Politics
In November 1838, he was invited to become the editor for the Leeds Times, a position which he accepted and filled until 1842. In May 1840, Smiles became Secretary to the Leeds Parliamentary Reform Association, an organisation that held to the six objectives of Chartism: universal suffrage for all men over the age of 21; equal-sized electoral districts; voting by secret ballot; an end to the need of MPs to qualify for Parliament, other than by winning an election; pay for MPs; and annual Parliaments.
As editor of the Leeds Times, he advocated radical causes ranging from women's suffrage to free trade to parliamentary reform. But by the late 1840s, Smiles became concerned about the advocation of physical force by Chartists Feargus O'Connor and George Julian Harney, though he seems to have agreed with them that the movement's current tactics were not effective, saying that "mere political reform will not cure the manifold evils which now afflict society." In the 1850s he seems to have completely given up on parliamentary reform and other structural changes as a means of social advance. For the rest of his career, he advocated individual self-improvement.
In 1842, Samuel Smiles left the Leeds Times and became secretary to the Leeds and Thirsk Railway and then, nine years later, the South Eastern Railway.
Read more about this topic: Samuel Smiles
Famous quotes containing the word politics:
“Of course, in the reality of history, the Machiavellian view which glorifies the principle of violence has been able to dominate. Not the compromising conciliatory politics of humaneness, not the Erasmian, but rather the politics of vested power which firmly exploits every opportunity, politics in the sense of the “Principe,” has determined the development of European history ever since.”
—Stefan Zweig (18811942)
“Politics begin where the masses are, not where there are thousands, but where there are millions, that is where serious politics begin.”
—Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (1870–1924)
“I am in politics because of the conflict between good and evil, and I believe that in the end good will triumph.”
—Margaret Thatcher (b. 1925)