thumb|Joe commenting on Pip's good fortune, by John McLenan At the time of The Great Exhibition of 1851, Dickens and Richard Henry Horne, an editor of Household Words, wrote an article comparing the British technology that created the Crystal Palace to the few artifacts exhibited by China: England represented an openness to worldwide trade and China isolationism. "To compare China and England is to compare Stoppage to Progress", they concluded. According to Trotter, this was a way to target the Tory government's return to protectionism, which they felt would make England the China of Europe. In fact, Household Words''' 17 May 1856 issue championed international free trade, comparing the constant flow of money to the circulation of the blood. In the 1850s, Dickens believed in "genuine" wealth, which critic Trotter compares to fresh banknotes, crisp to the touch, pure and odorless.
thumb|Joe commenting on Pip's good fortune, by John McLenan At the time of The Great Exhibition of 1851, Dickens and Richard Henry Horne, an editor of Household Words, wrote an article comparing the British technology that created the Crystal Palace to the few artifacts exhibited by China: England represented an openness to worldwide trade and China isolationism. "To compare China and England is to compare Stoppage to Progress", they concluded. According to Trotter, this was a way to target the Tory government's return to protectionism, which they felt would make England the China of Europe. In fact, Household Words''' 17 May 1856 issue championed international free trade, comparing the constant flow of money to the circulation of the blood. In the 1850s Dickens believed in "genuine" wealth, which critic Trotter compares to fresh banknotes, crisp to the touch, pure and odorless.