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For 50 years they had had free trade in Great Britain and they had a greater mass of sordid, miserable destitution in this country than could be found in any other country on the face of the globe. If tariff reform would solve the question there would be no poverty in America, protection was never intended to benefit the working classes.

— Keir Hardie

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More quotes by Keir Hardie

Socialism proposes to dethrone the brute-god Mammon and to lift humanity into its place.

“Their honesty,” said honest Keir Hardie, “is proverbial. They borrow and lend on word of mouth, and the repudiation of a debt is almost unknown.”

Socialism does not propose to abolish land or capital. Only a genius could have thought of this as an objection to Socialism. Socialism proposes to abolish capitalism and landlordism.

They of the Labour party were free-traders to a man.

No law can give freedom to a people which is dependent upon some power or authority outside themselves for the necessaries of life. The owners of the means of life can dictate the terms upon which all who are not owners are to be permitted to live.

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Keir Hardie (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.