The Copybook
Short passages for reading, drawn from history, legend, poetry and fiction.
Short passages for reading, drawn from history, legend, poetry and fiction.
Samuel Sidney, a Victorian expert on Australian matters, explained how cutting tax and regulation on Britain’s global trade made everyone better off.
Writing for ‘Household Words,’ Samuel Sidney, a rising authority on Australia, was full of praise for William Huskisson MP and his then-unfashionable free trade policies. Sidney believed that by adding new trade partners far beyond Europe, British business had raised living standards, cut prices and created jobs for millions worldwide.
Within little more than half a century a British penal colony turned into a prosperous, free-trade democracy.
Australia is a partner to be proud of: a sovereign constitutional monarchy with our Queen as Head of State, a member of the Commonwealth of Nations, and a prosperous democracy built on and dedicated to free trade that gave us priceless support in two world wars.
A sympathetic understanding of the trials of other people is essential for getting along.
In his motivational book Character (1871), Samuel Smiles reminded us that getting along with others requires a willingness to pass over their weaknesses, faults and occasional offences, and gave the example of Queen Caroline Matilda of Denmark and Britain, sister of King George III.
The mother of the Roman Emperor goes to Jerusalem on a quest close to her heart.
In AD 326 Helen, mother of Emperor Constantine the Great, went to the Holy Land to search for the cross on which Jesus Christ had been crucified. The story is told in one of the oldest pieces of English literature, the epic Anglo-Saxon poem ‘Helen’ by Cynewulf.
The closure of slave plantations following the Abolition of Slavery Act in 1833 had a curious side-effect.
One might imagine that slave labour keeps prices down, but the break-up of the slave trade by the British Empire following the Abolition of Slavery Act in 1833 demonstrated just how mistaken that supposition is. Low prices come when free people do business together: more freedom, more business, lower prices.
Britain’s desperate defence against a much larger, better-prepared military machine was a costly victory.
The Battle of Britain took place in the summer of 1940, when the German Luftwaffe launched a frenzied attack first on the RAF, and then on civilians in London. In targeting London, however, Adolf Hitler allowed the overstretched RAF time to rebuild, a shift in policy that ultimately cost him dearly.