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 CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN

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HIS "THE DUMA IS DEAD: LONG LIVE THE DUMA," SPEECH 1

(1906)

The majority of you have not come here — and I think you will wish this to be understood — as the accredited delegates of your respective parliaments. This gathering is unofficial. But you are here, if I read the times aright, in the fullest sense as the accredited representatives of your fellow countrymen and women, and in this capacity you are entitled to express, with an authority attaching to no other assembly in the world, the conscience, the reason, and the senti- ments of a large and not the least influential portion of the human race. In addressing you I feel that I am not so much speaking to the representatives of diverse States of Europe and America as to the exponents of principles and hopes that are common to us all, and without which our life on earth would be a life without horizon or prospect.

With the purpose of your mission, let me say at once, his majesty's government desire un-

1 Delivered in the French language in the Royal Gallery of the House of Lords, London, at the opening of the Interparliamentary Conference, July 23, 1906. From a copy in English kindly furnished by Sir Henry for this work.

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