The Copy Book

Roses and Poor-Rates

When Robert Southey called for a fairer and greener economy, Thomas Macaulay warned that only politicians and bureaucrats would thank him.

Abridged

Part 1 of 2

1830

Queen Victoria 1837-1901

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© Jonathan Billinger, Geograph. Licence: CC BY-SA 2.0.

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Roses and Poor-Rates

© Jonathan Billinger, Geograph. Licence: CC BY-SA 2.0. Source
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Pump Cottage in Harpford, Devon. Southey loved chocolate-box cottages with their patina of weather-stains and lichens, and loathed the plain terraced houses of new manufacturing towns which (he complained) time would not mellow. Better, he cried, that our whole industrial economy should collapse and send us back to nature. Macaulay replied by accusing Southey of retailing the myth of the merry peasant. “Rose-bushes and poor-rates,” he grumbled “rather than steam-engines and independence. Mortality and cottages with weather-stains, rather than health and long life with edifices which time cannot mellow. Does Mr Southey” he asked querulously “think that the body of the English peasantry live, or ever lived, in substantial or ornamented cottages, with box-hedges, flower-gardens, bee-hives, and orchards?”

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Introduction

There is nothing new in calling for high taxes to subsidise a fairer, greener economy. Poet Robert Southey did it in 1829, dreaming of a de-industrialised England of apple-cheeked labourers, charming cottages and smiling prosperity. Macaulay dubbed it ‘rose-bushes and poor-rates, rather than steam-engines and independence,’ and reminded him what State-funded projects too often look like.

A PEOPLE, he [Robert Southey] tells us, may be too rich: a government cannot: for a government can employ its riches in making the people richer. The wealth of the people is to be taken from them, because they have too much, and laid out in works, which will yield them more.*

We are really at a loss to determine whether Mr Southey’s reason for recommending large taxation is that it will make the people rich, or that it will make them poor. But we are sure that, if his object is to make them rich, he takes the wrong course.

It scarcely ever happens that any private man or body of men will invest property in a canal, a tunnel, or a bridge, but from an expectation that the outlay will be profitable to them. No work of this sort can be profitable to private speculators, unless the public be willing to pay for the use of it. The public will not pay of their own accord for what yields no profit or convenience to them.*

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* Even Edmund Burke (1729-1797), known in Westminster as a scourge of government overspend and empire-building, lauded taxation as a ‘refreshing rain’ irrigating the national economy. William Cobbett (1762-1835) set him straight in his characteristic, no-nonsense fashion: see Hard Rain.

* Or more precisely, for what they hope will yield profit or convenience. See The South Sea Bubble. On the other hand, some apparently hopeless investments can turn out surprisingly well. See The Investor of Nisibis.

Précis

In 1829, poet Robert Southey proposed a de-industrialised Britain in which increased taxes would be spent on infrastructure projects to boost national well-being. Thomas Babington Macaulay declared Southey’s plan doomed to fail, and began his explanation by saying that private investors take care to judge an infrastructure project on how much the public will use it. (56 / 60 words)

In 1829, poet Robert Southey proposed a de-industrialised Britain in which increased taxes would be spent on infrastructure projects to boost national well-being. Thomas Babington Macaulay declared Southey’s plan doomed to fail, and began his explanation by saying that private investors take care to judge an infrastructure project on how much the public will use it.

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Variations: 1.increase the length of this precis to exactly 60 words. 2.reduce the length of this precis to exactly 50 words. 3.introduce one of the following words into the precis: because, besides, if, not, otherwise, unless, until, who.

Word Games

Jigsaws Based on this passage

Express the ideas below in a single sentence, using different words as much as possible. Do not be satisfied with the first answer you think of; think of several, and choose the best.

Southey wanted taxes raised. He wanted the money spent on public works. Macaulay said it would be wasted.

Variation: Try rewriting your sentence so that it uses one or more of these words: 1. Call 2. Hike 3. Warn

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