'[1850] A very large portion of the upper classes were, however,
very much opposed to the whole design [of The Great Exhibition of
the Works of Industry of All Nations]. An alarm was spread that
men would be brought together from all nations, revolutionists and
anarchists, especially from France, Italy, and Germany, and that
possibly, with the assistance of these invaders landing upon our
shores in the disguise of promoters of peace and industry, a
revolution of the disaffected among ourselves would be attempted.
Many were the dissuasions resorted to for the purpose of checking the
zeal of the committee, and causing the court to swerve from its
patronage of so bold a measure! The court, the government, the
committee, and the leading men in the mercantile interests of the
metropolis and the provinces, pursued the even tenor of their way,
amused at the folly of so many persons in a condition of life to know
better.
These fears proved how large a portion of the classes who occupy the
higher positions in society are ignorant of their own countrymen, and
of the world. They could not comprehend the scheme, sympathise with
its objects, or appreciate its benefits.
Many men of strong conservative tendencies who wished to persevere in
what they called the good old ways for ever, declared that the
shopkeepers of London would be ruined, and that western London would
be lost in a deluge of immorality, the result of such an influx of
wicked foreigners from every clime.'