THE INDUSTRIAL HISTORY OF ENGLAND

This little book is an attempt to relate in a short, concise, and simple form the main outlines of England’s economic and industrial history. It is meant to serve as an introduction to a fuller study of the subject and as a preliminary sketch which the reader can afterwards, if he wishes, fill in for himself from larger volumes dealing with special periods. At the same time it is hoped that this outline may succeed in giving not only to the student but to the ordinary reader a general view of a side of history too frequently neglected, but of the utmost importance to a proper understanding of the story of the English nation. I have endeavoured, as far as possible in the brief limits of a work like this, to connect economic and industrial questions with social, political, and military movements, believing as I do that only in some such mutual relation as this can historical events obtain their full significance.

The paramount necessity of simplicity and conciseness in an outline of this kind has compelled me to omit or mention very briefly many points which those who are familiar with my subject might well expect to be included. I have not, for instance, given elaborate statistical figures or voluminous footnotes upon the actual condition of our trade at various periods. Nor have I given more than an outline of the old and new Poor Laws, of financial measures, or of Banking; and with much reluctance I have omitted a discussion of Colonial Trade. But all these points, except perhaps the last, may be reserved by a student till he comes to much larger works; though a proper economic history of our Colonies yet remains to be written. Such as it is, however, I trust that this general view of the broad outlines of the growth of our wealth and industry in their relation to the general history of England may have its uses.

I have preferred not to weary my reader by constant references to authorities in footnotes, but have acknowledged my obligations to the various authorities consulted in an appendix, where suggestions for further reading will be found.

Since the original publication of this book in 1890, twenty-one years have elapsed, and the author, whose untimely death all scholars deplore, was able to embody various corrections which made this book harmonize more completely with his larger work Industry in England. On certain points he was led to modify his opinions—a course inevitable in a book covering so large a ground.

In the Preface to the Fifth Edition he wrote: “It has been said that I write with a prejudice against the owners of land: but this is not the case. The landed gentry of England happen for some centuries to have held the predominant power in the State and in society, and used it, not unnaturally, in many cases to further their own interests. It is the duty of an historian to point this out, but it need not therefore be thought that he had any special bias against the class. Any other class would certainly have done the same, as, for instance, mill-owners did among their own employées at the beginning of this century, and as, in all probability, the working classes will do when a further extension of democratic government shall have given them the opportunity.

“It is a fault of human nature that it can rarely be trusted with irresponsible power, and unless the influence of one class of society is counterbalanced more or less by that of another, there will always be a tendency to some injustice. I trust that my readers will bear this in mind when reading the following pages, and will believe that I intend no unfairness to the landed gentry of England, who have done much to promote the glory and stability of their country.”

The present, or eighteenth edition, has been carefully revised by Miss M. E. Hirst, M.A., and in addition to such revision she has written a new chapter (Chapter VIII.) which treats of the New Age of Industrial Expansion. The Industrial History of England is thus continued from the point at which the author left it and is carried up to the year 1911.

Under Roman sway Britain reached a high level of prosperity, and there is abundant evidence of this fact from Roman writers. They speak of the rich natural productions of Britain, of its numerous flocks and herds, of its minerals, of its various commercial facilities, and of the revenues derived from these sources. {2}

We know that there were no less than fifty-nine cities in Britain in the middle of the third century A.D., and the population was probably fairly large, though we have no certain statistics upon this point.1 Large quantities of corn were exported from the land, as many as 800 vessels being sent on one occasion to procure corn for the Roman cities in Germany. This shows a fairly advanced agriculture. Tin also was another important export, as indeed it has always been; and British slaves were constantly sent to the market at Rome. In the country itself great material works, such as walled towns, paved roads, aqueducts, and great public buildings were undertaken, and remained to testify to the greatness of their builders long after their name had become a distant memory. The military system of the Romans helped to produce industrial results, for the Roman soldiers took a prominent part in road-making, building dykes, working mines, and the great engineering operations that marked the Roman rule. The chief towns very largely owed their origin to their importance as military stations; and most of them, such as York, London, Chester, Lincoln, Bath, and Colchester, have continued ever since to be considerable centres of population, though of course with occasional fluctuations. When, however, the Romans finally left Britain (in A.D. 410), both trade and agriculture began to sink; the towns decayed; and for centuries England became the battle-ground of various predatory tribes from the Continent, who gradually effected a settlement, first in many kingdoms, but finally in one, and became known as “the English,” or the Anglo-Saxon nationality (A.D. 827).

Mere barter, however, is tedious and cumbersome; and although, up to the time of Alfred (A.D. 870), a large proportion, though not the whole, of English internal trade was carried on in this fashion, the use of metals for exchange begins to become common in the ninth century; and in A.D. 900 regular money payments by tenants are found recorded. And when we come to the levy of the Danegeld (A.D. 991)—the tax raised by Ethelred as a bribe to the Danes—it is clear that money coinage must have been widely diffused and in general circulation.

The distinctive feature of this combined agriculture was the three-field system. All the arable land near a village was divided into three strips, and was sown in the following manner:—A field was sown with wheat or rye in the autumn of one year; but owing to the slowness of primitive farming this crop would not be reaped in time for autumn sowing the next year, so the sowing took place in the following spring, the next crop being oats or barley; after this crop the land lay fallow for a year. Hence, of these three strips, every year one had wheat or rye, another oats or barley, while the third was fallow. The land of each individual was necessarily scattered between the various plots of his neighbours, so that each might have a fair share in land of good quality. This style of agriculture, of course, produced very meagre results, but it seems to have been sufficient for the simple wants of the occupiers of that epoch.

NOTE.—The theory of the mark (which is now regarded as very doubtful) is dealt with more fully in ch. iv. of my Industry in England, where also the evidences of communal village life are discussed; and I must refer my readers to this for more recent views.

CHAPTER I DOMESDAY BOOK AND THE MANORS

In Domesday, we find that the Eastern and East-central counties were those in which “free” tenants or soke-men were most prevalent. There they form from 27 to 45 per cent. of the inhabitants of those parts, though, taking all England into view, they only form 4 per cent. of the total population. The number of free tenants, however, was constantly increasing, even among tenants in villeinage, for the lord often found it more useful to have money, and was willing to allow commutation of services; or again, he might prefer not to cultivate all his own land (his demesne), but to let it for a fixed money rent to a villein to do what he could with it; and thus the villein became a free man, while the lord was sure of a fixed sum from his land every year, whether the harvest were good or bad.

First we will take a manor in Warwickshire in the Domesday Survey (1089)—Estone, now Aston, near Birmingham. It was one of a number belonging to William, the son of Ansculf, who was tenant in chief, but had let it to one Godmund, a sub-tenant in mesne. The Survey runs: “William Fitz-Ansculf holds of the King Estone, and Godmund of him. There are 8 hides.11 The arable employs 20 ploughs; in the demesne the arable employs 6 ploughs, but now there are no ploughs. There are 30 villeins with a priest, and 1 bondsman, and 12 bordars [i.e. cottars]. They have 18 ploughs. A mill pays 3 {17} shillings. The woodland is 3 miles long and half a mile broad. It was worth £4; now 100 shillings.”

Here we have a good example of a manor held by a sub-tenant, and containing all the three classes mentioned in § 4 of this chapter—villeins, cottars, and slaves (i.e. bondsmen). The whole manor must have been about 5000 acres, of which 1000 were probably arable land, which was of course parcelled out in strips among the villeins, the lord, and the priest. As there were only 18 ploughs among 30 villeins, it is evident some of them at least had to use a plough and oxen in common. The demesne land does not seem to have been well cultivated by Godmund the lord, for there were no ploughs on it, though it was large enough to employ six. Perhaps Godmund, being an Englishman, had been fighting the Normans in the days of Harold, and had let it go out of cultivation, or perhaps the former owner had died in the war, and Godmund had rented the land from the Norman noble to whom William gave it.

DIAGRAM OF A MANOR

THE KING (supreme landlord)

 

TENANT IN CHIEF, owning various manors.

 

A SUB-TENANT, or tenant in mesne, the lord of the manor below.

 

perhaps be some (6) Meadow land, as at Cuxham; but this always belonged to the lord, and if he let it out, he always charged an extra rent (say eightpence instead of sixpence an acre), for it was very valuable as affording a good supply of hay for the winter. Lastly, if the tenant could afford it, and wanted to have other land besides the common fields, where he could let his cattle lie, or to cultivate the ground more carefully, he could occupy (7) a close, or a portion of land specially marked off and let separately. The lord always had a close on his demesne, and the chief tenants would generally have one or two as well. The close land was of course rented more highly than land in the common fields.

The accompanying diagram shows a typical manor, held by a sub-tenant from a tenant in chief, who holds it of the king. It contains all the different kinds of land, though of course they did not always exist all in one manor. It also shows the manor-house, church, mill and village.14

Now, in the Domesday Book there is mention made of forty-one provincial cities or boroughs, most of them being the county towns of the present day. There are also ten fortified towns of greater importance than the others. They are Canterbury, York, Nottingham, Oxford, Hereford, Leicester, Lincoln, Stafford, Chester, and Colchester. London was a town apart, as it had always been, and was the only town which had a civic constitution, being regulated by a port-reeve and a bishop, and having a kind of charter, though afterwards the privileges of this charter were much increased. London was of course a great port and trading centre, and had many foreign merchants in it. It was then, as well as in subsequent centuries, the centre of English national life, and {25} the voice of its citizens counted for something in national affairs. The other great ports of England at that time were Bristol, Southampton, and Norwich, and as trade grew and prospered, many other ports rose into prominence (see p. 64).

We must now look for a moment at the work of the artisans’ gilds, or craft gilds, which afterwards became very important. These gilds are found not only in London, but in provincial towns. The London weavers are mentioned as a craft gild in the time of Henry I. (A.D. 1100), and most of these gilds seemed to have existed already for a long period. The Goldsmiths’ Gild claimed to have possessed land before the Norman Conquest, and it was fairly powerful in the days of Henry II. (A.D. 1154), for he found it convenient to try and suppress it. But it did not receive the public recognition of a charter till the fourteenth century. They arose, of course, first in the towns, and originally seem to have consisted of a small body of the leading men of a particular craft, to whom was confided the regulation of a particular industry, probably as soon as that industry was thought of sufficient importance to be regulated. The gild tried to secure good work on the part of its members, and attempted to suppress the production of wares by irresponsible persons who were not members of the craft. Their fundamental principle was, that a member should work not only for his own private advantage, but for the reputation and good of his trade; hence bad work was punished, and it is curious to note that night-work is prohibited as leading to poor work. The gild took care to secure a supply of competent workmen for the future by training young people in its particular industry, and hence arose the apprentice system, which at first, at any rate, had considerable advantages.

The gild, moreover, exercised a moral control over its members, and secured their good behaviour, thus forming an effective branch of the social police. On the other hand, it had many of the characteristics of a benefit {30} society, providing against sickness and death among those belonging to it, as indeed all gilds did.

These institutions, however, did not only belong to the towns, but were found in country districts also; thus we hear of the carpenters’ and masons’ rural gilds in the reign of Edward III. Even the peasant labourers, according to Professor Thorold Rogers, possessed these associations, which in all cases served many of the functions of the modern trade unions. Later on (1381) we shall come to a very remarkable instance of the power of these peasants’ unions in the matter of Tyler’s rebellion.

But even when we come to look at the feudal system in a time of peace, we see that it did not tend to any great growth of industry. For it encouraged rather than diminished that spirit of isolation and self-sufficiency {32} which was so marked a feature of the earlier manors and townships, where, again, little scope was afforded to individual enterprise, from the fact that the consent of the lord of a manor or town was often necessary for the most ordinary purposes of industrial life. It is true, as we have seen, that when the noble owner was in pecuniary difficulties the towns profited thereby to obtain their charters; and perhaps we may not find it altogether a matter for regret that the barons, through their internecine struggles, thus unwittingly helped on the industry of the land. It may be admitted also, that though the isolation of communities consequent upon the prevalent manorial system did not encourage trade and traffic between separate communities, it yet tended to diffuse a knowledge of domestic manufactures throughout the land generally, because each place had largely to provide for itself.

The constant taxation, however, entailed by the feudal system in the shape of tallages, aids, and fines, both to king and nobles, made it difficult for the lower classes to accumulate capital, more especially as in the civil wars they were constantly plundered of it openly. The upper classes merely squandered it in fighting. Agriculture suffered similarly; for the villeins, however well off, were bound to the land, especially in the earlier period soon after the Conquest, and before commutation of services for money rents became so common as it did subsequently; nor could they leave their manor without incurring a distinct loss, both of social status and—what is more important—of the means of livelihood. The systems of constant services to the lord of the manor, and of the collective methods of cultivation, were also drawbacks to good agriculture. Again, in trade, prices were settled by authority, competition was unduly checked, {33} and merchants had to pay heavy fines for royal “protection.”

ENGLAND SHORTLY AFTER TIME OF DOMESDAY, A.D. 1100–1200

DARK GREEN: Density of population greater.   RED BROWN: Forest.   YELLOW: Marsh.

The chief colour is Green to show that whole country was chiefly agricultural. Part of Yorks Pale to show it was waste.

The ten chief towns: 1—York.* 2—Bristol.* 3—Lincoln.* 4—Norwich.* 5—Coventry.* 6—Oxford. 7—Colchester. 8—Nottingham. 9—Winchester. And 10—London.

*Population over 5000.

Yet with all these evils the economic condition of England, although depressed, was by no means absolutely unhealthy; and the following reign (Henry III., 1216–1272), with its comparative peace and leisure, afforded, as we shall see, sufficient opportunity to enable the people to regain a position of general opulence and prosperity. This time of quiet progress and industrial growth forms a fitting occasion for the marking out of a new epoch.

An average yield of six bushels per acre is what Walter de Henley thinks necessary to secure profitable farming.

A proof of the growing importance of manufacture in this period is the noticeable lack of labourers and the high wages they get, as set forth in the Act 7 Henry IV. (i.e. 1406), which points to an increase of weavers in all parts of the kingdom, that takes labourers from other employments.

The following table gives the name of the town, and its manufacture or articles of sale.

This list is obviously incomplete, for it omits towns like Sheffield and Winchester, both of which were important as manufacturing towns from very early times, though the woollen manufactures of the latter were soon outstripped by those of Hull, York, Beverley, Lincoln, and especially Norwich. But such as it is the list is curious, chiefly as showing how manufactures have long since deserted their original abodes, and have been transferred to towns of quite recent origin.

But it declined from the time of Edward III., chiefly owing to the fact that the woollen trade of Norwich and {63} other eastern towns had become far more important, while on the other hand Southampton was found to be a more convenient spot for the Venetian traders’ fleet (p. 93) to do business.

(2) Stourbridge Fair—But the greatest of all English fairs, and that which kept its reputation and importance the longest, was the Fair of Stourbridge, near Cambridge.21 It was of European renown, and lasted for a whole month, from the end of August to the end of September. Its importance was due to the fact that it was within easy reach of the ports of the east coast, which at that time were very accessible and much frequented. Hither came the Venetian, and Genoese merchants, with stores of Eastern produce—silks and velvets, cotton, and precious stones. The Flemish merchants brought the fine linens and cloths of Bruges, Liège, and Ghent, and other manufacturing towns. Frenchmen and Spaniards were present with their wines; Norwegian sailors with tar and pitch; and the mighty traders of the Hanse towns exposed to sale furs and amber for the rich, iron and copper for the farmers, flax for their wives; while homely fustian, buckram, wax, herrings, and canvas mingled incongruously in their booths with strange, far-off Eastern spices and ornaments. And in return the English farmers—or traders on their behalf—carried to the fair hundreds of huge wool-sacks, wherewith to clothe the nations of Europe; or barley for the Flemish breweries, with corn and horses and cattle also. Lead was brought from the mines of Derbyshire, and tin from Cornwall; even some iron from Sussex, but this was accounted inferior to the imported metal. All these wares were, as at Winchester, exposed in stalls and tents in long streets, some named after the various nations that congregated {64} there, and others after the kind of goods on sale. This vast fair lasted down to the eighteenth century in unabated vigour, and was at that time described by Daniel Defoe, in a work now easily accessible to all,22 which contains a most interesting description of all the proceedings of this busy month. It is not much more than a hundred years since the Lancashire merchants alone used to send their goods to Stourbridge, upon a thousand pack-horses, but now the pack-horses and fairs have gone, and the telegraph and railway have taken their place.

There is another feature which is also of importance, and which had come more and more into prominence during the past two centuries. I refer to the increase in the numbers of those who lived upon the labour of their hands, and were employed and paid wages like labourers of the present day. It has been mentioned before that they arose from the cottar class, who had not enough land to occupy their whole time, and who were therefore ready to sell their labour to an employer. These two features, the commutation of labour-dues for money payments, and the rise of a wage-paid labouring class, are closely connected, for it was natural that, when the lord of a manor had agreed to receive money from his tenants in villeinage instead of labour, he should have to obtain other labour from elsewhere and pay for it in the money thus received by commutation. The tendency of these social changes was greatly in favour of the villeins, whose social condition had steadily improved, and whose tenancy in villeinage was more and more becoming a “free” tenancy. Neither were the villeins, whether comparatively well-to-do yeomen or agricultural labourers, so much bound to the manor as formerly, for in proportion as their labour services were no longer necessary, their lord would let them leave the manor and seek employment, or take up some manufacturing industry, elsewhere. It had always been possible for the villeins (or serfs) to do this on payment of a small fine (capitagium), and it is certain that as money payments {70} became increasingly the fashion, the lord would not object to receiving this further payment, unless perchance he would require a good deal of labour done upon his own land.

But before the next century was completed part of the nation was impoverished, the labourers were degraded and despoiled, and a long legacy of pauperism and misery was bequeathed to the country by the wastefulness and extravagance of Henry VIII.

One other method of robbing the industrial classes still remained, and though Henry died, his ministers were not slow to take advantage of it. This step was the confiscation of the gild lands, planned by Henry VIII. but finally carried out by his son’s guardian, Somerset. These lands had been acquired by the craft gilds both in town and country, partly by bequests from members, and partly by purchase from the funds of the gilds. The revenues of these lands were used for lending, without usury, to poorer members of the gilds, for apprenticing poor children, for {87} widows’ pensions, and, above all, for the relief of destitute members of the craft. Thus the labourer of that time had in the funds of the gild a kind of insurance money, while the gild itself fulfilled all the functions of a benefit society. Now, Henry VIII. got an Act passed for the confiscation of this and other property, but died before his scheme was carried out. It was then Somerset who procured the Act for perpetrating this offence—on the plea that these lands were associated with superstitious uses. Only the property of the London gilds was left untouched. The gilds had relieved pauperism in the Middle Ages, assisted in steadying the price of labour, and formed a centre for associations that fulfilled a want now only partially supplied by modern trade unions. Their abolition was a heavy blow to the English labourer.

Why this abolition was not more generally resented is a point of some interest. In the first place, the religious gilds and craft gilds were suppressed together on the plea above mentioned, and thus the difference between them was confused. Then again, the London gilds were spared because of their power, and thus it was made their interest not to interfere with the destruction of their provincial brethren. The nobles were bought off with presents gained from the funds of the gilds. Moreover, the craft gilds in the country towns were becoming close corporations, whose advantages were often monopolized by a few powerful members. This led, as we saw, to the manufacture of cloth being spread from the towns into industrial villages in the rural districts, where perhaps the mass of the population, not perceiving the full significance of the act, did not object to a measure which struck a blow at the town “mysteries.” But, nevertheless, a great deal of discontent was aroused. Somerset became very unpopular, and insurrections broke out in many {88} parts of the country, the most dangerous being in Cornwall, Devonshire, and in the West. They were caused not only by this spoliation but by agrarian discontent as well, but German and Italian mercenaries were introduced to put them down, and the protests of the people were everywhere choked in their blood.

The most important of these risings took place in Norfolk, where enclosures had been made upon a tremendous scale. Ket, a wealthy tanner of Norwich, took the lead (in 1549) of a large body of some 16,000 tenants and labourers, who demanded the abolition of the late enclosures and the reform of other local abuses. The Earl of Warwick defeated the petitioners in a battle, put down the rising, and hanged Ket at Norwich Castle. The farmers and peasantry were thus cowed into submission.

Many labourers, too, could be found wandering from place to place, begging or robbing. The old steady village life, with its isolation and strong home ties, was undergoing a violent transition. Constant work and regular wages were becoming things of the past. The labourer’s wages would not purchase the former quantity of provisions under the new high prices caused by the debasement of the currency, and the discoveries of silver from 1540–1600; for wages, though they ultimately follow prices, do so very slowly, and not always even then proportionately.

A fair amount of trade was done with Portugal and Spain, which sent us iron and war-horses; Gascony and other parts of France sent their wines; rich velvets, linens, and fine cloths were imported from Ghent, Liège, Bruges, and other Flemish manufacturing towns. The ships of the Hanse merchants brought herrings, wax, timber, fur and amber from the Baltic countries; and Genoese traders came with silks and velvets and glass of Italy. And all met one another, as we saw before, in the great fairs, as at Stourbridge, or in the great trading centre of the Western world, London.

This list is sufficient to show an extensive trade, and we shall comment upon one or two items of it in the next chapter. Here we need only remark upon the great growth of English manufactures of cloth.

This reign witnessed also the rise of the great commercial Companies. The company of Merchant Adventurers had indeed existed since Henry VII.’s time, having been formed in imitation of the Hanseatic League. The Russian Company of 1554 was formed upon the model of this earlier company; and then came the foundation of the great East India Company. It was due to the results of Drake’s far-famed voyage round the world, which took three years, 1577–80. Shortly after {99} his return it was proposed to found “a company for such as trade beyond the equinoctial line,” but a long delay took place, and finally a company was incorporated for the more definite object of trading with the East Indies. The date of this famous incorporation was 1600, and in 1601 Captain Lancaster made the first regular trading voyage on its behalf. To this modest beginning we owe our present Indian Empire.

In the same reign (1534), the inhabitants of Worcester, Evesham, Droitwich, Kidderminster, and Bromsgrove, then the only towns in Worcestershire, complained that “divers persons dwelling in the hamlets, thorps, and villages of the county made all manner of cloths, and exercised shearing, fulling, and weaving within their own houses, to the great depopulation of the city and towns.” A monopoly was granted to the towns, the only result of which was that they became worse off than before, a great portion of the local industry being transferred to Leeds. A little later (1544) the citizens of York complain of the competition of “sundry evil-disposed persons and apprentices,” who had “withdrawn themselves out of the city into the country,” and competed with York in the manufacture of coverlets and blanketings. York got a monopoly, but her manufactures gained nothing thereby. Again, in 1552 Edward VI. enacted that the manufacture of hats, coverlets, and diapers should be confined to Norwich and the market towns of Norfolk. Elizabeth granted numerous trading monopolies33 for the sale of special articles, but the monopoly system was opposed to the new competitive spirit of the age. In 1601 a great many of the most obnoxious were withdrawn, and by that time few remained imposed upon the manufacture of goods. The above illustrations, however, are interesting as showing the growth of manufactures in all parts of the kingdom, and in rural districts (cf. p. 65). {103} They are useful also as glaring instances of the folly of protective enactments.

An interesting testimony to the influence of these refugees is afforded by Harrison in his Description of England (in the time of Elizabeth). He says about our wool: “In time past the use of this commodity consisted for the most part in cloth and woolsteds; but now, by means of strangers succoured here from domestic persecution, the same hath been employed unto sundry other uses; as mockados, bays, vellures, grograines, &c., whereby the makers have reaped no small commodity.”

All this mania for investing capital, however, shows how prosperous England had now become, and how great a quantity of wealth had been accumulated, partly by trade, but also by the growth of manufactures and improvements in agriculture. Englishmen now felt strong enough to have another struggle for the monopoly of trade, with the result that fresh wars were undertaken, and the country was heavily burdened with debt. But the wars were on the whole a success, though the wish for a monopoly was a mistake.

After a few years, however, we entered upon another war, the Seven Years’ War (1756–63), in which England and Prussia fought side by side against the rest of Europe, and attacked France in particular in all parts of the world. The war was largely caused by the quarrels of the French and English colonists in America, and of rival traders in India. We cannot here go into the details of it. It is sufficient to say that, after a bad beginning, we won various victories by sea and land, and at the close (1763) found ourselves in possession of Canada, Florida, and all the French possessions east of the Mississippi except New Orleans, and had gained the upper hand in India. We held almost undisputed sway over the seas, and our trade grew by leaps and bounds. Unfortunately we afterwards engaged in other wars of a less necessary character, and wasted a great deal of our wealth before the end of the century. But the short peace which ensued after 1763 gave us an opportunity which we did not neglect of increasing our national industries, and practically gave us the great start in manufactures to which we owe our present wealth. In this war, too, we gained our Indian Empire and Canada, to which we must devote a few short remarks.

INDIA IN THE TIME OF CLIVE SHOWING ENGLISH FACTORIES AND DISTRICTS UNDER OUR INFLUENCE.

1700–50 INDUSTRIAL ENGLAND

Showing Population in first half of 18^th Century, chief towns and manufactures. The most populous counties are dark green.

The majority of the population was in the west and south central counties (dark green); but Lancs. and the West Riding of Yorks. were increasing. The chief manufacturing centres in (1) Eastern counties, (2) Wilts, (3) Yorks, &c., are shown thus but it must be remembered that manufactures were very scattered and carried on side by side with agriculture. Several other counties are therefore marked with slanting lines.

But although the coal trade was fairly extensive for that period, it was utterly insignificant compared with its present dimensions, and that for a very good reason. There was no means of pumping water out of the mines, except by the old-fashioned air-pump, which was of course utterly inadequate. Nor was a suitable invention discovered till the very end of the seventeenth century, when Thomas Savery in 1698 invented a kind of pump, worked by the condensation of steam. This rather clumsy invention, however, was soon superseded in 1705 by Newcomen’s steam pump. But it was not till after the commencement of the Industrial Revolution that steam power was scientifically applied to coal-mines by the inventions of Watt and Boulton (1765 and 1774), which we shall notice in their proper place. Up to that time, also, it was difficult to transport coal into inland districts by road, Newcastle coal being carried to London in ships, and then carried up inland rivers in barges. But these barges could not go high up many rivers at that time, and canals were not yet made. It was difficult for instance to get coal to Oxford, for it had to come to London, and then part way up the Thames, which was not then navigable so far. But at Cambridge it was easily procurable, for barges could come right up to the town from eastern ports. Hence it was much cheaper at Cambridge than at Oxford.

But early in the seventeenth century (1619) Dud Dudley, son of Lord Dudley, began to make use of sea and pit coal for smelting iron, and obtained a monopoly “of the mystery and art of smelting iron-ore, and of making the same into cast works or bars, in furnaces, with bellows.” Dudley sold this cast-iron at £12 a ton, and made a good profit out of it. He actually produced seven tons a week, which was considered a large supply, and shows the comparative insignificance of the industry then. However, it was only comparatively insignificant, for before the close of the century it was calculated that 180,000 tons of iron were produced in England yearly; and in the eighteenth century (1719) iron came third in the list of English manufactures, and the trade gave employment to 200,000 people. There was, however, still great {140} waste of wood, since a great many ironmasters did not use coal, and therefore the export and even the manufacture of iron was discouraged by legislation to such an extent that by 1740 the output had been reduced to 17,350 tons per annum, barely a tenth of the previous amount quoted. The waste of timber was most noticeable in the Sussex Wealden, the forests of which owe their destruction almost entirely to the iron and glass manufactures.

But about this time another inventor, Darby, discovered the secret of the large blast furnace in which pit coal and charcoal were used. He began his experiments as early as 1730, but did not do much for some twenty years. In 1756, however, his works were “at the top pinnacle of prosperity; twenty and twenty-two tons per week sold off as fast as made, and profit enough.”

After Darby came Smeaton, and other inventors, and the Industrial Revolution spread to the iron trade. We shall see it in operation in our next period.

In this place, too, we may mention that brickmaking was a lost art from the fifth to the fifteenth century, and bricks were not even imported. The first purchase of bricks to be recorded was at Cambridge, in 1449; but before the end of the fifteenth century it became a common building material in the eastern counties, and in the sixteenth century was generally used in London and in the counties along the lower course of the Thames.

But now this old order of things passes away, and a new order appears, ushered in by the whir and rattle of machinery and the mighty hiss of steam. A complete transformation takes place, and the life of England stirs anew in the great Industrial Revolution.

In fact there has always been an extraordinary sentimentalism as regards land among all classes of the English people; and for some reason that has never been fully explained a man who has merely inherited a large amount of land (even if he has never attempted to cultivate it) is regarded as being superior to one who has amassed a fortune in the industrial or commercial world. And this feeling was stronger in the eighteenth century than it is at the present time. Hence commercial magnates bought land, and with it social prestige. The James Lowther who was created Earl of Lonsdale in 1784 was the descendant of a merchant engaged in the Levant trade; the first Earl of Tilney was the son of that eminent man of business, Sir Josiah Child. The daughters of merchant princes were even allowed to marry—and maintain—the scions of a needy aristocracy. Defoe actually discovered the amazing and revolutionary fact that a man engaged in commerce might be a gentleman, though no doubt this {146} bold supposition of his was at first looked upon with incredulity. He says: “Trade is so far from being inconsistent with a gentleman that in England trade makes a gentleman; for, after a generation or two, the tradesman’s children come to be as good gentlemen, statesmen, parliament men, judges, bishops, and noblemen as those of the highest birth and the most ancient families.” Dean Swift remarked “that the power which used to follow land had gone over to money.” Dr Johnson announced oracularly that “an English merchant was a new species of gentleman.”

Now, the Industrial Revolution went still further to gain social and political influence for the commercial classes. It succeeded in destroying the foolish idea that the land-owners alone were to be looked upon as the leaders of the nation. It gave the capitalists and manufacturers a new accession of power by enormously increasing their wealth. Moreover, it helped to undermine the landed interest by making the manufactures of England at first equal, and afterwards superior, to her agriculture, so that a rich mill-owner or ironmaster became as important as a large land-owner. The monopoly of the landed interest was broken by capital. Nowhere is the contrast between the old and new classes in the last century seen more closely than in Scott’s Rob Roy, where the old Tory squire who held fast to Church and king is contrasted with the new commercial magnate who supported the House of Hanover. One good we enjoyed from the rise of the commercial classes, and that was the final overthrow of the Stuarts, with all the follies which that unfortunate race represented.

INCOMES OF VARIOUS CLASSES†

IN MILLION POUNDS

Interest on capital 5; Paupers 1·5; Military and official 5; Professions 5; Commercial 10; Manufacturing 27; Agricultural 66; Total = £119,500,000.

† This table is drawn to scale.

POPULATION

IN MILLIONS

Paupers ·5; Military and official ·5; Professional ·2; Commercial ·7; Manufacturing 3; Agricultural 3·6; Total = 8,500,000.

It will be perceived that the agriculturists, though only about half a million more in numbers than the manufacturing classes, had a far larger proportionate income, in fact more than double. This was of course partly due to the agricultural improvements of this period, and to the fact that manufactures were still carried on almost solely by hand, thus giving only a small production from a good many workmen. But the Industrial Revolution rapidly changed all this, and now agriculture is no longer the staple industry of the country. We may here refer to what has been previously mentioned in regard to the agricultural development on enclosed land, and to the superiority of the results of enclosures over common fields. Those farmers and large owners who understood the best ways of raising crops prospered, and more and more land was enclosed every year to grow corn (which by the way was rapidly rising in price), clover, turnips and other root-crops. No less than 700 Enclosure Acts were passed between 1760 and 1774. The old common fields were beginning to disappear, and the working classes also lost their rights of pasturing cattle on the wastes, for wastes now were enclosed. It must be admitted that the old common-field system produced very poor results (cf. p. 41), but the loss of his common rights was very {155} disastrous to the labourer, for it drove him off the land at the same time as the growth of manufactures attracted him off from it, and thus the labourer became in a few years completely divorced from the soil. At present attempts are being made to attract him back to it by offering him small strips of inferior land at a high rent. This is known as the allotment system. It need scarcely be said that, as at present carried out, it is hardly likely to succeed.45

Hence it will be seen that there was a considerable diffusion of work under the old system, and it was not necessary for great numbers of people to live close together, or work in factories upon a large scale. Things were done with greater leisure, and more time was taken over them. But with the Industrial Revolution came all the hurry and stress of modern manufacturing life, and a complete change took place in the manner and methods of manufacture. And now, having seen how things stood immediately before this great change, we can proceed at once to the means by which it was brought about.

These three inventions, however, only increased the power of spinning the raw material into yarn. What {160} was now wanted was a machine that would perform the same service for weaving. This was discovered by Dr Cartwright, a Kentish parson, and was patented as the “power-loom” in 1785, though it had afterwards to undergo many improvements, and did not begin to be much used till 1813. But the principle of it was there, and it was one of the most important factors in the destruction of the old domestic system. For at first only spinning was done by machinery, and the weavers could still do their work by hand in the old methods; and indeed they continued to do so till a comparatively recent period, and many old people in Northern manufacturing districts can still remember the old weaving industry, as carried on in the workmen’s own houses. But the improvements on Cartwright’s invention did away with the hand-weaver, as the others had abolished the hand-spinner, and the old form of industry was doomed.

Its death-blow, however, was yet to come. Wondrous as were the changes introduced by the machines just spoken of none of them would have by themselves alone revolutionized our manufacturing industries. Power of some kind was needed to work them, and water power, though used at first, was insufficient and not always available. It was the application of steam to manufacturing processes which finally completed the Industrial Revolution. In 1769, the year in which Wellington and Bonaparte were born, James Watt took out his patent for the steam-engine. It was first used as an auxiliary in mining operations, but in 1785 it was introduced into factories, a Nottinghamshire cotton-spinner having one set up in his works, which had previously been run only by water power. Of course the enormous advantages of steam over water power became immediately apparent; manufacturers, especially in the cotton trade, {161} hastened to make use of the new methods, and in fifteen years (1788–1803) the cotton trade trebled itself.

At the same time, the great migration to the North, already begun before the Revolution, was now accelerated and completed. The Northern counties, which in the Middle Ages had, as we saw, been comparatively deserted, now became and have since remained the most populous and flourishing of all. The centres of the new factory system were in the North, and thither flocked the workers who had formerly been distributed over England in a much more extensive manner, or who had clustered round the great Eastern and Western centres of industry, which before 1760 had excelled the other centre, the West Riding, in prosperity. But now this was changed. Before the Revolution, the Eastern counties, more especially about Norwich and the surrounding districts, had been famous for their manufactures of crapes, bombazines, and other fine, slight stuffs. In the West of England the towns of Bradford-on-Avon, Devizes, and Warminster had been manufacturing centres noted for their fine serges; Stroud had been the centre of the manufacture of dyed cloth, and so had Taunton been, for even in Defoe’s time (1725) it had 1100 looms; and the excellence of the Cotswold wool had done much for the industry of the district. These two centres and their productions, then, were far more famous than the third, the West Riding, including the towns of Halifax, Leeds, and Bradford, where only coarse cloths were made. The cotton trade {164} of Lancashire, too, had previously been insignificant, for it was only incidentally mentioned by Adam Smith, though Manchester and Bolton were then, as now, its headquarters. In 1760 only 40,000 persons were engaged in it, the annual value of the cotton manufacture was comparatively insignificant, while in 1764 the value of our cotton exports was only one-twentieth of our woollen, and only strong cottons, such as dimities and fustians, were made. But now the cotton cities of Lancashire and the woollen and worsted factories of Yorkshire greatly surpass the older seats of industry in wealth and population, while the cotton export has risen to be the first in the kingdom, and the vast majority of the industrial population is now found North of the Trent. These great industrial changes were the direct consequence of the introduction of new manufacturing processes. For the use of steam power in mills necessitated the liberal use of coal, and hence the factory districts are necessarily almost coincident with the great coal-fields, as will be seen from the appended map.47 Moreover, the coal industry had been developed almost simultaneously with the growth of manufactures, and indeed one reacted upon the other. It will be convenient here to mention the improvements made in coal-mining and in the iron trade.

MAP OF ENGLAND

Showing Coalfields and corresponding Manufactures

With the great output of coal came an immediate revival of the iron trade, which it will be remembered had greatly declined about 1737 and 1740, for as coal was not available wood had to be used as fuel, and the consequent destruction of forests, especially the Sussex Wealden, had caused legislative prohibitions. The scientific treatment of iron ore in the various processes of manufacture had indeed been improved, but nothing much could be done without coal. This was seen for instance by an ironmaster, Anthony Bacon, in 1755, who obtained a lease for 99 years of a district at Merthyr Tydvil, eight miles long and five broad, upon which he erected both iron and coal works. In 1760 Smeaton’s invention of a new blowing apparatus at his works at Carron, near Falkirk, did away with the old clumsy bellows; and the other inventions of Cranage (1766), of Onions (1783), and of Cort {166} (1784), for which separate treatises must be consulted, brought the manufacture of iron almost to perfection. Whereas about 1740 we produced only some 18,000 tons of iron annually, and had to import at least 20,000 tons; we produced in 1788 as much as 68,000 tons, and the production has gone on steadily increasing to the present time, when our export alone amounts to four and a half million tons of iron and steel annually.

In the first place, England had seriously crippled her powerful commercial rival, France, both in her Indian and American possessions. By the Seven Years’ War we had gained Canada, Florida, and all the French possessions east of the Mississippi River (except New Orleans); while in India our influence had become supreme, owing to the victories of Clive. French influence in India and America was practically annihilated. Spain, the faithful ally of France, lost with her friend her place as the commercial rival of England in foreign trade. Germany was {168} again being ravaged by the dynastic struggles in which Frederick the Great bore so prominent a part, between the reigning houses of Austria and Prussia. Holland was similarly torn by internal dissensions under the Stadtholder William V., which gave the rival sovereigns of Prussia and Austria a chance of making matters worse by their interference. By 1790 the United Provinces had thus sunk into utter insignificance. Sweden, Norway, and Italy were of no account in European politics, and Russia had only begun to come to the front. Hence England alone had the chance of “the universal empire of a sole market.” The supply of this market, especially in our American colonies, was in the hands of English manufacturers and English workmen. The great inventions which came, as we saw, after 1763 were thus at once called into active employment, and our mills and mines were able to produce wealth as fast as they could work without fear of foreign competition.

Nevertheless the American colonists evaded the regulations that forbade them to trade with any but the mother-country, and did, for instance, a considerable trade with South America. But in George III.’s reign, Grenville, a Whig minister, was foolish enough to try and stop this. Moreover, he sought to raise money wherewith to pay for the American portion of the Seven Years’ War by taxing the colonists upon the stamps on legal papers (Stamp Act, 1765). The idea that the colonists should pay part of the expenses of the war undertaken in their defence was just enough; but that these expenses should be defrayed by a {171} system of taxation in which they had no voice was exactly the reverse. It is to the credit of Pitt that he protested against this taxation without representation, and exerted his influence for the repeal of this Act (1766). Thus the feelings of the colonists were soothed for a time, and in 1770 Lord North took off all taxes except that on tea. The colonists refused to buy tea: the East India Company, whose trade naturally suffered, tried to force their tea into America, and matters culminated in the celebrated emptying of a shipload of it into Boston harbour by the citizens of that port (1773). North tried to punish the Bostonians by decreeing that their port should be closed, and that the charter of Massachusetts, their colony, should be annulled. Of course war was now imminent. We need not here go into the details of that unfortunate conflict, though we must mention the heroic endeavours of Pitt, now Lord Chatham, to make England give full redress to her offspring. His efforts were in vain. France eagerly took the opportunity of assisting the Americans against the English, and England had to pay very dearly for her adherence to the Mercantile Theory.

But the working classes had suffered the most, in spite of the fact that our manufactures prospered and exports increased all through the war. In 1793 the exports were officially valued at over £17,000,000; for every year afterwards they were at least £22,000,000, often more; in 1800 over £34,000,000, and in 1815 had quite doubled their value at the beginning of the war, being then over £58,000,000 (official value). But the profits all went into the hands of the capitalist manufacturers, while taxation fell with special severity upon the poor, since taxes were placed on every necessity and convenience of daily life. Even as late as 1841 there were 1200 articles in the customs tariff. The price of wheat, moreover, rose to famine height; from 49s. 3d. per quarter in 1793, to 69s. in 1799, to 113s. in 1800, and 106s. in 1810. At the same time wages were rapidly falling,50 and thus the chief burdens of the war fell upon those least able to pay for them. But the poverty of the poor was the wealth of the land-owners, who kept on raising rents continually and grew rich upon the starvation of the people; for they persuaded Parliament to prohibit the importation of foreign corn except at famine prices (cf. p. 200), and shifted the burden of taxation, as was not unnatural, upon other shoulders. It was owing to their influence that Pitt raised fresh funds from taxes on articles of trade, manufacture and general consumption. The result was seen in the deepening distress of the industrial classes, and in 1816 riots broke out everywhere—in Kent among the agricultural labourers, in the Midlands among the miners, and at {175} Nottingham among the artisans, who wreaked their vengeance upon the new machines which they thought had stolen their bread. They should have blamed those who did not allow them to participate in the wealth they had helped to create.

This, then, was the immediate result of the factory system: the growth of large accumulations of capital in the hands of the new master manufacturers, who with their new machinery, undisturbed by internal war, were able to supply the nations of Europe with clothing at a time when these nations were too much occupied in internecine conflicts on their own soil to produce food and clothing for themselves. Even Napoleon, in spite of all his edicts directed against English trade, was fain to clothe his soldiers in Yorkshire stuffs when he led them to Moscow. It was no wonder that the growth of capital was rapid and enormous. Other results followed. The formerly widespread cottage industry was now aggregated into a few districts, nearly all in Lancashire and Yorkshire. Persons of all ages and both sexes were collected together in huge buildings, under no moral control, with no arrangements for the preservation of health, comfort, or decency. The enormous extension of trade rendered extra work necessary, and the mills ran all night long as well as by day. The machines made “to shorten labour” resulted in many cases in vastly extending it; while in others again they took away all the means of livelihood from the old class of hand-workers. Hence riots frequently occurred, and the labourers sought to destroy the new machinery; the struggle of what were called “the iron men” against human beings of flesh and blood long continued to be a source of controversy and complaint, more especially as the workmen saw that the profits made by these iron men went almost entirely into the hands of their masters. {178}

The factory hands in general, and the children in particular, at length found help from a few philanthropists who had not allowed themselves to be dazzled by the glowing eloquence of the agitators against black slavery. Lord Ashley, afterwards Earl of Shaftesbury, and Richard Oastler must in especial be mentioned as the champions of the mill-hands. Long years after Lord Shaftesbury had succeeded in his noble work, he spoke of the sad sights he had seen during his earlier labours in the factory districts. “Well can I recollect,” he said in a speech in the House of Lords in 1873, “in the earlier periods of the factory movement, waiting at the factory gates to see the children come out, and a set of sad, dejected, cadaverous creatures they were. In Bradford especially the proofs of long and cruel toil were most remarkable. The cripples and distorted forms might be numbered by hundreds, perhaps by thousands. A friend of mine collected a vast number together for me; the sight was most piteous, the deformities incredible. They seemed to me, such were their crooked shapes, like a mass of crooked alphabets.” A corroboration of his words is found in one of Southey’s letters to Mr May (written March 1st, 1833), in which, speaking of factory labour, he remarked with justice: “the slave trade is mercy compared to it.”

The companion of the famous Lord Shaftesbury in the factory agitation was Richard Oastler, who was born in 1789 and died in 1861, and at first, especially in 1807, was a great supporter of Wilberforce in his anti-slavery agitation. But, living as he did in the factory districts of Yorkshire, he discovered a worse slavery existing at his very doors, and at once decided to do his best to put a stop to it. From 1829 to 1832 he was the leader of the {184} movement for a “ten hours day,” and from 1830 to 1847 he devoted himself especially to stopping the oppression of children in factories, till he caused the Factories Regulation Acts to be passed. A short reference to these Factory Acts will not be out of place.

But when we look back upon the degradation and oppression from which the industrial classes were rescued by this agitation, we can understand why Arnold Toynbee said so earnestly: “I tremble to think what this country would have been but for the Factory Acts.” They form one of the most interesting pages in the history of industry, for they show how fearful may be the results of a purely capitalist and competitive industrial system, unless the wage-earners are in a position to act as an effectual check upon the greed of an unscrupulous employer.

I have already referred to the sympathy between the French Revolution and the Industrial Revolution. The former, it is true, frightened our statesmen, but it gave courage to the working classes, and made them hope fiercely for freedom. The latter Revolution concentrated men more and more closely together in large centres of industry, dissociated them from their employers, and roused a spirit of antagonism which is inevitable when both employers and employed alike fail to recognize the essential identity of their interests. Now, wherever there are large bodies of men crowded together there is also a rapid spread of new ideas, new political enthusiasms, and social activities. And in spite of the lack of the franchise the artisans of our large towns made their voices heard; fiercely and roughly, no doubt, in riot and uproar, but they had no other means. There were found some statesmen in Parliament, chiefly disciples of Adam Smith, who gave articulation to the demands of labour, and owing to their endeavours the Combination Laws were repealed in 1824. But the following year proved how insecure was the position of the labourers without a vote. The employers of labour were able to induce Parliament in 1825 to stultify itself, by declaring illegal any action which might result from those deliberations of workmen which a twelvemonth before they had legalized. But still they were allowed to deliberate, strange as it may now seem that permission was needed for this, and their deliberations materially aided in passing the Reform Bill of 1832. For as soon as a class can make its voice heard, even though it cannot {191} directly act, other classes will take that utterance into account.

But the mere figures of pauperism, significant though they are, can give no idea of the vast amount of misery and degradation which the majority of the working {194} classes suffered. The tale of their sufferings may be read in the Blue-books and Reports of the various Commissions which investigated the state of industrial life in the factories, mines and workshops between 1833 and 1842; or it may be read in the burning pages of Engels’ State of the Working Classes in England in 1844, which is little more than a sympathetic résumé of the facts set forth in official documents. We hear of children and young people in factories overworked and beaten as if they were slaves; of diseases and distortions only found in manufacturing districts; of filthy, wretched homes where people huddle together like wild beasts; we hear of girls and women working underground in the dark recesses of the coal-mines, dragging loads of coal in cars in places where no horses could go, and harnessed and crawling along the subterranean pathways like beasts of burden. Everywhere we find cruelty and oppression, and in many cases the workmen were but slaves bound to fulfil their master’s commands under fear of dismissal and starvation. Freedom they had in name; freedom to starve and die; but not freedom to speak, still less to act, as citizens of a free state. They were often even obliged to buy their food at exorbitant prices out of their scanty wages at a shop kept by their employer, where it is needless to say that they paid the highest possible price for the worst possible goods. This was rendered possible by the system of paying workmen in tickets or orders upon certain shops. It was called “truck”; and has at length been condemned by English law (1887).

But though as a matter of fact the sufferings of the working classes were aggravated by the extortions of employers, and by the partiality of a legislature which forbade them to take common measures in self-defence, yet there was one great cause which underlay all these minor {195} causes, and that was the Continental War which ended in 1815. “Thousands of homes were starved in order to find the means for the great war, the cost of which was really supported by the labour of those who toiled on and earned the wealth that was lavished freely—and at good interest for the lenders—by the Government. The enormous taxation and the gigantic loans came from the store of accumulated capital which the employers wrung from the poor wages of labour, or which the landlords extracted from the growing gains of their tenants. To outward appearance the strife was waged by armies and generals; in reality the resources on which the struggle was based were the stint and starvation of labour, the overtaxed and underfed toils of childhood, the underpaid and uncertain employment of men.”53

weavers was particularly hard in the years of the great war, and affords an interesting example of the extortions of the capitalist manufacturers of the period. For purposes of comparison I give above the price of wheat and {196} of weekly wages in the same years; for the price of wheat forms a useful standard by which to gauge the real value of wages, even when it is not consumed in large quantities. It will be seen that wages were at their lowest point just after the conclusion of the war, while, on the other hand, wheat was almost at famine prices. After this, however, and till 1830 the wages of weavers rose again, for the new spinning machinery had increased the supply of yarn at a much greater rate than weavers could be found to weave it, and hence there was an increased demand for weavers, and they gained proportionately higher wages, the average for woollen cloth weavers from 1830–45 being 14s. to 17s. a week, and for worsted stuff weavers 11s. to 14s. a week. But even these rates are miserably low.

The wages of spinners were also very poor, the work being mostly done by women and children, though when men are employed they get fairly good pay. The following table will show clearly the various rates, and it will be seen that here wages sink steadily till 1845, owing to the rapid production of the new machinery. The women’s

wages exhibit the fall most markedly, the labour of children being already affected to some extent by the provisions of the Factory Acts. As for the agricultural labourer, he too suffered from low wages, the general average to 1845 being 8s. to 10s. a week, and generally nearer the former than the latter figure. In fact the material condition of the working classes of England was {197} at this time in the lowest depths of poverty and degradation, and this fact must always be remembered in comparing the wages of to-day with those of former times. Some people who ought to know better are very fond of talking about the “progress of the working classes” in the last seventy years; and the Jubilees of our late Queen of course afforded ample opportunity—of which full advantage was taken—for such optimists to talk statistics. But to compare the wages of labour properly we must go back more than a hundred years, for seventy years ago the English workman was passing through a period of misery which we must devoutly hope, for the sake of the nation at large, will not occur again. It is interesting to note, though it is impossible here to go fully into the subject, that in trades where workmen have combined, since the repeal of the Conspiracy Laws in 1825 and the alteration in the Act of Settlement,54 wages have perceptibly risen. Carpenters, masons, and colliers afford examples of such a rise. But where there has been no combination it is noteworthy how little wages have risen in proportion to the increased production of the modern labourer, and to the higher cost of living, nor does the workman always receive his due share of the wealth which he helps to create. Of the results of labour combinations we shall, however, have something to say in the final chapter of this little book. But there was one class of people who happened from various causes to obtain a very large share of the national wealth, and who grew rich and flourished while the working classes were almost starving. In spite of war abroad and poverty at home, the rents of the land-owners increased, and the agricultural interest received a stimulus which has resulted in a very natural reaction. The rise in rents and the recent {198} depression of modern agriculture will form the subject of our next chapter.

But how, it may naturally be asked, has it come about that the English farmer, after the very favourable period {204} before the depression, should thus suffer from a lack of capital, a lack which renders it almost impossible for him to work his land properly? The answer is simple. His capital has been greatly decreased, surely though not always slowly, by a tremendous increase in his rent. The landlords of the eighteenth century made the English farmer the foremost agriculturist in the world, but their successors of the nineteenth have raised his rent disproportionately. Such, at any rate, is the verdict of eminent agricultural authorities; and the land-owners have been compelled, for their own sake, to reduce the exorbitant rents they received a few years ago. Unfortunately, too, the attention of other classes of the community has been till lately diverted from the condition of our agriculture by the prosperity of our manufactures. But these two branches of industry, the manufacturing and the agricultural, are closely interdependent, and must suffer or prosper together.

It is possible, as I have pointed out elsewhere, that there are certain economic theories which have helped the decline of English agriculture. They are the Ricardian theory of rent, and the dubious “law of diminishing returns.” They have made many people think that this decline was inevitable, and have diverted their attention from the prime, though not the only, cause of the trouble—namely, the increase of rent. But putting these doubtful theories aside, we may employ ourselves more profitably in looking at the facts of the case. I have mentioned before that in Tull’s time, at the beginning of the eighteenth century, the average rent of agricultural land was 7s. per acre, and by Young’s time towards the close of the century it had risen to 10s. per acre. Diffused agricultural skill caused an increase of profits, and the hope of sharing in these profits led farmers to give competitive {205} rents, which afterwards the landlords took care to exact in full and frequently to increase. The farmers were enabled to pay higher rents by the low rate of wages paid to their labourers, a rate which the landed gentry, as justices, kept down by their assessments. In 1799 we find land paying nearly 20s. an acre; in 1812 the same land pays over 25s.; in 1830 again it was still at about 25s., but by 1850 it had risen to 38s. 8d., which was about four times Arthur Young’s average. Indeed £2 per acre was not an uncommon rent for good land a few years ago (1885),57 the average increase of English rent being no less than 26⁠½ per cent. between 1854 and 1879. Now such rent as this was enormous, and could only be paid in very good years. In ordinary years, and still more in bad years, it was paid out of the farmer’s capital. This process of payment was facilitated by the fact that the farmer of this century did not keep his accounts properly, a fruitful source of eventual evil frequently commented upon by agricultural authorities; and also by the other fact, that even when he perceived that he was working his farm at a loss, the immediate loss (of some 10 or 15 per cent.) involved in getting out of his holding was heavy enough in most cases to induce him to submit to a rise in his rent, rather than lose visibly so much of his capital.

The invisible process, however, was equally certain, if not so immediate. The result has been that the average capital per acre now employed in agriculture is only about £4 or £5, instead of at least £10 as it ought to be,58 and the farmer cannot afford to pay for a sufficient supply of {206} labour, so that the agricultural population is seriously diminishing. Nothing in modern agriculture is so serious as this decline of the rural population, and we must here devote a few words to a consideration of the agricultural labourer and the conditions of his existence.

But not only have the numbers of the agricultural population decreased, but the labourer no longer has any share as a rule in the land. Certainly the agricultural labourer, at any rate in the South of England, was much better off in the middle of the eighteenth century than his descendants were in the middle of the nineteenth. In fact in 1850 or so wages were in many places actually lower than they were in 1750, and in hardly any county were they higher. But meanwhile almost every necessary of life, except bread, has increased in cost, and more especially rent has risen, while on the other hand the labourer has lost many of his old privileges, for formerly his common rights, besides providing him with fuel, enabled him to keep cows or pigs and poultry on the waste, and sheep on the fallows and stubbles, and he could generally grow his own vegetables and garden produce. All these things formed a substantial addition to his nominal wages. In 1750 or so his nominal wages averaged 8s. or 10s. a week; in 1850 they only averaged 10s. or 12s., although in the latter period his nominal wages represented all he got, while in the former they represented only part of his total income. Since 1850, however, even agricultural wages have risen, the present average being 13s. or 14s. a week. The rise, such as it is, is due to some extent to Trade Unions, the leader and {208} promoter of which among agricultural labourers was Joseph Arch. This remarkable man was born in 1826, and in his youth and middle age saw the time when agricultural labour was at its lowest depth. Not only were wages low, being about 10s. or 11s. a week, but the worst evils of the factory system of child labour had been transferred to the life of the fields. The philanthropists seem to have overlooked the disgraceful conditions of the system of working in agricultural gangs, under which a number of children and young persons were collected on hire from their parents by some overseer or contractor, who took them about the district at certain seasons of the year to work on the land of those farmers who wished to employ them. The persons composing the gang were exposed to every inclemency of the weather, without having homes to return to in the evening, people of both sexes being housed while under their contract in barns, without any thought of decency or comfort, while the children often suffered from all the coarse brutalities that suggested themselves to the overseer of their labour. Their pay was of course miserable, though gangs flourished at a time when farmers and landlords were making huge profits. But the degrading practice of cheap gang-labour was defended as being necessary to profitable agriculture; which means that tenants were too cowardly or too obtuse to resist rents which they could not pay except by employing pauperized and degraded labour. Amid times like these Joseph Arch grew up, and it was not till 1872 (at which time it will be remembered that British farmers were doing very well) that he began the agitation which resulted in the formation of the National Agricultural Labourers’ Union. His difficulties in organizing the downtrodden labourers were enormous, but he finally succeeded in spite of the resentment of agricultural {209} employers. His efforts have already done much to improve the material condition of the labourers, and wages have decidedly risen from this and other causes. But they certainly cannot be called high.

1890 INDUSTRIAL ENGLAND

Showing Population and Manufactures

Manufacturing districts are shown by slanting lines; large manufacturing towns by black circles; and the most populous counties are coloured darker than the others. It will be noticed that population since 1750 has shifted very much to the North and North West of England, whilst manufactures are far more concentrated than formerly.

It is true that in the period 1821 to 1830 the foreign {214} trade of the United Kingdom did not exhibit much material improvement, but still there was a steady increase. The official value of imports rose from £30,000,000 to £46,000,000, and the value of British manufactures exported from £40,000,000 to £60,000,000. But the declared value of exports remained pretty steady at about £37,000,000. Yet in the United Kingdom itself trade was growing rapidly, and the increase of wealth gave an opportunity for a general diminution of taxes, and our sorely strained finances were set in order. Many of the injurious duties upon raw materials and articles of British manufacture—as e.g. those on raw silk, coal, glass, paper, and soap—were taken off, to the great advantage of our manufacturing industries.

The causes of such depressions in trade are various, and not always obvious. They are, so to speak, dislocations of industry, resulting largely from mistaken calculations on the part of those “captains of industry” whose raison d’être is their ability to interpret the changing requirements in the great modern market of the civilized world. A failure in their calculations, a slight mistake as to how long the demand for a particular class of goods will last, or as to the number of those who require them, results inevitably in a glut in the market, in a case of what is called (wrongly) “over-production”; and this is as inevitably followed by a period of depression, occasionally enlivened by desperate struggles on the part of some manufacturer to sell his goods at any cost. With such a huge field as the international market, it is not to be wondered at that such mistakes are by no means {219} rare, nor does it seem as if it were possible to avoid them under the present unorganized and purely competitive industrial system. They have been aggravated in England by a belief that our best customers are to be found in foreign markets, and the importance of a steady, well established, and well understood home market is not fully perceived. “A pound of home trade is more significant to manufacturing industry than thirty shillings or two pounds of foreign.” Now one of the most important branches of our home trade must be the supplying of agriculturists with manufactures in exchange for food. But when the purchasing power of this class of the community has sunk as much as £43,000,000 per annum, it is obvious that such a loss of custom must seriously affect manufacturers. Again, no small portion of our home market must consist in the purchases made by the working classes, yet it does not seem to occur to capitalist manufacturers that if they pay a large proportion of the industrial classes the lowest possible wages, and get them to work the longest possible hours, while thus obtaining an ever-increasing production of goods, the question must sooner or later be answered: who is going to consume the goods thus produced?

The gross amount of income brought under the survey of the Inland Revenue Department in 1907–08 (the last year for which returns are available) amounted for the first time to over £1,000,000,000 sterling, while the net amount available for taxation was over £693,000,000 as against £525,000,000 in 1897–98. The public applications for capital registered in London in the year 1910 reached a total of £267,439,100, a vast sum which exceeds all previous records by more than £75,000,000, and (apart from the large number of unrecorded private investments) {224} shows the prosperity of undertakings at home and the amount of surplus capital available for investment abroad.

Wages also, which declined from 1901 to 1905, yet show a marked increase over the whole period under review, though this increase is unfortunately largely nominal, owing to the contemporaneous rise in prices and house-rent.

Both shipping and railway transport have undergone a vast expansion: the statistics for inland traffic are the chief among our few data regarding the advance of home trade. Foreign trade, which the “man in the street” has been led by recent controversy to take as the main criterion of industrial progress, after breaking all previous records in 1907, again surpassed itself in 1910. Our total imports for that year were £678,440,173, and our exports of British produce amounted to £430,589,811. A comparison with 1897, when the value of our imports was £451,028,960 and of our exports £294,174,118, shows how remarkable has been the increase in the volume of our foreign trade. A noteworthy feature is the growth in the re-export figures, which in 1910 for the first time exceeded £100,000,000, thus testifying to the maintenance of our position as the great carrier and transport agent for the world.

But the closest and most malign influence was that of the South African War (1899–1903), which, after at first giving an apparent impetus to the trades supplying munitions of war, left behind it a legacy of debt, increased military and naval expenditure, and widespread depression in trade, with consequent unemployment during the “lean years” that followed. The National Debt in 1898–99, before the outbreak of war, stood at £638,000,000, but had risen by 1903–04 to £798,000,000, or to the level of 1870, thus wiping out in four years the laborious debt reductions of more than thirty years.

After some years of depression trade again revived, and throughout the world 1907 was a year of abnormally high prices and widespread speculation, which culminated during the autumn in an acute financial crisis in the United States. There practically all the banks suspended cash payments for some months. The effects of this shock to credit were felt far and wide. Vast quantities of gold were shipped to the United States, and although London at the time stood the strain much better than any other financial centre, the Bank of England was forced to raise its rate of discount to seven per cent. In the following year the United States and Japan still suffered from commercial depression, and in India the harvest proved a failure. Hence, as the consuming power of these great areas was checked, their demand for British goods fell off. Thus the volume of our foreign trade was greatly reduced and the average of the monthly unemployment returns by the Trade Unions {226} for 1908 was far the highest for many years past, being 9·1 per cent., as against 4·3 in the preceding year.

These totals represent an expenditure per head of the total population of £2, 11s. in 1897–98 and of £3, 16s. in 1910–11.

We must remember, however, that the expenses of the Post Office are more than covered by the revenue derived from that institution, and that much of the addition to the Civil Service estimates is due to Old Age Pensions and to the increased provision for education. “The Civil Service charge has risen as the natural result of multiplied and enlarged activities, and advance has been specially heavy in the last two decades, but the Civil Service includes education, poor law, the improvement of roads and health, and many other services which conduce to national well-being. It stands on a very different economic level from armaments, which represent {227} the workings of international discord and jealousy.”64 Yet there is no doubt that in all departments the public money is being expended more freely and extravagantly than was the case some twenty-five years ago.

The portentous increase in naval expenditure must be ascribed partly to the Boer War, but chiefly to our recent rivalry in naval construction with Germany, and our adoption of the Dreadnought type of battleship. Army expenditure increased between 1897 and 1899 through a series of “little wars” in Egypt and India, and since the South African War we have been practically maintaining a war establishment in time of peace.

Thus we see that owing to the growth of armaments and fresh expenditure on social needs the taxpayer has to endure a heavy burden, which threatens to grow as the rate of increase among the population slackens. Any expenditure beyond what is required for military efficiency and social well-being is not only wasteful but actually injurious to our industry and commerce, since it diverts capital from productive channels. There is no justification for maintaining taxation at a war level in time of peace. As Mr Gladstone said, money is best left to fructify in the pockets of the people; or, to quote his great opponent, Lord Beaconsfield, who was always in agreement with him on this point, “the more you reduce the burdens of the people in time of peace, the greater will be your strength when the hour of peril comes.”

Although the controversy is still unsettled, it is at present, for various reasons, somewhat in abeyance. Old Age Pensions, which were to have been provided out of the revenues of the tariff, have been granted without recourse to protection, and other questions have occupied the political field at home, while the recent great expansion both in home and foreign trade seems, in the eyes of the public, to have falsified the more gloomy predictions of the “Tariff Reformers.”

The supporters of the movement emphasize the growing political and commercial importance of our colonies, and the rapid advances made by Germany and the United States in neutral markets, and they point to the tariff walls which block our trade with foreign nations. Free-traders, in reply, maintain that the progress of Germany and America is due to a combination of many causes apart from their tariffs. They are, for purposes of internal trade, the largest free trade areas in the world. {229} Since the trade of nations is mutually interdependent we cannot suffer from an increase in commercial prosperity elsewhere, and retaliation has never proved a successful method of fighting hostile tariffs. In conclusion, they declare that an impossible task awaits any statesman who undertakes to frame a British tariff satisfactory alike to farmer, manufacturer, the colonies and India, and one which would not involve an increase in the price of food and other necessaries.

The reader must refer to larger treatises for details of the controversy, which has been much embittered by party spirit. But it seems at least that the war of statistics and arguments has not proved that the position of the working classes in regard to real wages, continuity of employment, and conditions of labour is better in protected countries than among our own people: indeed, as skilled economists constantly remind us, so many other factors are involved and so many qualifications must be made that it is almost impossible to draw trustworthy comparisons of this nature. Nor has the response of the colonies to the suggestions of the Preferentialists been encouraging. They have shown without ambiguity that highly as they value their connexion with the mother-country, they value equally highly their own political and commercial independence. In 1901 the various States of Australia united in a Federal Commonwealth whose tariff is highly protective, and in 1911 Canada began to negotiate mutual tariff concessions with the United States, her nearest and most important market. Our colonies are thus rapidly developing into practically independent States, bound to us, indeed, by ties of filial affection and interest, but determined to shape their own careers. South Africa has just entered upon the most hopeful chapter of her chequered history {230} by the federation of the four colonies in the Union of South Africa. The original settlements of Cape Colony and Natal and the two Boer States conquered in the late war form now a self-governing whole—a happy reconciliation, hardly to have been anticipated at the end of the war, which is a high tribute to the wisdom of statesmen at home and to the healing effects of time in South Africa.

Yet at the same time there is a greatly increased sensitiveness of the public conscience regarding the condition of the vast majority of the population, as has been shown both in Parliamentary legislation and in unofficial movements for social betterment. Among the latter, garden villages and schemes for housing and town-planning bear witness to a recognition by employers and municipalities of a duty to provide workers and their families with some of the necessities for “good life.”65

Such questions have become all the more urgent with the recent rapid growth of great suburban districts on the borders of our cities. This phenomenon—due to the eagerness of workers to escape into regions of somewhat purer air and lower rates outside the municipal areas—is emphasized in the latest census returns. According to these the boroughs are actually increasing in population less rapidly than their neighbouring counties, and in London itself the overflow is shown by decreases in many of the boroughs and an increase of 33 per cent. in the “Outer Ring.”

In another direction the success of the Workers’ Educational Association and kindred efforts proves that many among the working classes are eager to grasp opportunities for intellectual growth. But it is in recent legislation that we find the most remarkable testimony both to the power of the labour movement and the awakened {232} national conscience to which allusion has just been made.

There was an attempt in 1907 to check the drift townwards by offering the labourer an inducement to remain in the country. The aim of the Small Holdings and Allotments Act of that year was to provide him with a few acres of land at a reasonable rate with security of tenure, and so to re-establish the small cultivator. The Budgets from 1906 to 1908 not only relieved the general taxpayer by debt reduction and the middle classes by a differentiation of the income-tax in favour of earned incomes, but also reduced the tea and sugar duties, which fall most heavily on the working classes. But the Budget of 1908 will be remembered chiefly for the step then taken towards the relief of the aged poor. The institution of Old Age Pensions (already in force for some years in our Australasian colonies) was hotly decried as a Socialistic measure debasing to the recipients. So far, however, the test of experience seems to show none but good results, and since the recent removal of the poor relief disqualification there has been a marked fall in the statistics of pauperism. In 1909 the new Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr Lloyd-George, introduced his first Budget. Its rejection by the House of Lords, which marked the crisis of the long struggle between the two Houses, has made it famous in constitutional history. But, avoiding its controversial clauses, we may note that this Budget also provided a small sum for the establishment of Labour Exchanges, on the Continental model, throughout the country. These exchanges, which are now working, aim at rendering labour more mobile, at bringing employers requiring workers and workers needing employment into touch with one another, and at publishing reliable information as to the condition of the labour {233} market. The Workmen’s Compensation Act of 1897, which placed the liability for industrial accidents on the shoulders of employers, was extended in 1906 to all workers (including domestic servants) whose annual earnings are under £250. Lastly, in 1911, a far-reaching scheme was introduced by which, with State assistance, all wage-earners (under a maximum of £160 per annum) are to be insured against sickness (including for women a maternity benefit) and the experiment of an insurance against unemployment is to be tried in the case of building, shipbuilding, and engineering—the trades which suffer most acutely from periodical lack of work.

We may also notice here the publication in 1909 of the exhaustive Report of the Poor Law Commission appointed in 1905. This is noteworthy both for its wholesale condemnation of the existing poor law system and its drastic proposals for a new method of dealing with the problem of poverty and unemployment. Four Commissioners, led by Mrs Sidney Webb, the well-known social writer, published their own “Minority” report, which contains a still more far-reaching scheme of State control. Both reports have aroused keen interest, they have influenced some of the legislation just described, and one of the schemes or a compromise between them will no doubt form the basis for the expected reform of the Poor Law.

But in 1909 the “Osborne Judgment” struck a blow at the existence of the Labour Party itself. Osborne, a member of the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants, sued the officials of that union on the ground that the enforced levy from members for the maintenance of Parliamentary representatives was ultra vires and accordingly void. After prolonged litigation the House of Lords gave its final judgment in favour of the plaintiff. The Labour Party in Parliament began to press for the reversal of this decision, and at the same time tried to conciliate opposition by abolishing the “pledge” to which all its members had been forced to subscribe. But the obvious difficulties which handicapped men of moderate means, of whatever party, in their attempts to enter Parliament, led to another movement amongst Liberals, Labour Members, and some Conservatives for the payment of all Members of Parliament out of State funds, and provision for this step was made in the Budget of 1911.

Of recent years there has been considerable unrest in {235} the labour world and much loss of time and money has accrued to both employers and employed through industrial disputes. The most important stoppages were those in the coal trade (in South Wales in 1898 and 1910 and in the North in 1910), in the Lancashire cotton industry in 1908 and 1910, in the engineering centres on the north-east coast in 1908, and in the shipbuilding trade in 1910. In August 1911 the country had to face stoppages at the London and Liverpool docks, and, closely following, a general railway strike, which occurred at twenty-four hours’ notice. The dockers gained their demands; the railway strike, through the efforts of the Government, only lasted two days, as a small and impartial Commission was immediately appointed to inquire into the working of the Railway Conciliation Boards, the inefficiency of which to remedy grievances was put forward by the railway unions as the cause of the strike. These recent transport difficulties occasioned very serious trade losses and much inconvenience to the general public, and in certain parts of the country were attended by grave rioting and disorder. All the disputes have taxed the powers of skilled arbitrators (Board of Trade officials or distinguished private individuals), but their most disquieting feature has been, in several cases, the tendency of the workers not to comply with the terms of settlement, and the apparent inability of Trade Union officials to enforce such compliance. Action of this kind can only have the effect of alienating popular sympathy even in the case of genuine grievances. However, it is admitted by most observers that the recent increase in the prices of important commodities and the general rise in the standard of life amongst the working classes make the claim for higher wages and shorter hours of work a well-founded one.

The most striking developments of the last fifteen years have been in connection with transport and communication. The telephone has become a business necessity, and now wireless telegraphy (associated with the name of M. Marconi) has extended our power of rapid intercourse even to mid-ocean. There has been an enormous increase in the size and speed of merchant vessels, the most sensational evidence of which is seen in the vast ocean liners of German and Anglo-American companies plying between Europe and the United States.66 Not only have these ships reduced the passage between New York and Liverpool to a length of about five days, but they are able to carry much larger cargoes than their predecessors, and thus doubly tend to swell the volume of international trade. On land there has been an extraordinary increase in the use of motor transport both for goods and passenger traffic, and the recent successes of aviation seem to foretell that at no distant time the air will form another highway for human intercourse.

Glancing at the changes in the industrial world we may note the tendency (due to resultant economies of marketing and management) towards an increase in the {237} size of a single business and in the amount of capital invested in it. This tendency is seen in many of the great staple manufactures, such as the textile trades and milling, but also in banking and finance generally, where the huge joint-stock concerns with many branches have swallowed up the old-fashioned private bank with its local connexion. In retail trading, too, the great stores, providing many classes of goods under one roof, prove formidable rivals to the small shopkeepers. These stores are generally run as joint-stock companies and often have branches throughout the country. Nevertheless, thanks mainly to the absence of a protective tariff, which shelters the growth of monopoly, England is comparatively free from the dominance of great Trusts. Some partial or local monopolies exist, of which railways, newspaper combines, and the “tied” public-houses attached to some brewing companies form the most obvious examples. But in the opinion of those qualified to judge, the small trader or manufacturer is holding his own in many branches of industry.

The census returns, which show the shifting of employment in various groups of industry, form a good criterion of their relative importance. Those for 1901 have been analysed as follows by a recent writer:—

“The orders which show the greatest decline are textiles and dress. While metal, ships, pottery, wood, food, etc., show a moderate advance, precious metals and instruments, vehicles, chemicals, printing, show a great increase. A still closer examination into the sub-orders of the census returns shows that the foundational and the staple processes of manufacture are stagnant or declining in importance, while those concerned with the finishing processes of manufacture, especially those {238} concerned with the manufacture of more highly specialized articles, are increasing.”67

Mr Hobson adds that the most noteworthy advance is shown in two special groups, the trades concerned with the building and furnishing of houses and those which manufacture vehicles for land and water carriage. The growth in the first of these groups tends to corroborate the statistics of improved housing accommodation already mentioned, while that in the second introduces us to the most significant movement of all, the enormous increase in all occupations connected with land and water transport. This again may be correlated with the figures for our re-export trade already given, since both show England’s marvellous position as the great market and carrier for the world.