neglects the Empire of England does not open to us the markets of the world. (Hear, hear.) They will see that the path of national prosperity and national dishonour are not parallel, and they will recognise with this that the party which sustained the old institutions—institutions under which England grew great—which upholds the traditions under which her name has ever been illustrious abroad—that to that party most rightly belongs, and most safely can be confided, the interests of the complicated industry and commerce on which the existence of so many millions of our countrymen depends. (Loud cheers.)"

"[W]hen I am told that my ploughmen are capable citizens, it seems to me ridiculous to say that educated women are not just as capable. A good deal of the political battle of the future will be a conflict between religion and unbelief: & the women will in that controversy be on the right side."

"We know Mr. Gladstone is an authority...that the Soudanese are struggling for their liberty. My impression of the matter is that the Soudanese are struggling for abridging the liberty of other people in the shape of the slave trade. (Laughter and cheers.)"

"Constitutional institutions are splendid things, but whoever heard of any nation which was purely Mahomedan being able to enjoy them. A constitution depends upon the character of the people to whom it is applied, and there is no circumstance which influences those people more than the religion which they profess, and I will venture to say that there is no instance in the history of the world of any purely Mahomedan, or mainly Mahomedan, population flourishing under what we call popular institutions."

"The terror of the Russian name has enabled them to subdue the people of Merv. The terror of the English name has disappeared since the Government retreated from Kandahar. (Cheers.) They will not learn that these tribes, these vast uncivilized multitudes, are not governed merely by the sword. They are governed by their imagination. (Hear, hear.) They are governed by their fears. They ask themselves, "Which is the Power which is strong and advancing?" and "Which is the Power which is irresolute and retreating?" They saw Russia advancing every succeeding year, they saw England giving up the advantages she had gained, and they concluded that it was for their interest to conciliate and obey Russia, and that they might safely treat England with contempt. In all these matters the Government have equally failed. (Hear, hear.) In the Transvaal and in Zululand and in Afghanistan they reversed our policy and their action is stamped with the brand of impotence, and it is impotence which they have succeeded in persuading the Asiatic is the chief characteristic of the policy of Great Britain. (Cheers.)"

"I fear that the history of the past will be repeated in the future; that, just again, when it is too late, the critical resolution will be taken; some terrible news will come that the position of General Gordon is absolutely a forelorn and helpless one; and then, under the pressure of public wrath and Parliamentary Censure, some desperate resolution of sending an expedition will be formed too late to achieve the object which it is desired to gain, too late to rescue this devoted man whom we have sent forward to his fate, in time only to cast another slur upon the statesmanship of England and the resolution of the statesmen who guide England's councils."

"[T]here are no absolute truths or principles in politics. We must never forget that there is a moral as well as a material contagion, which exists by virtue of the moral and material laws under which we live, and which forbid us to be indifferent, even as a matter of interest, to the well-being in every respect of all the classes who form part of the community. ... After all, whatever political arrangements we may adopt, whatever the political constitution of our State may be, the foundation of all its prosperity and welfare must be that the mass of the people shall be honest and manly, and shall have common sense. How are you to expect that these conditions will exist amongst people subjected to the frightful influences which the present overcrowding of our poor produce?"

"It is patent on the face of history that the aggregates of men who form communities, like the aggregates of atoms that form living bodies, are subject to laws of progressive change – be it towards growth or towards decay."

"Half a century ago, the first feeling of all Englishmen was for England. Now, the sympathies of a powerful party are instinctively given to whatever is against England. It may be Boers or Baboos, or Russians or Affghans, or only French speculators—the treatment these all receive in their controversies with England is the same: whatever else my fail them, they can always count on the sympathies of the political party from whom during the last half century the rulers of England have been mainly chosen. .. . It is striking, though by no means a solitary indication of how low, in the present temper of English politics, our sympathy with our own countrymen has fallen. Of course, we shall be told that a conscience of exalted sensibility, which is the special attribute of the Liberal party, has enabled them to discover, what English statesmen had never discovered before, that the cause to which our countrymen are opposed is generally the just one. ... For ourselves, we are rather disposed to think that patriotism has become in some breasts so very reasonable an emotion, because it is ceasing to be an emotion at all; and that these superior scruples, to which our fathers were insensible, and which always make the balance of justice lean to the side of abandoning either our territory or our countrymen, indicate that the national impulses which used to make Englishmen cling together in face of every external trouble are beginning to disappear."

"As I have said, there are two points or two characteristics of the Radical programme which it is your special duty to resist. One concerns the freedom of individuals. After all, the great characteristic of this country is that it is a free country, and by a free country I mean a country where people are allowed, so long as they do not hurt their neighbours, to do as they like. I do not mean a country where six men may make five men do exactly as they like. That is not my notion of freedom."

"In our belief, the great empire of England, which we have inherited from our forefathers, concerns all alike, but it concerns those most who depend most for trade and employment upon the constant prosperity of the country. (Cheers.) I do not believe that England, stripped of India, stripped of its colonies, humbled before Europe, would be a happy England for the working classes. (Cheers.) We have received from the self-denial, the heroic actions of our forefathers a great empire. We mean, if we can, to keep it (cheers), to develop it, to strengthen it, to enrich it, and that not in the interests of a class, but of all, and most of all the industrial classes of this country. (Loud and prolonged cheers.)"

"[A] great and vital question has been raised in India. (Hear, hear.) It is...the question whether Englishmen in that part of the empire shall or shall not be placed at the mercy of native judges. ... [I]n dealing with foreign countries we have been singularly sensitive of the danger of subjecting Europeans to Oriental tribunals. In Turkey, in Egypt, on the shore of Africa, in China, in Japan, we have always pursued the same policy—to insist that an Englishman, if he has a cause to try, or if he were indicted or attacked in law by any native, should have someone of his own blood and religion...in the Court by which he was tried. ... What would your feelings be if you were in some distant and thinly-populated land, far from all English succour, and your life or honour were exposed to the decision of some tribunal consisting of a coloured man; what would your feelings of security be? (Hear, hear.) You would know that his thoughts were not your thoughts, that he could not justly estimate the circumstances or feelings in which you acted (hear, hear), and that, perhaps, his view of judicial duties was not such as Englishmen are accustomed to find in the Judges to whom their fortunes are consigned. (Cheers.)"

"In the present temper of the Irish people...the extension of the suffrage now would be merely to strengthen the element which opposes the connexion with England, and strikes for independence. ... You, the constituencies of England, must settle how this question is to be dealt with. (Cheers.) If you show firmness and resolution, if you remember the great traditions of the country to which you belong, if you resolve that no disputative formulae or Liberal superstitions shall induce you to barter away the greatness of your country, I believe that a final issue may be arrived at. But if you allow the play of parties to bring about imprudent concessions, if you allow the mere impotence of a divided English opinion to permit the establishment of an independence or a quasi independence in Ireland, the days of England's great pre-eminence among the nations of the earth are numbered. (Loud cheers.)"

"A party whose mission is to live entirely upon the discovery of grievances are apt to manufacture the element upon which they subsist."

"It is right to be forward in the defence of the poor; no system that is not just as between rich and poor can hope to survive."

"Depend upon it, firmness at the right moment is the real secret of a policy of peace. (Cheers.) There is little reason to doubt that if we had Ministers of the old English type all these terrible things would not have occurred. ... I...appeal to the names...of Lord Russell and Lord Palmerston, and you will be readily sensible of the policy which they...in difficulties not unlike this, pursued, because it recognised the danger at the right time; because there was no fear of employing force when force was necessary, and therefore they escaped the terrible disasters upon which the country now seems to be rushing."

"[T]he opinions which some politicians loudly express...that the maintenance of the honour of this country and jealousy for her military fame are bygone emotions which cannot live in the face of the practical spirit of the present day. ... Now, if you wish to learn whether it is true that industry can be pursued and trade can prosper while glory is tarnished and empire is destroyed, look...on this case of Egypt. You see at once what destruction there is of capital, of industry, of all those solid material advantages which your counsellors would induce you to believe are the one thing for human beings to regard. You will see how all these advantages are dissipated and destroyed at once directly the old traditional jealousy for the honour of the country is renounced by the Government."

"I believe there is a great deal of Villa Toryism which requires organization."

"Much has been said in the present debate about conciliation and the value of conciliatory measures to Ireland...Conciliatory legislation is infinitely superior; but it depends for its efficacy on the circumstances under which it is used, and on the manner in which it is applied. Deterrent legislation, if vigorous and strong, at least deters, whatever the value of that process may be. But conciliatory legislation only conciliates where there is a full belief on the part of those with whom you are dealing that you are acting on a principle of justice, and not that you are acting on motives of fear. Where there is a suspicion or a strong belief that your conciliatory measures have been extorted from you by the violence which they are meant to put a stop to, all the value of that conciliation is taken away."

"The Afghan looks upon an Englishman in two lights—first, as a person who is an infidel, and next as a person who has money. In the first character he is anxious to kill him, in the second he is anxious to rifle him. (Cheers and laughter.)"

"I earnestly hope that the House of Lords will always continue to justify your confidence; that it will conscientiously and firmly fulfil the duties for which I think it is eminently fitted, and which are to represent the permanent and enduring wishes of the nation as opposed to the casual impulses which some passing victory at the polls may in some circumstances have given to the decisions of the other House."

"[A]s individuals and as nations we live in states of society utterly different from each other. As a collection of individuals, we live under the highest and latest development of civilization, in which the individual is rigidly forbidden to defend himself, because society is always ready and able to defend him. As a collection of nations we live in an age of the merest Faustrecht, in which each one obtains his rights precisely in proportion to his ability, or that of his allies, to fight for them. ... In practice it is found that International Law is always on the side of strong battalions. ... It is puerile...to apply to the dealings of a nation with its neighbour's territory the morality which would be applicable to two individuals possessing adjoining property, and protected from mutual wrong by a law superior to both."

"I am afraid that in Asia allegiance is merely the recognition of superior strength, and that the Afghans will, on the whole, ask themselves, when they are determining to whom their allegiance shall be given, which is the stronger Power—which is the Power that can protect their friends and punish their enemies—and I am afraid that they will conclude that the stronger Power is that which advances and never retreats, and not the Power which retreats and preaches all the way."

"I hope that we shall not go too far in accepting the clôture. ... It is not our interest to grease the wheels of all legislation: on the contrary it may do all the Conservative classes of the country infinite harm."

"The hurricane that has swept us away is so strange & new a phenomenon that we shall not for some time understand its real meaning. ... It seems to me to be inspired by some definite desire for change: & means business. It may disappear as rapidly as it came: or it may be the beginning of a serious war of classes. Gladstone is doing all he can to give it the latter meaning."

"You must ask yourselves, supposing 150 years ago a school had arisen similar to schools that we have heard now, who had told and who had persuaded the English Government that such things as the conquest of India, or of Canada, or Gibraltar, or Malta, or the Cape of Good Hope—that these things were unimportant, and that the one thing was to look at home at our own parochial politics? Supposing this had been said 150 years ago, do you imagine you would now be the great, the numerous, the prosperous nation that you are?"

"In Europe good government and other qualities may secure the sympathy of a population. In the East the first quality that secures the sympathy of a population is the possession of strength, and the moment they were convinced that strength had gone from Turkey, the power of Turkey to maintain her Empire was gone. Are your Lordships prepared to see the allegiance of the people of Asia given up to the advancing Power? If so, I ask whether there would be any chance of maintaining the loyalty of the people of India, when once they knew that the Russian power was dominant down to the banks of the Tigris and Euphrates, and that the English power was nothing compared with it? That was the real danger which we had to fear."

"We are trustees for the British Empire. We have received that trust with all its strength, all its glory, all its traditions; and the one thing we have to care for is that we pass them untarnished to our successors."

"Englishmen are moderate, careful to avoid unnecessary offence, slow to come to a dangerous and violent conclusion, and tenacious and resolute when the conclusion has once been arrived at."

"[I]f our ancestors had cared for the rights of other people, the British empire would not have been made."