Joseph Chamberlain

"I recognise that Mr. Chamberlain's historic agitation has rendered one outstanding service to the cause of the masses. It has helped to call attention to a number of real crying evils festering amongst us, the existence of which the governing classes in this country were ignorant of or overlooked... He has committed the party which, by temperament, tradition, and interest, is opposed to great changes—he has committed it to propositions which social reformers of other schools of thought have hitherto in vain sought to convert them."

"[Chamberlain delivered] two remarkable speeches in [1885], that at Glasgow on September 15, and that at Inverness three days later. I still remember, as though it were but yesterday, the thrill of pleasure which went through Radical Scotland when the first speech was delivered. Its bold audacity struck the imagination of the country. We waited with interest and at a high tension for the Inverness pronouncement. The earnest candour of the man who based his politics upon the fact that one in every thirty people in the country was on the parish, that one in every ten was on the border of starvation, as he had done in Glasgow, and was flaunting the classes with cavalier indifference whilst declaring that for the increase of the material resources of the poor there was "no hope whatever except in the radical revision of the laws which affect the tenure of land," touched the imagination of Radical Scotland... Mr. Chamberlain's speech at Inverness was therefore no ordinary pronouncement. People flocked to the town from far and near—and they were rewarded. Never was the crofter position better put. He reiterated his doctrines about land ownership. A volcano of fury shot up next morning from the Conservative press, but thousands of hearts were stirred for the coming contest by the joy that at last a man had appeared who really meant business."

"The collapse of employment in the great "staple" industries after 1920 provided protection with its historic opportunity. In effect what happened was what Joseph Chamberlain always said would happen; though before 1914 it never did."

"Throughout his career, as it seems to me, there were two principles which were at the basis of his political action...a desire to improve the condition of the people, and an intense, and perhaps almost aggressive, national pride."

"From his boyhood up, Joseph Chamberlain has been consumed with a passionate longing to benefit the lot of the common people. Not Burns, nor Keir Hardie is more constantly preoccupied by the necessity for doing something to make the cottage of the labouring man less of a hovel and more of a home."

"He never filled the post for which his great qualities seem specially to have destined him. He never was Prime Minister. But what is success and what is failure? "It is not what man does that exalts him, but what man would do." He almost alone has changed the whole spirit of the relationship of the different parts of the Empire towards each other, and has thus laid strongly the foundation on which other men may build."

"Chamberlain...specifically advocated tariff reform as an employment policy: "Tariff reform means jobs for all." As a political device it was aimed directly at the working-class electorate... Tariff reform...proposed to reunite the political and economic systems and, despite Chamberlain's personal disavowals, threatened the enforcement of a new social discipline. It was the closest to a continental political strategy Britain had ever reached; its failure meant the failure not only of a policy that would have subordinated the working class under a new fiscal–industrial order but the failure of any working-class ideologies—Marxism, for instance—which also argued that the country's political and economic systems should be reunited."

"Mr. Chamberlain is at this moment the most popular and the most trusted man in England. He is the most popular of British statesmen throughout our Empire. To our kin beyond the seas he, more than any other man, stands for Imperial unity and consolidation."

"Mr. Chamberlain is unquestionably the future leader of the people... He is a Radical and doesn't care who knows it as long as the people do."

"Our children will tell their sons of the statesman who in the evening of his days, crowned with years and honour, beheld what our Empire might be made, who stepped aside from the sheep tracks of little politicians, who put from him ease, and comfort, and friendship, and lost even health itself, that he might inspire and lead the young generation to follow him along the new path. (Cheers.)"

"The other model was the Australian one: a system of industrial relations dependent upon compulsory arbitration and judicially established wage minima for both skilled and unskilled workers within a protected economy... That was not a subsistence but a "living" wage of the kind that the British unions never actually got. This was the bargain of Australian tariffs: employers got protected markets and employees got protected wages. It was the kind of system that might have emerged from Joseph Chamberlain's campaign for tariffs had he a clearer and more limited idea of what he wanted; had he not tried to bundle up in one policy proposals both to save the Empire and provide guaranteed employment for British workers—proposals either of which could have worked separately but not together."

"The loss of Chamberlain alone was immeasurable disaster; his influence with the democracy had for some time past exceeded Gladstone's; I found of late that if audiences cheered Gladstone's name for two minutes, they cheered Chamberlain's for five... In any case, the energy of a Parliament created for social reform was to be spent on prolonged struggle over a subject which had formed no part of the election programme. Working men would find that their devotion had been thrown away, their confidence abused, the promised reforms to which they gave their votes postponed indefinitely, if not altogether sacrificed, to a measure which no one among them had ever heard."

"[I]f the occasion should come to assert the authority of England, a democratic Government, resting on the confidence and support of the whole nation, and not on the favour of any limited class, would be very strong. It would know how to make itself respected, and how to maintain the obligations and the honour of the country. I think foreign rulers would be very ill advised if they were to assume that because we are anxious to avoid all cause of quarrel with our neighbours we are wanting in the old spirit of Englishmen, or that we should be found very tolerant of insult or long suffering under injury."

"I do not think that the democracy will have any love for a policy of intervention and aggression, nor any ambition for conquest and universal domination. These things lead straight to the conscription, and you will not be eager or even willing to pay the blood tax which is levied on your brethren in the continental countries. (Cheers.) I anticipate, then, that you will give no assistance to the party who are clamouring for what they call a strong foreign policy, and who at this moment, in the interest chiefly of the bondholders and financial speculators, are calling upon us to take possession of Egypt without regard to the wishes of the population or the just susceptibilities of other nations. We are in Egypt at this time in pursuance of an unselfish object."

"The Whigs as a party are played out, and the next great fight will be between the Tory democrats and the democratic Radicals. It will never do for the latter to be out-bidden, so you must prepare for something very drastic."

"The goal towards which the advance will probably be made at an accelerated pace, is that in the direction of which the legislation of the last quarter of a century has been tending—the intervention, in other words, of the State on behalf of the weak against the strong, in the interests of labour against capital, of want and suffering against luxury and wealth."

"One may confidently anticipate that the whole aspect of the agricultural question will undergo a change, and that...legislation will, under the pressure of the new force applied to it, be introduced for the purpose of bringing the land into the best use for the nation. Thus far the agricultural labourer has been regarded by the political economists as a mere machine—an instrument to be used for the creation of wealth, deposited in the hands of the few; not as a human being whose comfort, health, and home are to be considered, and who has a claim to such benefits as were conferred by the Factory Acts upon the labourers in towns. If his welfare cannot be sufficiently protected without the taxation of property, then property will be taxed. But it is needless now to attempt to define the measures that may be necessary for these ends. It is enough to indicate their general character. They sound the death-knell of the laissez-faire system."

"I believe that sooner or later it will be found necessary to undertake some public works in Ireland... England is the only country in the world in which it has been found possible to leave public works entirely to private enterprise. State assistance in some form or another is afforded...in every other country in Europe... I fully admit the difficulties and dangers of any such undertaking: the probability of jobbery and inefficiency; but as to the character and the poverty of the Irish people, I would at once appoint the strongest scientific and technical Commission it would be possible to obtain to report on certain broad classes of undertakings, especially on railways, reclamation, main drainage and harbours with a view to some considerable scheme of public works. I do not think the pecuniary risk would be so great as is generally supposed; and in any case I should regard the loss as a reasonable insurance against much greater evils."

"Despite the perpetual adulation of ourselves which is always going on, and the constant recitals of our prosperity and of the progress we are making in science and general culture, we are compelled occasionally to turn aside from the contemplation of our virtues and intelligence and wealth, to recognise the fact that we have in our midst a vast population more ignorant than the barbarians whom we affect to despise, more brutal than the savages whom we profess to convert, more miserable than the most wretched in other countries to whom we attempt from time to time to carry succour and relief."

"He is face to face with the whole population of England and Scotland, reinforced as it will be by at least one-fifth of the population of Ireland itself, and to threaten 32 millions of people with the vengeance of four millions is a rhetorical artifice which is altogether unworthy of Mr. Parnell's power and influence. (Hear, hear.) But it is said by him that justice requires that we should concede to Irishmen an absolute right to self-government. I would reply that that is a right which must be considered in relation to the security and welfare of the other countries in juxtaposition to which Ireland is placed, and with whose interests hers are indissolubly linked. I cannot admit that five millions of Irishmen have any greater inherent right to govern themselves without regard to the rest of the community than would the five millions of persons who inhabit the metropolis."

"I want you not to accept as final or as perfect, arrangements under which hundreds of thousands, nay, millions, of your fellow-countrymen are subjected to untold privations and misery, with the evidence all around them of accumulated wealth and unbounded luxury. The extremes of wealth and of poverty are alike the sources of great temptation. I believe that the great evil with which we have to deal is the excessive inequality in the distribution of riches. Ignorance, intemperance, immorality, and disease—these things are all interdependent and closely connected; and although they are often the cause of poverty, they are still more frequently the consequence of destitution, and if we can do anything to raise the condition of the poor in this country, to elevate the masses of the people, and give them the means of enjoyment and recreation, to afford to them opportunities of improvement, we should do more for the prosperity, ay, for the morality of this country than anything we can do by laws, however stringent, for the prevention of excess, or the prevention of crime."

"During the last 100 years, the House of Lords has never contributed one iota to popular liberties or popular freedom, or done anything to advance the common weal; but during that time it has protected every abuse and sheltered every privilege."

"The great programme of our civilization is still not solved. We have to account for and to grapple with the mass of misery and destitution in our midst, co-existent as it is with the evidence of abundant wealth and teeming prosperity. This programme some men would put aside by reference to the eternal laws of supply and demand, to the necessity of freedom of contract, and to the sanctity of every private right of property. But these phrases are the convenient cant of selfish wealth... Our object is the elevation of the poorer of the masses of the people, a levelling up which shall do something to remove the excessive inequalities in the social condition of the people."

"If we fail, let us try again and again until we succeed."

"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. (Cheers.)"

"As I passed through England and the United States, and again when I crossed the boundary of the Dominion, there was one idea impressing itself upon my mind at every step, indelibly written upon the face of two vast countries, and that was the greatness and importance of the distinction reserved for the Anglo-Saxon race—(cheers)—that proud, persistent, self-asserting and resolute stock which no change of climate or condition can alter, and which is infallibly bound to be the predominant force in the future history and civilisation of the world. (Cheers.)"

"The interest of true democracy is not towards anarchy or the disintegration of the Empire, but rather the uniting together kindred races with similar objects. You have a portion in the great path that lies before us. It may yet be that the federation of Canada may be the lamp lighting our path to the federation of the British Empire. (Cheers.) If it is a dream—it may be only the imagination of an enthusiast—it is a grand idea. (Hear, hear.) It is one to stimulate the patriotism and statesmanship of every man who loves his country; and whether it be destined or not to perfect realisation, at least let us all cherish the sentiment it inspires. Let us do all in our power to promote it, and enlarge the relations and goodwill which ought always to exist between sons of England throughout the world and the old folks at home. (Prolonged cheering.)"

"[W]e want to convince the country that there is a better chance of really popular reform from a Unionist Government than from the Parnell–Gladstone."

"Be as Radical as you like, be a Home Ruler if you must, but be a little Jingo if you can."

"The fact is, that in social questions the Tories have almost always been more progressive than the Liberals, and the Conservative leaders in their latest legislation have only gone back to the old Tory traditions. Almost all the legislation dealing with Labour questions has been initiated by Tory statesmen, and most of it has been passed by Tory Governments. The Factory and Workshops Acts, the Mines Regulation Act, Merchant Shipping legislation, the Acts relating to sanitation, artisans' dwellings, land purchase, allotments, small holdings and free education are all Conservative, and it is therefore historically inaccurate to represent the Tory Party as opposed to socialistic legislation."

"The pacification of Ireland at this moment does, I believe, depend upon the concession to Ireland of the right to govern itself in the matter of its purely domestic business... I do not believe that the great majority of Englishmen have the slightest conception of the system under which this free nation attempts to rule a sister country. It is a system which is founded on the bayonets of 30,000 soldiers encamped permanently as in a hostile country (Cries of "Shame.") It is a system as completely centralized and bureaucratic as that with which Russia governs Poland, or as that which was common in Venice under the Austrian rule."

"In the first place I urge upon you a full recognition of the magnitude of the evils with which we have to deal; in the second place I insist on the right of those who suffer to redress (cheers); and in the third place I assert the duty of society as a whole to secure the comfort and welfare of all its individual members. As a consequence of this, I desire to submit to you that it belongs to the authority and to the duty of the State—that is to say, of the whole population acting through their chosen representatives—to utilise for this purpose all local experience and all local organisation, to protect the weak, to provide for the poor, to redress the inequalities of our social system, to alleviate the harsh conditions of the struggle for existence, and to raise the average enjoyments of the majority of the population. (Loud cheers.)"

"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."

"I say to Ireland what the Liberals or the Republicans of the North said to the Southern States of America—The union must be preserved. You cannot and shall not destroy it. Within these limits there is nothing which you may not ask and hope to obtain—equal laws, equal justice, equal opportunities, equal prosperity."

"I have no sympathy at all with the new Radicalism of which Sir William Harcourt is now a conspicuous supporter, although a recent convert. I have no sympathy with the policy of men whose representatives abet and aid the projects of the enemies of this country (hear, hear)—the men who whine over the fate of Lobengula, but denounce as murderers the British officers and the brave Englishmen, who, at the risk of their lives and fortunes in all parts of the world, are doing their part to maintain the great Empire of the Queen. (Cheers.) I have no sympathy with men who apparently approve of French aggression, and who at the same time deprecate any increase of the British Navy; or with those who preach consistently in all parts of the world, in Africa, in Asia, and in Ireland their favourite doctrine of "Scuttle.""

"I say that this Bill has been changed in its most vital features, and yet it has always been found perfect by hon. Members behind the Treasury Bench. The Prime Minister [William Gladstone] calls "black," and they say, "it is good": the Prime Minister calls "white," and they say "it is better." It is always the voice of a god. Never since the time of Herod has there been such slavish adulation. [Cheers, cries of "Progress!" and "Judas!"]"

"When government was represented only by the authority of the Crown and the views of a particular class I can understand that it was the first duty of men who valued their freedom to restrict its authority and to limit its expenditure. But all that is changed. Now government is the organized expression of the wishes and the wants of the people, and under these circumstances let us cease to regard it with suspicion. Suspicion is the product of an older time, of circumstances which have long since disappeared. Now it is our business to extend its functions and to see in what way its operations can be usefully enlarged."

"What is the Slave Trade, and what is the cause of it? People do not make slaves through love of cruelty or mischief, but they do so because they made their livelihood by it. Tribes are enslaved, are taken as slaves, in order to carry burdens to the coast, and when they have done that they are sold for what they will fetch. If you could give to the slave-raiding Arabs, who at the present moment are the most barbarous and brutal people on the face of the earth, peaceful means of making an honest livelihood, do you mean to say that they enjoy war so much that they will not accept these means? If you say so, I think all history and experience is against you. You have never found a case where it has been made profitable to a nation or tribe to keep the peace that they have not done so... Make it the interest of the Arab slave traders to give up the Slave Trade, and you will see the end of that traffic."

"I am, and shall be in the future, proud to call myself a Unionist (cheers), and be satisfied with that title alone, believing that it is a wider and nobler title than that either of Conservative or Liberal, since it includes them both (hear, hear), and since it includes all men who are determined to maintain an undivided Empire, and who are ready to promote the welfare and the union, not of one class, but of all classes of the community. (Cheers.)"

"I say that...there is no leader of public opinion in this country who will not fail in his duty if he does not impress upon his countrymen the absolute necessity of preventing their security from being undermined. (Cheers.) Gentlemen, there is one thing that you must never lose sight of. The creation of an all-powerful navy by any other Power is chiefly valuable to them as an instrument of aggression. To us an all-powerful navy is the essential condition of our existence. (Cheers.) If we were to lose even for three months the control of the great highways of the ocean by which we communicate with our distant possessions and dependencies, these possessions would be absolutely at the mercy of any Power with unlimited military strength which took advantage of our absence from the sea to attack them... I will only say...that I desire you to impress upon you the importance...of doing all in your power to support the party...which will be sensible to responsibilities of Empire, which will be mindful of the traditions of a great governing race, and which will be determined to hand down to future generations intact and unimpaired the great inheritance of a world-wide dominion. (Loud cheers.)"

"[T]he electors are much more interested at the present time in social questions and the problems connected with the agitation of the Labour Party than they are with either the House of Lords or any other constitutional subject."

"I have taken office with two objects; to see whether something cannot be done to bring the self-governing Colonies and ourselves into closer relations, and to attempt the development of the resources of the Crown Colonies, especially to increase our trade with those Colonies."

"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."

"The resolution which was conveyed to the Prime Minister on behalf of the Australian colonies and the display of patriotic enthusiasm on the part of the Dominion of Canada came to us as a natural response to the outburst of national spirit in the United Kingdom, and as a proof that British hearts beat in unison throughout the world, whatever may be the distances that separate us. (Cheers.) Then let us cultivate those sentiments. Let us do all in our power by improving our communications, by developing our commercial relations, by co-operating in mutual defence (cheers), and none of us then will ever feel isolated, no part of the Empire will stand alone, so long as it can count upon the common interest of all in its welfare and in its security. (Cheers.) That is the moral I have derived from recent events. That is the lesson I desire to impress on my countrymen. In the words of Tennyson— "Let Britain's myriad voices call, Sons, be welded each and all, Into one Imperial whole, One with Britain, heart and soul! One life, one flag, one fleet, one Throne!" (Loud cheers.)"

"And in the time to come, the time that must come, when these colonies of ours have grown in stature, in population, and in strength, this league of kindred nations, this federation of Greater Britain, will not only provide for its own security, but will be a potent factor in maintaining the peace of the world. (Cheers.)"

"The establishment of commercial union throughout the Empire would not only be the first step, but the main step, the decisive step towards the realization of the most inspiring idea that has ever entered into the minds of British statesmen."

"You can not have omelettes without breaking eggs; you can not destroy the practises of barbarism, of slavery, of superstition, which for centuries have desolated the interior of Africa, without the use of force; but if you will fairly contrast the gain to humanity with the price which we are bound to pay for it, I think you may well rejoice in the result of such expeditions as those which have recently been conducted with such signal success in Nyassaland, Ashanti, Benin, and Nupé—expeditions which may have, and indeed have, cost valuable lives, but as to which we may rest assured that for one life lost a hundred will be gained, and the cause of civilization and the prosperity of the people will in the long run be eminently advanced."

"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."

"I say, speaking for the Government, that in so far as in us lies there shall be no second Majuba. Never again, with our consent, while we have the power, shall the Boers be able to erect in the heart of South Africa a citadel from whence proceed disaffection and race animosities. Never again shall they be able to endanger the paramountcy of Great Britain. Never again shall they be able to treat an Englishman as if he belonged to an inferior race."

"We have secured for Uganda the pax Britannica which has been so beneficial in India... What existed in Uganda at that time were anarchy and civil war of the worst kind. If we had not been there thousands and perhaps hundreds of thousands of people would have been cruelly massacred; and after the victory of one party or the other what remained of the minority would have been cruelly tortured to death."