Many a Fine Tune

I was reading about Walter Bagehot's childhood (I do know this is sad but it's what I do) and found a bizarre letter from Bagehot Pere to the schoolboy Walter, in which the father recites great chunks from Palmerston's 1842 speech on free trade. My Dad never sent me letters like that when I was a teenager. But this last is besides the point, because I found myself taken with what Palmerston had to say.

Why are lands the most distant from each other brought almost into contact by that very ocean which seems to divide them? Why, sir, it is that man may be dependent upon man… It is that commerce may freely go forth, leading civilisation with one hand, and peace with the other, to render mankind happier, wiser, better. Sir, this is the dispensation of Providence, this is the decree of that power which created and disposed the universe; but in the face of it, with arrogant presumptuous folly, the dealers in restrictive duties fly, fettering  the inborn energies of man, and setting up their miserable legislation instead of the great standing laws of nature.

Free Trade Dude

Pretty neat really. And now pose the question to yourself - does the modern United Kingdom stand for that vision of free trade or not?

More importantly, BFP, after a few days of dissolution, hit the roads again this morning with a resounding thud. Forty-five minutes. I was going to fast today but am seriously contemplating having a glass of red and a banana. Life in the fast lane.