on his first travels, he decided to inquire into the position of the
poorest classes in the countries he visited. He recognised that the
acknowledgment of the prescriptive right of every member of the
community to food and shelter was the first step to vast changes in
social legislation. Cavour's natural inclinations were more those of
a social and economic reformer than of the political innovator.
Gasworks, factories, hospitals, and prisons were in turn inspected.
Cavour went thoroughly into the questions of prison labour and diet.
He did not object to the treadmill in itself, but thought unfruitful
labour demoralising. Useful work with a small gain reformed the
convict. The prison fare seemed to him rather too good. He was
impressed by the bread "as good as the best that is consumed in the
clubs." Probably, next to the policeman, what impresses the thinking
foreigner most in the British Isles is the Englishman's loaf of white
bread. It might appear that in his close study of utilitarian England,
Cavour missed the greater England of imagination and adventure, of
genius and energy. It is true that he did homage at the shrine of
Shakespeare by a visit to Stratford-on-Avon, and that he declared that
there was no sight in the world equal to the Life Guards on their
superb black horses. But his real appreciation of the greatness of
England is not to be looked for in the jottings of the tourist; it
stands forth conspicuously in his few but singularly weighty early
political writings. The English politician whom he most admired was
Pitt. The preference was striking in a young man who was considered a
dangerous liberal in his own country. It showed amongst other things
an adoption of an English standpoint in appraising English policy
which is rare in a foreigner. "In attacking France," Cavour wrote,
"Pitt preserved social order in England, and kept civilisation in the
paths of that regular and gradual progress which it has followed
ever since." He said of him: "He loved power not as an end but as a