Cobbett- Ruaral rides

The seminar on Cobbett was one of the more simple topics i felt! Cobbett was a pamphleteer, farmer and journalist. His series, Rural Rides, was a publication of his writing about his travels around the countryside. He would write about his experiences of the country and what he found. I did feel however that these could be biased views and he may not see the real issue.
the issues i feels he may have been neglecting slightly are those of the Corn tax effecting the rural population and the Poor law which was working during the time he was writing. The corn law was a way that the government were trying to impose a higher tax on importation of food into Britain. It forced more production of crop in England which was in turn making the food more expensive. this was forcing more into poverty.
The farmers were at this time also being forced more into the cities and out of the countryside. This was due to the private land owners buying up the land that had previously been common land. it was known as enclosure rights, taking away the rights of the common land. The following trouble was then that of the farmers needing somewhere to work. the only place in the city to work was the factories. the conditions in the inner city factories were dismal. Yet it was preferable to the work houses created to house the poor who were not working. Utilitarianism was believed in greatly around this time. Therefore the work houses were made so terribly dire that the workers would rather go to work in the factories than stay in these work houses. this is a utilitarian idea as it was making the people seek pleasure away from the dreadful pain of workhouses.
Another measure created to deal with the increasing poor population was the Poor law. this was a measure where the criminals who the government did not want to have to pay to keep imprisoned, were sent to Australasia. It was seen as ultimately beneficial to the entire nation; it got rid of expensive convicts and created a population of areas of land that were not desirable to the more wealthy communities.
We also discussed how the average graduate would end up in their first year after graduation would have about £50 spare cash to live. We were considering why people then carry on attending university, why people don't revolt against the many deductions that are made from them and accept that is what is their situation. There were many reasons that we each discovered were slightly different. I believe it is the promise of better things which encourage people still to attend university. A good point which was brought up is that of the stigma attached to the people who claim benefits. People would rather have a job of any sort than have the attached judgment of lazy. This is still similar to the idea of the work houses, the utilitarian idea of seeking pleasure and moving away from pain. The pleasure will be getting the job and earning, the pain would be having to deal with humiliation of claiming the benefits.
I am not sure if i would call Cobbett a serious journalist. I feel his writing was more descriptive and full of bias and unfounded views rather than serious journalistic opinions.