"Throughout his life Gladstone felt a passionate sympathy for peoples struggling to achieve national independence. This provides the other foundation of his views on foreign policy. "The powers of self-government", this was his answer alike to the problems of the Balkans and those of Ireland. "Give those people freedom and the benefits of freedom", he said of Turkey's Christian subjects in 1880, "that is the way to make a barrier against despotism. Fortresses may be levelled to the ground; treaties may be trodden under foot—the true barrier against despotism is in the human heart and mind." From this sympathy it followed for Gladstone that all nations should enjoy equality of rights... From this in turn sprang his condemnation of imperialism which proclaimed supremacy, not equality, and in its eagerness for aggrandisement brushed aside the rights of other nations to bring them under alien rule."
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Prime Ministers of the United KingdomPoliticians from EnglandTheologians from EnglandAcademics from the United KingdomNon-fiction authors from England
Original Language: English
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Sources
Alan Bullock and Maurice Shock, ‘Introduction’, The Liberal Tradition: From Fox to Keynes (1956; 1967), pp. xxxix-xl
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/William_Ewart_Gladstone
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William Ewart Gladstone
1868 – 1874
William Ewart Gladstone (29 December 1809 – 19 May 1898) was a British Liberal politician and Prime Minister (1868–1874, 1880–1885, 1886 and 1892–1894). He was a notable political reformer, known for his populist speeches, and was for many years the main political rival of Benjamin Disraeli.
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