Political Extracts
Posts in The Copybook tagged ‘Political Extracts’
Railways not only brought fresh, healthy food to the urban poor, they improved the conditions of working animals.
In the 1850s, London could not house enough cows for its population, so dairymen watered down their milk from cholera-infested roadside pumps, adding snails or sheep’s brains to thicken it (more). No legislation could have solved that dilemma of supply and demand. But railways did.
It is not politicians and their policies that create wealth, but the hard work and ingenuity of ordinary people.
Richard Cobden MP led the fight in the House of Commons to repeal the Corn Laws, which taxed imports of grain in order to shore up Britain’s agriculture industry. The laws caused the price of bread to rise, making the poor poorer; after the laws were repealed, Britain became the manufacturing centre of the world.
Josiah Wedgwood’s promotional gift made Abolitionism fashionable.
The Committee for the Abolition of the Slave Trade, founded in 1787 by Thomas Clarkson, distributed a tasteful cameo of its emblem done in jasperware by Josiah Wedgwood. Clarkson (who sent some to Benjamin Franklin, President of Pennsylvania) later expressed his warm appreciation.
The extraordinary productivity and social mobility of the Victorian era is to the credit not of the governing class, but of the working man.
Samuel Smiles inspired millions of ordinary workers to achieve their dreams. In this passage, he urges them to rely on their own strength of character rather than on the State’s empty promises.