In 1840, Secretary at War Thomas Macaulay treated the Union Jack like a bully’s visiting card, but backbencher William Gladstone believed it deserved better.
In 1840, the British Government, outraged at Peking’s crackdown on the smuggling of opium by British merchants from Bengal, declared war on the Chinese Empire. On April 8th, William Gladstone rose in the Commons to denounce the Government’s belligerent attitude, deploring the execrable drug traffic and taking exception to the way Secretary-at-War Thomas Macaulay wrapped it in the Union Jack.
Amid the Don Pacifico Affair, William Gladstone told Lord Palmerston that pride in his own country did not excuse bossing others about like a global schoolmaster.
In 1850, Foreign Secretary Viscount Palmerston sent the British fleet to Athens, to force the Greek Government into paying compensation to David ‘Don’ Pacifico, a British subject, for losses suffered during a riot. In a stormy session on June 25th Palmerston won over the Commons by asserting that a British subject should enjoy all the security once enjoyed by Roman citizens. William Gladstone disagreed.
William Gladstone complained that some politicians talk about freedom but don’t trust the people enough to let them have any.
As a young Tory, William Gladstone had opposed extending the vote to more people; by 1878, and now a Liberal Party MP and former Prime Minister, he was all in favour of it. Justifying his U-turn at Oxford University’s newly-founded Palmerston Club, he explained that it is not enough to talk of liberty: you have to trust the people with it.
William Gladstone urges Government not to take away from people the things they have a right to do for themselves.
In 1889, at the opening of Reading and Recreation Rooms at the Saltney Literary Institute in Cheshire, Prime Minister William Gladstone spoke warmly of the benefits of lifelong, self-directed education for the working man, and warned against letting Government take it over.
William Gladstone warns voters not to leave foreign policy in the hands of interventionist politicians.
In a speech in Scotland in 1879, William Gladstone apologised for raising the subject of Foreign Policy, but explained that ordinary voters cannot afford to ignore such matters. Once Britain starts meddling in international affairs, the result will be war, and taxpayers foot the bill.
William Gladstone explains that a truly ‘exceptional nation’ respects the equality and rights of all nations.
In 1879, William Gladstone MP berated his rival Benjamin Disraeli, the Prime Minister, for turning Russia into Europe’s bogeyman. Patriotism, Gladstone said, is a healthy thing, but the true patriot is generous, and never claims for his own country rights and dignities he denies to others.