Henry Campbell-Bannerman

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.

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 …

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.

[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 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 …

We want two things. We want relief from the pressure of excessive taxation, and at the same time we want money to meet our own domestic needs at home, which have been too long starved and neglected owing to the demands on the taxpayer for …

We are keenly in sympathy with the representatives of Labour. We have too few of them in the House of Commons. ...The Liberal party, high and low, have discovered, if they ever forgot it, that the real road to success...lies in adhering to …

We have in all things three great enemies: (1) devotion to material prosperity, national and individual; (2) love of sport and gambling in all forms; (3) apathy.

All that he said about the clean state and efficiency was an affront to Liberalism & was pure claptrap – Efficiency as a watchword! Who is against it? This is all a mere réchauffé of Mr. Sydney Webb who is evidently the chief instructor of …

I have never uttered a pro-Boer word: I have been anti-Joe but never pro-Kruger.

I am half-surprised to find that as I go on I get more and more confirmed in the old advanced Liberal principles, economic, social, & political, with which I entered Parliament 30 years ago.

Excerpts from a leader’s speech Campbell-Bannerman delivered in Hull in 1899

Liberal Domestic Policy

As to war itself, a direct preparation for actual hostilities, I must only repeat here what I have said elsewhere, that from the beginning of this story to the end of it I can see nothing whatever which furnishes a case for armed …

The greatest of British interests is peace.

I declare in the strongest terms that I am, above all things, a loyal son of the House of Commons, and that I place before all interests, even the interest of the great historic party to which I am proud to belong, the maintenance and the …

I am well aware—no one is better aware—that I am poorly equipped for the duties of that position in comparison with some distinguished men who have gone before me; but there is one thing in which I will yield to none of them—namely, in my …

I am enough son of my country and have enough of the Shorter Catechism still sticking about my inside to do my best when a thing comes straight to me.

I have said that in my opinion at the present time, as to the main fabric of our Army system, the truest courage and the best reforming wisdom lies in leaving well alone.

[W]e must give to the Irish people, in one form or another, the self-government they desire.

It is not too much to say that the fact that the responsible Government of the Queen has proposed to Parliament the establishment of a statutory Parliament in Ireland, with full control of Irish affairs, is the gravest and most startling …

Liberal politics meant the politics of common-sense.

He was entirely in favour of minimizing public-houses. He thought too many facilities for drinking existed in Scotland; but at the same time he thought they ought to be judged and dealt with by local authorities—at any rate, this House …

The United Presbyterian Church was a purely voluntary association; and with regard to the Free Church, there was some doubt as to what was the real cause of the Disruption of 1843. In his opinion, the Free Church went out on the higher …