Tuesday 7 February 2012

Keir Hardie remarks on diamond jubilee

'Even under a representative system of government it is possible to paralyse a nation by maintaining the fiction that a reigning family is a necessity of good government. Now, one of two things must be – either the British people are fit to govern themselves or they are not. If they are, an hereditary ruler who in legislation has more power than the whole nation is an insult. Despotism and monarchy are compatible; democracy and monarchy are an unthinkable connection.
If we are for the Queen we are not for her subjects. The throne represents the power of caste – class rule. Round the throne gather the unwholesome parasites who cling to the system which lends itself to their disordered condition. The toady who crawls through the mire of self-abasement to enable him to bask in the smile of royalty is the victim of a diseased organism. No healthy, well-developed people could for one moment tolerate an institution which belongs to the childhood of the race, and which in these latter days is the centre, if not the source, of the corrupting influences which constitute Society.
The great mind, the strong heart, the detestation of wrong, the love of truth whether in cot or palace will always command my respect. But to worship an empty form, to make pretence to believe a gilded mediocrity indispensable to the wellbeing of the nation – where is the man who will so far forget what is due to his manhood?
In this country loyalty to the Queen is used by the profit-mongers to blind the eyes of the people. We can have but one feeling in the matter – contempt for thrones and for all who bolster them up.'

3 comments:

  1. Hello, Where and when was this speech made? I am a history student looking to use this source as part of my work and can't find it widely referenced. Any ideas about where, in a book, I could find it?

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    1. Hi David, Yes it's from 'Keir Hardie: His Writings and Speeches' published by 'Forward' Printing and Publishing Company Ltd in Glasgow. Hardie did not give this as a speech but wrote it as an article in the Labour Leader for June 19th 1897, the year of Victoria's diamond jubilee. Books of Hardie's words are few and far between - because they're as brilliant as they ever were and therefore suppressed. They must be. People are never done invoking him and then go against what he said.

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  2. When I've recovered from this cold I'll check and type out the whole article and pop it on here.

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