John Morley

If France, now unable to secure our co-operation, still thought the Italian danger grave enough to warrant single-handed intervention, how does that support the inference that she must certainly be ready to invade England next?

He ridicules the conclusion that the invasion was at our doors, from such contested allegations as that the Châlons farmers refused the loan of horses from the government, because they would soon be wanted back again for the approaching…

With emphasis, he insists that we have no adequate idea of the predisposing power which an immense series of measures of preparation for war on our own part, have in actually begetting war.

They familiarise ideas which when familiar lose their horror, and they light an inward flame of excitement of which, when it is habitually fed, we lose the consciousness.

This application of cool and reasoned common sense to actual probabilities seldom avails against imaginations excited by random possibilities; and he made little way.

He was keen from the lessons of experience, to expose the ever indestructible fallacy that mighty armaments make for peace.

But I suppose that the duty of choosing the lesser evil binds me; the difficulty is to determine what the lesser evil is.

How long will you suffer Yourselves to be Humbugged by PALMERSTONIANISM, and Robbed by the “Services,” and others interested in a War Expenditure, even in times of Peace? ...

You have the power in your own hands if you will only exert it.

Reform the House of Commons, AND DO IT THOROUGHLY THIS TIME.

Why should we resolve to do nothing because what I propose to you may not be the exact demand of the petition?

This was vital. (2) They never got or could get within the doors of the masses, for they smelt of class.

It was necessary to provide for the savings of the people with (a) safety, (b) cheapness, (c) convenience.

Behind all this I had an object of first-rate importance, which has been attained: to provide the minister of finance with a strong financial arm, and to secure his independence of the City by giving him a large and certain command of…

He was deeply convinced, he said and kept saying, “that all excess in the public expenditure beyond the legitimate wants of the country is not only a pecuniary waste, but a great political, and above all, a great moral evil.

Gladstone had the signal distinction of creating the public opinion by which he worked, and warming the climate in which his projects throve.

Such extraordinary power over others had its mainspring in the depths and zeal of his own conviction and concern.

The truth is, that what marks him from other chancellors is exactly the dominating hold gained by the social question in all its depth and breadth upon his most susceptible imagination.

In his “musings for the good of man,” Liberation of Intercourse, to borrow his own larger name for free trade, figured in his mind’s eye as one of the promoting conditions of abundant employment.

And I am most anxious that the public should begin to take a closer and more practical view of the topics which you have done so much to bring into prominence.

The statesman’s business is not to invent ideas in finance, but to create occasions and contrive expedients for applying them.

Cobden discovered no new economic truths that I know of, but his perception of the bearings of abstract economic truths upon the actual and prospective circumstances of his country and the world, made him the most original economic…

Gladstone was able to use wise and bold finance as the lever for enlarging all the facilities of life, and diffusing them over the widest area.

No chancellor of the exchequer,” he once said, “is worth his salt who makes his own popularity either his first consideration, or any consideration at all, in administering the public purse.

In my opinion, the chancellor of the exchequer is the trusted and confidential steward of the public.