ABSTRACT
Condescending in tone and praising workers for avoiding violence during the stressful famine and, thus, for being exemplars of honourable Englishness, this text suggests that the working man should just accept hunger and oppression in an heroic manner. The trades-union attempts no more than it has a probability of achieving, and is invariably governed by practical calculations of the effect to be produced by its action. The operatives will no doubt suffer on patiently, if it must be so, thankfully accepting what assistance is rendered to them from private or public sources. The workmen cannot but see that the higher classes are in this matter their best friends, and that the policy which they favour would more rapidly deliver the destitute from their privations.
