“If all men were upon an equality in point of means, England would become what the wilds of America are, inhabited by wild men; nobody would work except just to provide food and raiment for the day; and our country would become the most beggarly upon the earth, instead of being what it formerly was (and I hope and trust will be again) the pride of its people and the envy of the world.”

‘To the Labourers of England’, Political Register (2 April 1831), p. 8
1830s

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William Cobbett 58
English pamphleteer, farmer and journalist 1763–1835

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