Henry Campbell-Bannerman

"Ten years ago the incoming Conservative Government found the national finances in good order. .... What do we find to-day? Expenditure and indebtedness have been piled up, the income-tax stands at a shilling, war taxes are continued in peace time, the national credit is impaired, and a heavy depreciation has taken place in securities of every description. You only have to look around to see the result. Industry is burdened, enterprise is restricted, workmen are thrown out of employment, and the poorer classes are straitened still further in their circumstances."

"I hold that protection is not only bad economy, but that it is an agency at once immoral and oppressive, based as it is and must be on the exploitation of the community in the interest of favoured trades and financial groups. I hold it to be a corrupting system, because honesty and purity of administration must be driven to the wall if once the principle of taxes for revenue be departed from in favour of the other principle, which I conceive to be of the essence of protection—that, namely, of taxes for private beneficiaries."

"The right hon. gentleman is like the Bourbons. He has learned nothing. He comes back to this new House of Commons with the same airy graces – the same subtle dialectics – and the same light and frivolous way of dealing with great questions. He little knows the temper of the new House of Commons if he thinks those methods will prevail here. The right hon. gentleman has...asked certain questions which he seemed to think were posers. ...I have no direct answer to give to them. They are utterly futile, nonsensical and misleading. They are invented by the right hon. gentleman for the purpose of occupying time in this debate. I say, enough of this foolery. … Move your amendments and let us get to business."

"The bonds of mutual understanding and esteem are strengthening between the peoples, and the time is approaching when nothing can hold back from them the knowledge that it is they who are the victims of war and militarism; that war in its tawdry triumphs scatters the fruits of their labour, breaks down the paths of progress, and turns the fire of constructive energy into a destroying force."

"[W]e who base our confidence and our hopes on the Parliamentary system—New institutions have often a disturbed, if not a stormy youth. The Duma will revive in one form or another. We can say with all sincerity, “The Duma is dead; long live the Duma.”"

"[O]ur aim is...to secure a national and not a denominational system, public and not sectarian, on the general basis of a common Christianity instead of a sectional Christianity, to make our educational system the handmaid of the community and not the handmaid of any church or sect, and to prevent the common schools of the country, which are maintained out of the public purse, from being provided and worked with two doors...one bringing in the poor little children from the streets, and the other ushering them into a particular church."

"Now the question we have to ask ourselves is—Is the general election and its result to go for nothing? ... It is plainly intolerable, Sir, that a second Chamber should, while one Party in the State is in power, be its willing servant, and when that Party has received an unmistakable and emphatic condemnation by the country, the House of Lords should then be able to neutralise, thwart, and distort the policy which the electors have approved... A settlement of this grave question of education has been prevented, and for that calamity we know, and the country knows, upon whom the responsibility lies. But, Sir, the resources of the British Constitution are not wholly exhausted, the resources of the House of Commons are not exhausted, and I say with conviction that a way must be found, a way will be found, by which the will of the people expressed through their elected representatives in this House will be made to prevail."

"[T]he concentration of human beings in towns...is contrary to nature, and...this abnormal existence is bound to issue in suffering, deterioration, and gradual destruction to the mass of the population...countless thousands of our fellow-men, and still a larger number of children...are starved of air and space and sunshine. ... This view of city life, which is gradually coming home to the heart and understanding and the conscience of our people, is so terrible that it cannot be put away. What is all our wealth and learning and the fine flower of our civilisation and our Constitution and our political theories – what are all these but dust and ashes, if the men and women, on whose labour the whole social fabric is maintained, are doomed to live and die in darkness and misery in the recesses of our great cities? We may undertake expeditions on behalf of oppressed tribes and races, we may conduct foreign missions, we may sympathise with the cause of unfortunate nationalities; but it is our own people, surely, who have the first claim upon us. ... [T]he air must be purified...the sunshine must be allowed to stream in, the water and the food must be kept pure and unadulterated, the streets light and clean. ... [T]he measure of your success in bringing these things to pass will be the measure of the arresting of the terrible powers of race degeneration which is going on in the countless sunless streets."

"We are not extreme revolutionaries, although we do not shrink from formidable changes... We are not foes of property, but we are anxious to see property more righteously apportioned. If that is effected, property will be safer than it is."

"I rise to move, "That, in order to give effect to the will of the people as expressed by their elected representatives, it is necessary that the power of the other House to alter or reject Bills passed by this House should be so restricted by law as to secure that within the limits of a single Parliament the final decision of the Commons shall prevail.""

"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."

"The situation, as the House knows, has been aggravated by the part taken by the right hon. Gentleman opposite... I cannot conceive of Sir Robert Peel or Mr. Disraeli treating the House of Commons as the right hon. Gentleman has treated it. Nor do I think there is any instance in which, as leaders of the Opposition, they committed what I can only call the treachery of openly calling in the other House to override this House. [Cheers; cries of "Withdraw."] ... The right hon. Gentleman's course has, however, had one indisputable effect. It has left no room for doubt, if it had ever existed before, that the second Chamber was being utilised as a mere annexe of the Unionist Party... One begins to doubt, in fact—I certainly doubt— whether he or his Party have ever fully accepted representative institutions."

"Scotsmen...had played a not inglorious part in the work which they were destined to share of creating a common Empire and building up a united Britain... [T]he two countries [Scotland and England] had seen the growth of relations of mutual interest, mutual respect, and mutual understanding; and whoever tested the combination by its results in any field of thought or action or effort in learning, in literature, in statesmanship, in commerce, in the arts of peace or on the battlefield, must acknowledge that it had been a mighty combination, exercising a profound effect for good upon the world."

"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."

"If people should say of me that I tried always to go straight there is perhaps no credit to me in that. It may have been mere indolence. The straight road always seemed to me the easiest."

"Self-government is better than good government."

"South Africans will always retain a grateful memory of the statesman who had the courage to carry into effect self-government for the Transvaal and Orange Free State, which paved the way to the establishment of the Union of South Africa. I deem it a grand privilege and honour to be associated with the movement in connexion with the memorial to Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman."

"A great figure, a true Liberal, and a man who knew how to brave unpopularity when his convictions required him to do so."

"The first Radical premier we have ever had."

"I have a disgust for party newspaper eulogies of Ministers or coming men, but in common fairness I must say Sir Henry has earned, and fully deserves, all the praise that is heaped upon him. He seems to be mellowing with age, and really desirous of effecting some useful legislation. Of one thing I have convinced myself—that where the Liberal Party falls short of its promises, the blame will not rest with C.-B."

"Though our experience of him has been short, it was sufficiently long to endear him, I will venture to say, more than any other politician in this country to every member of the Labour Party... He recognised the social wrongs under which the poor are compelled to live, and he was anxious...to understand our proposals, in order that something might be done to alleviate the vast amount of suffering which the poorer of the working classes so constantly experience; and in this way his readiness sympathetically to consider the views of my colleagues and myself endeared him in an unmistakable way to every member of the Labour Party.... [W]e always rejoice to think that he maintained his position in this House and the country with a fidelity to his convictions that gave him a position in the hearts of organised workers in this country second to that of no other statesman. The loss we mourn to-day is nowhere more keenly felt than in the ranks of the Parliamentary Labour Party."

"I think it will be felt by the community as a whole as if they had lost a relative. Certainly those who have been associated with him closely for years will feel a deep sense of personal bereavement. I have never met a great public figure since I have been in politics who so completely won the attachment and affection of the men who came into contact with him. He was not merely admired and respected; he was absolutely loved by us all. I really cannot trust myself to say more. The masses of the people of this country, especially the more unfortunate of them, have lost the best friend they ever had in the high places of the land. His sympathy in all suffering was real, deep, and unaffected. He was truly a great man—a great head and a great heart. He was absolutely the bravest man I ever met in politics. He was entirely free from fear. He was a man of supreme courage. Ireland has certainly lost one of her truest friends, and what is true of Ireland is true of every section of the community of this Empire which has a fight to maintain against powerful foes."

"He deserves all the credit [for the South African constitution]. It was all done in a ten minutes' speech at the Cabinet – the most dramatic, the most important ten minutes' speech ever delivered in our time. In ten minutes he brushed aside all the checks and all the safeguards devised by Asquith, Winston and Loreburn. At the outset only two of us were with him, John Burns and myself. But his speech convinced the whole Cabinet. It was the utterance of a plain, kindly, simple man. The speech moved one at least of the Cabinet to tears. It was the most impressive thing I ever saw. ... The result of CB's policy has been remarkable. It captured Gen. Botha by its magnanimity. ... If we had a war tomorrow, Botha and 50,000 Boers would march with us side by side. He would, if necessary, drive the Germans out of South Africa."

"The Boers—the Dutch—are the rulers in S. Africa. We had to give them back their land to rule—for us! And more—for whereas they had ruled the Orange Free State and the Transvaal, they were given in addition Cape Colony and Natal to rule. Had we not done this, we should now have been driven from S. Africa. C.B. was wise enough to see that safety lay in giving them autonomy. Had we not done so, Botha and the others would have gone back to their farms, and waited for the moment—this moment—when all our energies were wanted elsewhere, to drive us from S. Africa. We didn't win the Boer War!"

"[N]ow, in an assembly where he wields undisputed power, he is the most popular statesman of our generation."

"Is it possible that the world is over-intellectualized; and how has it profited its lost soul to be so tremendously clever? Well, 'C.B.' was not 'clever'. He was a singularly unshowy figure, standing outside society, which he hated, a wit in a quiet way, but no dazzler. He was simply an honest, uncorrupted, and singularly straight-driving man, with the half-learned, half-traditional wisdom, applied to politics, that the good shepherd directs to the tending of beasts and the watching of weather. And yet he was the only British statesman since Gladstone who visibly added to his country's power, in the act of raising her in the sphere where conscience sits and holds her all but unregarded reign."

"A new leader was found in Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, far too sagacious and experienced a man not to be wide-awake to the formidable difficulties to which his sterling sense of public duty was exposing him. I saw him described the other day, by one with a right to an opinion, as the sincerest Liberal of our time. This may not be the best way of putting the truth, but truth it is that with no other leading Liberal of our time did diplomacy, transitory tactics, expediency of the hour, weigh lighter in the scale against principle."

"[H]e was indispensable, the only man possible, and the time came when the popular interest in his personality rose to enviable heights, and good-will passed into cordial admiration and affection. Why? Because in many trying passages of public life he had shown unshaken courage, invincible independence even of public opinion itself, steadfast adherence to his own political principles in spite of busy and untoward dissents inside his party. In the evil days of Liberal division during the Boer War, he had confounded the dissentient wing by plain-dealing; he lost no chance of conciliation with them; and, though a ready fighter, he was a skilful peacemaker, partly for the admirable reason that, being a man of the wise sort of modesty, he always thought more of his policy, and making it prevail, than he thought of himself. It was felt that he had the root of the whole matter in him when he declared good government to be no substitute for self-government. This was his solid reply to a current word, with much cant in it, about Efficiency."

"We Irishmen feel that he had a love for our country and our cause as though he were one of us. We had an affection for him as if he were one of our own people... We honoured him and loved him, and regret his death as one of the greatest and heaviest losses that our people and our country ever sustained."

"It was expected that he would meet Irish wit with dull, unimaginative answers, and that he would be, so to speak, roasted alive. What turned out to be the fact was that Campbell-Bannerman had wit as ready as that of any of his opponents, that he had immense force of character; above all, that he had unfathomable, unreachable depths of imperturbability. It might have been self-confidence, it was probably indifference; but there was no human being who seemed so absolutely impervious to attack."

"There is no doubt that C.B.'s personality and record—the man who had weathered the storm and stood unflinchingly for his principles in times when it was most difficult to proclaim them—was largely responsible for the tremendous turnover of votes [in the 1906 general election]."

"All his servants were devoted to him... He was punctual but too easy-going. He told me he had never read a Bill or a Blue Book through. But his easy-goingness had a curious side to it. Just as one imagined that he was inattentive and indifferent, ready to take the line of least resistance, or do nothing, or yield suddenly, one came up against a rock, an obstinate determination, a perfectly clear and set conviction which in time upset everyone's calculations."

"C.-B. was canny and knew the value of tactics, but he was absolutely above aboard, open and transparently honest politically. His speeches were sound but never very inspiring. His answers to questions were often brilliantly witty and to the point. His simplicity and friendliness endeared him to many members."

"They were extraordinarily different—Asquith outwardly strong, C.-B. outwardly easy-going; Asquith inwardly pliable, C.-B. firm and resolute; Asquith measuring men and policies by a rather arid intellectual standard, C.-B. always using a discriminating human standard."

"His short premiership of two years will be remembered chiefly for the courage and success of his South African policy. As men often do, he rose to the level of his responsibilities. Gaining the full confidence and goodwill of his colleagues, he was able to maintain the harmony of his Cabinet. His premiership was common sense enthroned."

"Went to lunch at the Savoy with Smuts. ... He spoke of the time after the [Boer] War when he was in England endeavouring to secure a settlement on the basis of responsible self-government. Campbell-Bannerman he said was the one man on whose support he felt he could absolutely rely. I asked about Churchill. Yes, he said, Churchill was good, but Campbell-Bannerman was like a rock. The other day he had told the Imperial War Cabinet...that whenever they were commemorating England's great men they must never forget to set up a statue to Campbell-Bannerman."

"A great man if ever there was one by force of conviction and character. How we have missed him."

"Perhaps the man whom Gladstone most surely suggests to the mind is one who had not a tithe of his gigantic ability, but who had the great merit of having a full share of his spirit, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman."

"One day eight years later, I found myself talking over these events with General Botha, who was visiting this country as first Prime Minister of the South African Union. Just as I was leaving he stopped me for a moment and said: ‘After all, three words made peace and union in South Africa: “methods of barbarism.”’ Softening the epigram a little, he went on to speak of the tremendous impression which had been made upon men fighting a losing battle with an apparently hopeless future by the fact that the leader of one of the great English parties had had the courage to say this thing, and to brave the obloquy which it brought upon him. So far from encouraging them to a hopeless resistance, it touched their hearts and made them think seriously of the possibility of reconciliation."

"I saw [Joseph Chamberlain]. ... He spoke a good deal of C.B. whom he described as a clever man and a brave man, and deprecated the attacks made on him by Balfour."

"In Opposition he had been a despised and unpopular leader; many people, including some of his own followers, doubted if he would survive for more than a few weeks as Prime Minister. But from the first days of his Premiership he progressively improved his own prestige, and displayed powers of character, tact and resource which had been latent in him; in a few months he was a very popular Leader of the House. Then he suffered a heavy blow in the death of his wife; later his own health began to fail. He was Prime Minister for too short a time to make a name to be remembered. Yet had his great chance come earlier in life, before the inevitable misfortunes of old age overtook him, he might have altered the course of political history; he might, indeed, have preserved the Liberal Party as a vital entity for another generation."