Letter: Overdue return to Georgian values

Sir: I have just come across this extract from Thomas Paine's Rights of Man:

When it shall be said in any country in the world: "My poor are happy; neither ignorance nor distress is to be found among them; my jails are empty of prisoners, my streets of beggars; the aged are not in want; the taxes are not oppressive; the rational world is my friend because I am a friend of its happiness" - when these things can be said, then may that country boast of its constitution and government

CLIFFORD A BROWN

Bognor Regis,

West Sussex