Randolph Churchill

“ No class interests should be allowed to stand in the way of this mighty movement, and with this movement the Tory party not only sympathize, but identify themselves.
Social reform, producing direct and immediate benefit to the Commons—that must be our cry, as opposed to the Radicals, who foolishly scream for organic change, and waste their energies and their time in attacking institutions whose destruction would not only endanger popular freedom, but would leave the social condition of the people precisely where it was before. ”

“ The House of Lords may, perhaps, move slowly; they may, perhaps, be overcautious about accepting the merits of the legislation of the House of Commons; they may, perhaps, at times regard with some exaggeration of sentiment the extreme rights of property. That is the price you have to pay—and a small price it is for so valuable a possession—which guards you against so great a danger. They are essentially of the people. Year by year they are recruited from the people. ”

“ I see in the Church of England an immense and omnipresent ramification of machinery working without cost to the people—and daily and hourly lifting the masses of the people, rich and poor alike, from the dead and dreary level of the lowest and most material cares of life, up to the comfortable contemplation of higher and serener forms of existence and of destiny. ”

“ Every privilege, every franchise, every liberty which is gained by the people, is treasured up and guarded by those who, animated by tradition and custom, by long descent and lofty name, fear neither monarchs, nor ministers, nor men, but only the people, whose trustees they are. ”

“ You, who are ambitious, and rightly ambitious, of being the guardians of the British Constitution, trust the people, and they will trust you—and they will follow you and join you in the defense of that Constitution against any and every foe. ”

“ What is the great and wide difference which distinguishes the two great political parties who endeavor to attract the support of the English people? It has been well and wisely said—but I do not think it can be too often repeated—that the Tory party cling with veneration and affection to the institutions of our country. The Radicals regard them with aversion and distrust and will always give multitudinous and specious reasons for their destruction. ”

“ I content myself with the fact of its existence at the present moment, and I find in it not only a powerful check on popular impulses arising from imperfect information, not only an aggregation of political wisdom and experience such as no other country can produce, but, above all, because I find in it literally the only effectual barrier against that most fatal foe to freedom, the one-man power—that power which has more than once prostrated and enslaved the liberties of France, and which constantly gives anxiety to the citizens of the United States. ”

“ And he would be a bold man in argument who would assert that the hereditary character of the British throne is a vice, or even a defect. When we remember that the English monarchy has endured for upwards of a thousand years, what device of the wisest philosopher or the most acute mathematician could have discovered a monarch more perfect for all the purposes of a monarchy than the one whom an hereditary descent of a thousand years has provided for us? ”

“ But I own that my chief reason for supporting the Church of England I find in the fact that, when compared with other creeds and other sects, it is essentially the Church of religious liberty. Whether in one direction or another, it is continually possessed by the ambition, not of excluding, but of including, all shades of religious thought, all sorts and conditions of men ”

“ I see in the Church of England a center, and a source, and a guide of charitable effort, mitigating by its mendicant importunity the violence of human misery, whether mental or physical, and contributing to the work of alleviation from its own not superfluous resources ”

“ I view the Church of England eagerly cooperating in the work of national education, not only benefiting your children but saving your pockets; and I remember that it has been the work of the Church to pour forth floods of knowledge, purely secular and scientific, even from the days when knowledge was not ”

“ Modern checks and securities are not worth a brass farthing. Give me a fair arrangement of the constituencies, and one part of England will correct and balance the other. I do not think that electoral reform is a matter of national emergency. ”

“ To those—and there are, I believe, many—in this town who glibly tell you that the monarchy is too expensive and is not worth the price—to them I reply that it would be impossible to devise a form of government as effectual, and yet cheaper and more simple ”

“ From a national and imperial point of view, you need never be alarmed at the dangers of one-man power so long as the House of Lords endures. Be he minister, be he capitalist, be he demagog—be he Mr. Gladstone, or Mr. ”