“I have always been strong for a large increase of labour representation in the House of Commons…Now, I dare say the day may come—it may come sooner than some think—when the Liberal party will be transformed or superseded by some new party; but before the working population of this country have their destinies in their own hands, as they will assuredly do within a measurable distance of time, there is enough ground to be cleared which only the Liberal party is capable of clearing. The ideal of the Liberal party is that view of things which believes that the welfare of all is bound up with injustice being done to none. Above all, according to the ideal of the Liberal party—that party from which I beseech you, not for my sake, but for your own, not to sever yourselves—the ideal of the Liberal party is this—that in the mass of the toilers on land all the fountains of national life abide and the strongest and most irresistible currents flow.”

Speech in Newcastle (21 May 1894), quoted in 'Mr. Morley At Newcastle', The Times (22 May 1894), p. 11.

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John Morley, 1st Viscount Morley of Blackburn 37
British Liberal statesman, writer and newspaper editor 1838–1923

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