British statesman

“ We have stood in the very heart of a republic, and fearlessly issued our weekly sheet, expressing our fervent admiration of the limited monarchy of Great Britain, though surrounded by Democratic Whigs, Democratic Republicans, Irish Repealers, slave-holders, and every class which breathes the most inveterate hostility to British institutions. ”

“ Even when Great Britain has relaxed in her measures, or appeared to recede from her claims, instead of manifestations of gratitude, our politicians have risen in their demands, and sometimes to such a degree of insolence, as to lay the British government under a necessity of persevering in its measures to preserve its honour. ”

“ Such is the manifest decay of our authority, so fallen in the eyes of all mankind is the character of this country, that two of the greatest States of the world are content to arrange their differences through a British Minister, from reliance on British influence, and from confidence in British equity and British wisdom! ”

“ Thus British institutions—the institutions of national self-government, which are peculiarly British in origin—have played a main part both in determining the character of the British Empire and in bringing about its wonderful expansion. The more the British Empire has grown the more freedom has been established on the face of the earth. ”

“ Democracy has been the great mission of England in modern times, and English statesmen have boldly carried this principle to countries which have been for centuries groaning under the most atrocious form of despotism. The British Empire is a vast political organism, the vitality of which consists in the gradual working out of this principle. ”

“ To all this I answer, that the nation is not so united; that they do not so universally hold they have such a right. And my reasons I have given before; that the terms “British Empire” are not the language of the common law, but the language of newspapers and political pamphlets; that the dominions of the king of Great Britain have no power coextensive with them. I would ask, by what law the parliament has authority over America? ”

“ I do not mean on the king, but on men in power. This spirit is so far from being incompatible with the British constitution, that it is the greatest glory of it; and the nation has always been most prosperous, when it has most prevailed and been most encouraged by the crown. I wish it increased in every part of the world, especially in America; and I think the measures the tories are now pursuing will increase it to a degree that will insure us, in the end, redress of grievances, and a happy reconciliation with Great Britain. ”

“ Of the Great Powers which between them control the destinies of civilisation Great Britain is at once the freest, the largest, and the most various. If the State is a "cauldron" for mingling "the vigour, the knowledge, and the capacity" of the portions of mankind—or if, to use an apter metaphor, it is a body whose perfection consists in the very variety of the functions of its several members—there has never been on the earth a political organism like the British Empire. ”

“ That, deeply impressed with the melancholy state of public concerns, they would, in the fullest information they could obtain, and with the most mature deliberation they could employ, review the whole of the late proceedings, that they might be enabled to discover, as they would be most willing to apply, the most effectual means of restoring order to the distracted affairs of the British empire, confidence to his majesty’s government, obedience, by a prudent and temperate use of its powers, to the authority of parliament, and satisfaction and happiness to all his people. ”

“ I note with satisfaction the assurance I derive from your address, that under British rule men of varied creeds and nations live in harmony among themselves, and develop to the utmost those energies which they inherit from widely separate families of mankind, whilst all join in loyal attachment to the British Crown, and take their part, as in my native country, in the management of their own local affairs. ”

“ When the people of Great Britain had once more a government worthy of them, they returned to the feelings and principles of their ancestors, and resumed their former station and their former duties as protectors of the independence of nations. ”

“ The undeniable growth of the democratic spirit in England can no more be relied on to bring it about, when we remember what renewed executive vigor and cohesion existed with the Commonwealth and the fiery foreign policy of the first republic of France. For three years past we have seen the British Empire in peril on all sides, with the addition of depression and incipient rebellion at home, but her horizon is not as dark as it was in 1780, when, with a failing cause in America, England had the whole of Europe against her. ”

“ As long as England is England, as long as the English people are animated by the feelings and spirit and opinions which they possess, you may knock down twenty foreign Ministers one after another, but depend upon it no one will keep his place who does not act upon the same principles. When it falls to my duty, in pursuance of my functions, to oppose the policy of any Government, the immediate cry is, “Oh, it’s all spite against this man, or that man, Count This, or Prince That, that makes you do this.” ”

“ He is then likely to perceive ‘the beauty of those British institutions’ which ensure the complete submission of the lower classes to the superior orders,—‘which assign to every man his proper place,’—which ‘teach the servants to be respectful to their masters,’ &c. The admiration of England and of the British government naturally begets a wish to establish, in America, a government after the British model ”

“ By such instances of public virtue, and the wisdom, vigour, and sound policy, which reign in the councils of his majesty, the British empire may ultimately triumph over its enemies, or at least be preserved entire amidst the general wreck of other nations. ”

“ In a sober sense, in a sense of deep conviction, I say that the emergence of this country from British domination, and its union under its present form of government beneath the general Constitution of the country, if not a miracle, is, I do not say the most, but one of the most fortunate, the most admirable, the most auspicious occurrences, which have ever fallen to the lot of man. ”

“ Nothing can be more contrary to the true notion of the British constitution, than to imagine, that by such measures his majesty's real interest is advanced. The true interest, my lords, of every monarch, is to please the people, and the only way of pleasing Britons, is to preserve their liberties, their reputation, and their commerce. Every attempt to extend the power of the crown beyond the limits prescribed by our laws, must in effect make it weaker, by diverting the only source of its strength, the affection of his subjects. ”

“ And beyond any doubt the most tremendous and fascinating political question which now awaits solution in the world, is the question whether the political instinct of the British peoples, and the genius of self-government, will find a way out of these difficulties, as they have found a way out of so many others. ”

“ To guard and preserve so vast and lucrative a dominion, to vindicate its integrity alike against outer foes and inner disaffection, to strengthen its unity by drawing closer the bonds, whether commercial or administrative, which linked its various parts to the mother country, became from this moment not only the aim of British statesmen, but the resolve of the British people. ”

“ The English people are among the greatest of the historic races, but the British monarchy, with its mediæval pretensions, its humbug of a throne and a crown, its subordinated ranks of society, its military and naval despotism, and its vast skein of tentaculæ stretching to every valuable thing in the world,—is perhaps the one thing that modern civilization should most dread and put away from the field of its desires. ”

“ They have seen that the government of England is not like that of other countries, struggling for its existence, and occupied in guarding against daily dangers. They have seen that the British Constitution acts in unison with the spirit of the nation, with whose interests it is charged. They know that its advice is worthy of being listened to ”

“ Clearly, so far as concerns the great dominions, the British Empire is far from being a military domination imposed by force. It is a voluntary partnership or brotherhood of free peoples, a Commonwealth of Nations. It is a wonderful achievement in the combination of unity and freedom, an experiment in the unforced co-operation of free States such as has never before been seen in human history. ”

“ In considering the inefficiency of democratic government as revealed by the War and the necessary reform of Great Britain's national organisation, I have availed myself of the views of the greatest statesmen and administrators and the soundest thinkers of all times from Aristotle, Isocrates, Thucydides, and Polybius to Cardinal Richelieu, the elder Pitt, Frederick the Great, Napoleon, Alexander Hamilton, and Bismarck. The numerous quotations given should prove of value to all who desire to be acquainted with the views of the greatest experts in national organisation. ”

“ No other constitution of civil government has yet appeared in the world so admirably adapted to these great purposes as that of Great Britain. Every British subject in America is of common right, by Act of Parliament, and by the laws of God and nature, entitled to all the essential privileges of Britons. By particular Charters, there are peculiar privileges granted, as in justice they might and ought, in consideration of the arduous undertaking to begin so glorious an empire as British America is rising to. ”

“ The world explains the British Empire of to-day, and the great American nation which has sprung from it, by a happy congenital talent for colonizing waste places, for self-government, for assimilating and making friends with the unprogressive peoples, by giving them a better government than they had before. And certainly without such gifts the British races could not have overspread so large a portion of the earth. ”

“ But for their simplicity of nature and amiability of character, the British Empire—that glorious conglomeration of races upon which the sun utterly declines to set—would have fallen into decay and debility, as a second-class Power. ”

“ Here, as fully as in the self-governing Colonies, membership of the British Empire does not mean subjection to the selfish dominion of a master, or the subordination to that master's interests of the vital interests of the community. It means the establishment among a vast population of the essential gifts of western civilisation—rational law, and the liberty which exists under its shelter. ”

“ When a community is in distress or under oppression, it always looks first to Great Britain; while in cases which are quite unsuspected, I think, by Great Britain at large, and which are, as a rule, only known to Ministers, they constantly express the wish in some form or other to be united to our country, and to enjoy our government. ”

“ The first is that men's minds are extraordinarily easily influenced by mere words. The word "Empire" suggests, to many, conquest and dominion over unwilling subjects. In so far as it does so, it begs the question. As we shall try to show, this word is really misapplied to the British realms. The character of their government and of the bond which holds them together would be much better expressed by a phrase which is now being widely used in Britain—the British Commonwealth of Nations. ”

“ I speak in the spirit of the British law, which makes liberty commensurate with, and inseparable from, British soil—which proclaims even to the stranger and sojourner, the moment he sets his foot upon British earth, that the ground on which he treads is holy, and consecrated by the genius of universal emancipation. ”

“ The British Empire is great and powerful from the character of its people, the extent of its dominions and the varied nature of its resources. More than all other Western nations, we can afford to indulge ourselves in experiment and, indeed, caprice, as regards our system of Government or the direction of our Home and Imperial policy. ”

“ The wise statesmen of the last generation, men whom your school histories tell you were statesmen, serving under a monarch who they tell you was a patriotic monarch, spent £130,000,000 of the fruits of the industry of the people in a vain—happily a vain—endeavour to retain the colonies of the United States in subjection to the Monarchy of England. ”

“ I hold that the real policy of England—apart from questions which involve her own particular interests, political or commercial—is to be the champion of justice and right; pursuing that course with moderation and prudence, not becoming the Quixote of the world, but giving the weight of her moral sanction and support wherever she thinks that justice is, and wherever she thinks that wrong has been done. ”

“ The authority of the British Crown is at this moment the most powerful instrument, under Providence, of maintaining peace and order in many extensive regions of the earth, and thereby assists in diffusing among millions of the human race, the blessings of Christianity and civilization. ”

“ By force of habit and training it has become irksome to them. They fly for refuge to a superior official, who, in his turn, if the case at all admits of the adoption of such a course, hastens to merge his individuality in the [Pg 30] voluminous pages of a code or a Government circular.
The British official, on the other hand, whether in England or abroad, is an Englishman first and an official afterwards. He possesses his full share of national characteristics. He is by inheritance an individualist. ”