[Anon.], ‘A Word to our Brethren the Operatives, as to their Present Position, and their Chances of Bettering Themselves’ [editorial], The Expositor (1851)

The commencement of the second half of the nineteenth century is pregnant with a truth which cannot fail most powerfully to influence the future condition of ourselves and our descendants. The social history of man has been that of barbarous infancy, intellectual progress, and helpless decay. It is a proper use of our faculties, a proper regard for our rights, a self-respect which enables us to claim and to maintain the position due to our high influence on the well-being of the commonwealth; the exercise of the moral power of enforcing our claims by a reputation for the sterling and domestic virtues; and last, but not least, convincing the unwilling among the exclusive class that we are the producers, the improvers, and the fabricators of all that constitutes their circle of enjoyments, as well as of all that really tends to a healthy condition, mental and physical.