Joseph Chamberlain quotes - page 2
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.
Joseph Chamberlain
The Colonies are no longer in their infancy. They are growing rapidly to a vigorous manhood. Now is the time-the last time-that you can bind them closer to you. If now you disregard their aspirations and wishes, if when they make you an offer not specially in their interests but in the interests of the Empire of which we are all a portion-if when they make you this offer you reject it or treat it with scorn you may do an injury which will be irreparable, and, whatever you yourselves may feel in after life, be sure that your descendants will scorn and denounce the cowardly and selfish policy which you will have pursued.
Joseph Chamberlain
The great problem of our civilization is still unsolved. We have to account for and 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. It is a problem which 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...Our object is the elevation of the poor, of the masses of the people-a levelling up of them by which we shall do something to remove the excessive inequality in social life.
Joseph Chamberlain
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.
Joseph Chamberlain
Is Britain to be numbered among the decaying States? Has all the glory of the past to be forgotten? Have we to prove ourselves unregenerate sons of the forefathers who left us so glorious an inheritance? Are we to be a decaying State? Are the efforts of all our sons to be frittered away? Are their sacrifices to be vain? Or are we to take up a new youth as members of a great Empire which will continue for generation after generation, the strength, the power, and the glory of the British race?
Joseph Chamberlain
[T]he party will not again be reunited till a new programme has been elaborated which shall satisfy the just expectations of the representatives of labour, as well as conciliate the Nonconformists who have been driven into rebellion. It is impossible to say with certainty what will be the exact form of this protest against the ever-recurring assumption that the time has come when statesmen may rest from their labours and parties be at peace, but it must include some or all of the following ideas which have been exercising a growing attraction for political thinkers, and which are summed up in the sentence which may perhaps form the motto of the new party-Free Church, Free Land, Free Schools, and Free Labour.
Joseph Chamberlain
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.
Joseph Chamberlain
Putting aside personal compliments what are the facts? A saving of 7 per thousand in the death-rate-2,800 lives per annum in the town. And as 5 people are ill for everyone who dies there must be a diminution of 14,000 cases of sickness, with all the loss of money, pain and grief they involve. Unless I can secure for the nation results similar to these which have followed the adoption of my policy in Birmingham it will have been a sorry exchange to give up the Town Council for the Cabinet.
Joseph Chamberlain
![[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. (Joseph Chamberlain)](https://cdn.quotesdtb.com/img/quotes_images_webp/03/joseph-chamberlain-assert-authority-1003603.webp)
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.)
Joseph Chamberlain
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.)
Joseph Chamberlain
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.
Joseph Chamberlain
