Samuel Smiles：Thrift, Excerpt 470

"What a contrast between now and say only a hundred years ago!" Certainly there is a very great contrast. England was not a manufacturing country a hundred years ago. We imported nearly everything, except corn, wool, and flax. We imported the greatest part of our iron from Spain, Sweden, Germany, and Russia. We imported our pottery from Holland, our hats from Flanders, our silk from France, our cloth and carpets from Belgium. Our cotton manufactures, our woollen and flax manufactures, our machine manufactures, could scarcely be said to exist. Coal could scarcely be had, for the coal-pits could not be kept clear of water.

Source： https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/14418
Locator：Excerpt 470 · Verified：2026-10-19 · Verification：Short excerpt

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