Skip to content
Shawords

Quote#Speech

I am much oppressed with the idea that this transfer of human beings…

Quote byWilliam Ewart Gladstone · 1809–1898

Commonly attributed — not confirmed in an authoritative edition. Cited on Wikiquote to: Letter to Lord Granville on Germany's annexation of Alsace-Lorraine (30 September 1870), quoted in Agatha Ramm (ed.), The Gladstone–Granville Correspondence [1952] (1998), p. 135.

English (original)

I am much oppressed with the idea that this transfer of human beings like chattels should go forward without any voice from collective Europe if it be disposed to speak.

— William Ewart Gladstone

More from William Ewart Gladstone