Liberal Party (UK)

“ We have no reason for supporting the Liberal party any more than the Tory party. Men do not gather grapes from thorns, nor figs from thistles. The Liberal party is to-day what it has always been—an organisation of capitalists formed to serve the interests of the capitalist class. ”

“ Without presuming to require from political parties such an amount of virtue and discernment as that they should comprehend, and know when to apply, the principles of their opponents, we may yet say that it would be a great improvement if each party understood and acted upon its own. Well would it be for England if Conservatives voted consistently for every thing conservative, and Liberals for every thing liberal. ”

“ But in voting for any candidate, who sets forward as a ground for his acceptance, the fact that he belongs to what is called “the Liberal party,” let the electors remember that they are in truth voting for Radical measures, and for organic changes. They may be slow to believe so, but there can actually and absolutely be no other result. These gentlemen of “the Liberal party,” however moderate their individual views may be, seek to enter Parliament for the purpose of overthrowing one Government and establishing another. ”

“ It is, I think, impossible to deny that very great harm has been done, not merely to the spirit of Liberalism, but to the actual fortunes of the Liberal party, by the new system. It has brought a new spirit into the direction of our party, a spirit which is too apt to regard the catching of votes as the one great object to be pursued and attained, no matter by what means. ”

“ Britain cannot. The party system has always been more rigidly organised in America than in England. In Britain on the Left side, counting Liberal, Labour, and Communist together, there are eight or ten distinct schools of political thought and intention; on the Right side there are five or six. The British voter grows more and more erratic and uncertain under the present idiotic system, and the results of General Elections more and more silly and incalculable.
The idea of Proportional Representation is now nearly a century old. ”

“ We may possibly have a General Election in 1912 - which God forbid; but supposing we do have one, and suppose the Socialist applies his doctrine of abstaining from supporting any party but his own. Let all working men abstain from voting at the next General Election for the Liberal party, and what would the result be? We would either have a Government of reaction or no Government at all. Socialism would be all very well if I were speaking under the shade of trees in the Garden of Eden ”

“ Free Trade, I do not think there is much political feeling in the country on any question! There will be, in the House of Commons, no party so strong as to be able to form a Government which can be bargained [!] to stand for three months, if the old rule is to be acted on as to Government majorities. The question then is, how are parties to be reconstituted? Consequently our friends of the statesman and functionary class must take counsel to themselves, and see what is to be done in order to inspire some fresh enthusiasm, by and by, in the country, on behalf of the old Liberal party! ”

“ It is perfectly natural to be asked, after trying to prove that partisanship is praiseworthy, and that a “national” party is out of the question, whether one party is so much better than the other that it deserves strenuous and continued support. For the purposes of the argument, it is necessary to consider only the two great parties in the State—the Liberal and the Tory. These represent the main tendencies which actuate mankind in public affairs—the go-ahead and the stand-still. ”

“ It was not until after the Reform Act of 1832 that even the germ of a Liberal party made its appearance in English politics, and it was not until after the Reform Act of 1867 that such a party held office. The history of Liberalism in the early period of its growth is the history of its slow and painful progress through people who did not consciously accept it.
The general Tory view of political society was most forcibly expressed after the French Revolution. ”

“ May I ask, sir, if you favour the Liberal school of thought? We would be far from disdaining your assistance in our imminent campaign for convincing the people of the essential truths of Liberalism.”
“I incline, if anything, to Labour, Mr. Warp; and hope to assist that party to very considerable success at your next elections; for, if I may say so, you cannot sweep a party out of existence for long by talking like a pack of silly schoolboys of biscuits, motor-cars and secret documents.” ”

“ We know now, indeed, that the British Democracy is neither Liberal nor Conservative in its permanent convictions, and therefore the party triumph is not as altogether satisfactory and secure as it should be. ”

“ Is not the Liberal party in the House of Commons split up into discordant sections and held together solely by the authority of a leader in his seventy-fifth year and without any visible heir of his power? ”

“ The Liberal party, as a matter of simple fact, have always been the historic enemy of the working class. They are but a wing of the capitalist class, whose interests are fundamentally opposed to the interests of the workers. From the so-called Reform Bill of 1832 to the present day, they have held political power for a longer time than the Tories; they have won election after election on the clear and definite promise, repeated by them again and again in the most solemn terms, to bring in the franchise for the worker and to improve his industrial condition. ”

“ Farm Labourers’ wages have risen one-half or more, and in some counties they have nearly doubled since the days of Protection and the Corn Law.
But the Liberal Party has done more than give the mass of our people a real representation and a real power in Parliament. It has done more than give them freedom for their industry. It has given them the means to understand what Parliament is doing, and what it ought to do, for it has given them the vast advantage of a Free Press, and to their children the not less vast advantage of cheap and good Schools. ”

“ The politicians of Great Britain, under the pressure of various accidental and some fundamental necessities, are being forced towards an honest democracy and efficient government. But they resist with great activity and ingenuity.
A Bill for what is called Proportional Representation, but which is really sane voting, has recently been rejected by the House of Commons by a majority of 238 to 144. It had the official support of the Liberal Party. ”

“ Its importance arises not merely from the fact that the culmination of the power of the Liberals during the nineteenth century was attained at this point, but from the further fact that it was during these years that the Liberal party was transformed and popularized so as to be made for the first time really worthy of the name which it bears. ”

“ Government would have no hope of permanence if it rested only on the support of the extreme members of the party. If the party was ever to be reconstituted it must loyally accept the changes which had been made, admit within its limits the more conservative-minded of the reformers, and take its stand on the great Conservative instincts of the nation—the love of the State Church, and the dread of any attack upon property. For the formation of a Liberal Conservative Government the time had not yet arrived, and the present Government of compromise was therefore allowed to continue. ”

“ Lacking a central idea of its own, and necessarily failing to nourish on borrowed ones, there is nothing before the Liberal party but decay. For progress in the future we must look to a party which has an ideal and is prepared to stand by it." [639]
Before the general election of 1906 Socialists wrote: "The political force of Liberalism is spent. During the last twenty years its aspirations and its watchwords, its ideas of daily life, and its conceptions of the universe, have become increasingly distasteful to the ordinary citizen as he renews his youth from generation to generation. ”

“ The facts taken altogether look as if those constituencies to which we might naturally look for the return of members of more than average personal eminence were committed, in the choice of their representatives, not only to one particular political party, but to absolute indifference to every claim beyond membership of that particular party. It would be unreasonable to expect a conscientious Conservative to vote for a Liberal candidate; but one might expect any party, in choosing candidates for such constituencies as the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, to put forward its best men. ”

“ The formation of a Liberal Party, with a platform avowedly based on modern social science, has become essential. Such a party, to be in harmony with our traditions and our creed, to arrest in our democracy the process of class stratification which threatens to destroy it, must not draw its members from the ranks of manual labour alone, but from all elements of our population. It should contain all the liberal professions, and clerks and shopkeepers, as well as manual workers ”

“ The Liberal-Unionist members who had come back safely to Westminster, having broken with their party organisations and defied the Grand Old Man, were very particular to call themselves Liberals and to deny that they had severed themselves in any degree from the principles and traditions of Liberalism. They banned Tory colours and Tory clubs. When they attended public meetings they took care that the complexion of the platform should be Liberal Unionist. ”

“ The Liberal Party had already crumbled before the rise of a nominally Socialist Labour Party, placed in office, though hardly in power, by a popular vote largely drawn from former Liberals. The payment of Members helped to bring into keen politics the trade unions whose leaders saw their way to an honourable career in the House of Commons. ”

“ In terms of the future, our country has a hung parliament where no party has an overall majority and we have some deep and pressing problems - a huge deficit, deep social problems, a political system in need of reform.
For those reasons I aim to form a proper and full coalition between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats.
I believe that is the right way to provide this country with the strong, the stable, the good and decent government that I think we need so badly.
Nick Clegg and I are both political leaders that want to put aside party differences and work hard for the common good and for the national interest. ”

“ In England the unity of what is called the Liberal party, and with its unity its ability to sustain a government, are now in great measure lost, as would appear at once if the commanding influence of its present chief were removed. ”

“ Differences in the expression of these tendencies there are bound to be, according as circumstances vary; but, generally speaking, the Tory is the party of those who, being satisfied with things as they are, are content to stand still, while the Liberal is the party of those who, thinking there is ample room for improvement, desire to go ahead. ”

“ Most of the opponents from the Labour side contented themselves with twitting the Liberal politicians with change of heart upon the question. They behaved just as the Liberal Party hacks did in 1918 because they are exactly the same sort of men. The mentality of the party hack, Liberal, Labour, or Conservative, is very much on a level in this matter. Most of the big men in all parties are for Proportional Representation, because they know they are outstanding enough to survive its establishment. ”

“ A mass of votes will drift back to Liberalism, which by that time will be seen [Pg 113] to be just as good as Labour or better, and the crowd of unemployed, the poor, the disinherited, and all who are really weary and angry with the exploits and adventures of the untrammelled rich, will turn their faces away from the Labour Party and Parliamentary methods towards revolution. But the Liberal politicians will take little heed of the latter drift because it is outside the scope of Parliamentary procedure. ”

“ For the rank and file of Labour is not enamoured of bureaucratic rule, and, if there were a reasonable likelihood of coalition with a powerful Liberal Party along the lines of the “Five Years’ Plan,” many electors who now vote Labour, without a close Labour attachment, would vote Liberal. ”

“ And though the Liberal party has created a considerable number of peers during the last few years, it has never recovered from the secession of Liberal Unionists, and it would take many years of Liberal supremacy and large drafts upon the Prerogative of the Crown to restore even the comparative balance of early Victorian days. ”

“ Broadly speaking, the Liberal party stands for progressive legislation in accordance with freedom of social development and advanced ethical ideas. It claims to represent government by the people, by means of trust in the people, in a sense which denies genuine popular sympathy to its opponents. ”

“ For the last thirty years, the liberal party have had the almost uncontrolled direction of the affairs of the nation. One by one, they have beat down all the ancient safeguards of British industry, and given effect to the whole theoretical doctrines of the political economists. So complete has been their ascendency in the national councils—so entire in general the acquiescence of the nation in their direction, that without one single exception ALL their doctrines have been carried into practice ”