Introduction
In 1855, Cobden urged Parliament to tone down its anti-Russian rhetoric, not out of any fondness for St Petersburg’s domestic or foreign policy but because British influence was better felt in industrial innovation and international trade than in annexing land, toppling governments or rattling the Russian bear’s cage.
WHAT is the true source of national greatness? The path by which alone modern empires can hope to rise to supreme power and grandeur (would that we could impress this sentiment upon the mind of every statesman in Europe!) is that of labour and improvement.
Those illustrious commanders in the war of improvement, Watt and Arkwright,* with a band of subalterns — the thousand ingenious and practical discoverers who have followed in their train — have, with their armies of artisans, conferred a power and consequence upon England wholly independent of territorial increase.
England, with her steam-engine and spinning frame, has erected the standard of improvement, around which every nation of the world has already prepared to rally; England’s industrious classes, through the energy of their commercial enterprise, are at this moment influencing the civilisation of the whole world, above all, by acquiring and teaching to surrounding nations the beneficent attachment to peace.* Such are the moral effects of improvement in Britain.
Abridged
James Watt (1736-1819), who with Matthew Boulton (1728-1809) and William Murdoch (1754-1839) developed the first commercially viable steam engines, and Sir Richard Arkwright (1732-1792), who developed the factory system through his network of mills. See The Hat that Changed the World and Richard Arkwright.
Cobden subscribed to the view that countries whose publics are closely interlinked in trade do not fight one another, a claim borne out by history (first rule of business, do not shoot your customers). Such countries do seem to feel free to fight any country that is not closely allied in trade with them, which rather confirms his theory in an unhappy way. See Peace By Free Trade.
About the Author
Richard Cobden (1804-1865) was the son of a bankrupt Sussex farmer. By a mixture of talent and audacity, Richard rose from sweeping his uncle’s warehouse floor to become a Manchester mill-owner and then Liberal Party MP for Rochdale in Lancashire. He came to prominence in the late 1830s as a vocal critic of London’s panicky and greedy policies towards Russia and later China. Soon afterwards, he emerged as the leader of the Parliamentary rebellion against economic protectionism, i.e. the policy of using sanctions and trade tariffs to ring-fence the profits of domestic corporations and cripple the economies of foreign countries. The Corn Laws, the flagship protectionist policy that had brought thousands close to starvation, were repealed in 1846. The campaign almost ruined him financially, but he recovered and his final triumph was the Cobden-Chevalier Treaty of 1860, a landmark free-trade agreement between Britain and France which put centuries of mistrust behind us. Richard married Catherine Anne Williams, from Wales, in 1840 and they brought up five daughters together.
Archive
Word Games
Sevens Based on this passage
Suggest answers to this question. See if you can limit one answer to exactly seven words.
Variations: 1.expand your answer to exactly fourteen words. 2.expand your answer further, to exactly twenty-one words. 3.include one of the following words in your answer: if, but, despite, because, (al)though, unless.
Spinners Find in Think and Speak
For each group of words, compose a sentence that uses all three. You can use any form of the word: for example, cat → cats, go → went, or quick → quickly, though neigh → neighbour is stretching it a bit.
This exercise uses words found in the accompanying passage.
1 Around. Discoverer. Moral.
2 Have. Surround. Teaching.
3 Already. Improvement. Power.
Variations: 1. include direct and indirect speech 2. include one or more of these words: although, because, despite, either/or, if, unless, until, when, whether, which, who 3. use negatives (not, isn’t, neither/nor, never, nobody etc.)
Adjectives Find in Think and Speak
For each word below, compose sentences to show that it may be used as an adjective. Adjectives provide extra information about a noun, e.g. a black cat, a round table, the early bird etc..
This exercise uses words found in the accompanying passage.
1 Moral. 2 Hopeful. 3 Territorial. 4 Greatest. 5 Alone. 6 Great. 7 Greater. 8 Powerless. 9 Modern.
Variations: 1.show whether your adjective can also be used as e.g. a noun, verb or adverb. 2.show whether your adjective can be used in comparisons (e.g. good/better/best). 3.show whether your adjective can be used in attributive position (e.g. a dangerous corner) and also in predicate position (this corner is dangerous).
High Tiles Find in Think and Speak
Make words (three letters or more) from the seven letters showing below, using any letter once only. Each letter carries a score. What is the highest-scoring word you can make?
Your Words ()
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