Samuel Smiles：Thrift, Excerpt 321

About that time, trade was in a wretched condition. The handloom weavers were almost entirely without employment. Privation and suffering prevailed on every side, and these were often borne with silent and noble heroism. Various remedies were proposed for the existing evils. Socialism, chartism, and free trade, were the favourites. Theories of the wildest and most impracticable character abounded, and yet even in those dark days there were instances of men who had to some degree made the future predominate over the present, who could fall back upon their reserve in the Joint Stock or Savings Bank to tide them over into better times. Believing in the beneficent results of free trade, Mr. Sikes was equally convinced that national prosperity, as well as national adversity, might be attended with great evils, unless the masses were endowed with habits of providence and thrift, and prepared by previous education for the "good time coming" so eloquently predicted by the orators of the League.

Source： https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/14418
Locator：Excerpt 321 · Verified：2026-10-19 · Verification：Short excerpt

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