“…there had been many changes in the national ideals in this country during the past 50 years. … liberty, so far as it regarded political power, freedom of opinion, and freedom of action, was rather more in men's minds in the fifties as an essential element in the making of national happiness and well-being than it was in the present day. … Republicanism was then a thing much talked of in England. It was curious to note how completely that had gone, and the discovery made that the true enemy of liberty and democracy was not a monarchy, but money, and the power that money exerted.”

— James Bryce, 1st Viscount Bryce

Speech to the Economic Students' Union at the School of Economics and Political Science, London (14 December 1900), quoted in The Times (17 December 1900), p. 13.
1900s

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James Bryce, 1st Viscount Bryce 19

British academic, jurist, historian and Liberal politician 1838–1922

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“In those days it was thought that only through the principle of nationality could freedom be established, and here, again, the changes which had happened had made this ideal seem less needed than it was. The principle of nationality was held to make for peace and was quite consistent with cosmopolitanism, which played a leading part in conceptions of what was needed for the happiness of the world. There was rather more in the old ideals of the moral element and less of the material element than there was to-day; there was, too, rather more of a sanguine spirit, and the golden age seemed nearer then it seemed now.”

James Bryce, 1st Viscount Bryce (1838–1922) British academic, jurist, historian and Liberal politician

Speech to the Economic Students' Union at the School of Economics and Political Science, London (14 December 1900), quoted in The Times (17 December 1900), p. 13.
1900s

“With the old ideal of liberty there was a great and urgent passion for freedom of opinion and freedom of speech. In the present day we cared very much less for freedom of opinion as an element in our national life than we did in those days. But we ought always to be on our guard against giving the smallest encouragement to any attempt of any kind of any dominant party to put down the free expression of anything which was not criminal.”

James Bryce, 1st Viscount Bryce (1838–1922) British academic, jurist, historian and Liberal politician

Speech to the Economic Students' Union at the School of Economics and Political Science, London (14 December 1900), quoted in The Times (17 December 1900), p. 13.
1900s

“One of the most remarkable changes was the extent to which indifference had come to prevail in matters of religious opinion. With regard to freedom of action, there would have been a stronger objection then than there was now in allowing the great majority of persons engaged in any particular trade to coerce the minority into their wishes. On the question of non-interference, he pointed out that the difficulties of laissez faire were now far more generally recognized than they were 40 or 50 years ago. For one reason or another there was now far less disposition to accept the doctrines of laissez faire than there was then, and they played a much smaller part in the ideal we formed of what was good for a nation.”

James Bryce, 1st Viscount Bryce (1838–1922) British academic, jurist, historian and Liberal politician

Speech to the Economic Students' Union at the School of Economics and Political Science, London (14 December 1900), quoted in The Times (17 December 1900), p. 13.
1900s

“To my mind the single essential element on which all discoveries will be dependent is human freedom.”

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James Bryce, 1st Viscount Bryce 19

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