THE NEW AGE, 1897–1911
§ 1. INDUSTRIAL EXPANSION--It is impossible in the compass of a
brief chapter to deal otherwise than in the barest outline with the
industrial developments of the last fourteen years. The period opens
with the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria, includes the whole reign of
her son, King Edward the Seventh, and closes in the Coronation year of
her grandson, George the Fifth. From one point of view the country has
during this time made marvellous advances in general prosperity. The
population, indeed, which according to the returns of 1911 stands at
the figure of 36,075,269 for England and Wales, shows a slower rate of
progress than for any other decennial period since the institution of
the census in 1801; but in so far as the diminished birth-rate is due
to a higher standard of living among the people, such a slackening is
itself a token of material well-being. And judging by the ordinarily
accepted standards neither the accumulated wealth nor the productivity
of our nation has ever before attained so great a height.
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.
§ 2. WARS, CALAMITIES, AND THE AMERICAN CRISIS--Yet there is another
side to this picture of progress and well-being. During the same period
the various quarters of the world were visited by a long series of
calamities, both natural and artificial, from which our own dominions
were not exempt. The Spanish-American War of 1898, the Russo-Japanese
War of 1904–05, and the disastrous earthquakes at San Francisco (1906),
Jamaica (1907), and Messina (1908) all caused not only loss of life and
great physical suffering, but widespread destruction of capital, the
effects of which were felt in all industrial countries. {225} In the
earlier years of the period plague and famine in India and a succession
of serious droughts in Australia also checked the productive capacity
and purchasing power of these great dependencies, and consequently
affected our industries at home.
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.
§ 3. THE INCREASE OF PUBLIC EXPENDITURE--During the Boer War and since
its close there has been an unparalleled growth both in national
and municipal expenditure. For every £5 that was required by public
departments in 1895 £8 is now expended. The addition to the National
Debt, and consequently to the debt charges, has been already noticed,
and the following table shows the general figures for the opening and
close of the period under review:--
_Expenditure_ _Estimated Expenditure_
1897–98 1910–11
Army £19,330,000 £27,760,000
Navy 20,850,000 40,604,000
Civil Service 23,446,000 42,686,000
National Debt and other
services 25,000,000 36,945,000
Post Office, Customs and
Inland Revenue 14,310,000 23,852,000
______________________________________
Total £102,936,000 £171,847,000
______________________________________
These totals represent an expenditure per head of the total population
of £2, 11_s._ in 1897–98 and of £3, 16_s._ 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.”
[64. _Economist_, Nov. 19, 1910.]
§ 4. FREE TRADE AND PROTECTION. THE COLONIES--Ever since the repeal
of the Corn Laws there had been in England a group of agricultural
Protectionists, and some thirty years ago a small number of
manufacturers began to advocate retaliation against foreign tariffs
under the title of “Fair Trade.” Towards the close of Queen {228}
Victoria’s reign the growth of Imperial sentiment brought into
prominence suggestions for a closer political and commercial union
between England and her colonies. In 1903 these various strands
of thought were combined by Mr Joseph Chamberlain, then Colonial
Secretary, in his campaign on behalf of “Tariff Reform.” This movement
(which thus at first contained the inconsistent elements of protection
to the British farmer, retaliation against the foreign manufacturer,
and colonial preference) met with some acceptance in that year of
depressed trade, and has now been adopted as the programme of the
Unionist Party, in spite of the opposition of an important minority. In
the General Election of 1906 the Protectionists sustained a crushing
defeat, and they have not since been able to secure a majority in the
House of Commons.
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.
§ 5. THE POSITION OF THE WORKERS. SOCIAL LEGISLATION--Returns recently
published by the Local Government Board and other official statistics
show that in the last half-century there has been a very marked
improvement in regard to public health and social conditions. The
rate of infantile mortality (among children less than one year old)
is still sadly high in many town areas, yet, though it stood in 1907
at 118 per thousand for the whole of England and Wales, this figure
is lower than that for any Continental country except Holland, and
the death-rates from many diseases have also fallen rapidly in recent
years. Housing accommodation has improved, statistics of overcrowding
in 1901 showing a considerable reduction upon those of the previous
census, and pauperism has on the average steadily declined. Wage
statistics are inadequate and very difficult of interpretation, but
they seem to indicate a marked rise during the last forty years, while
the level of prices has fallen 24 per cent. during the same period.
A detailed consideration of the last five years, however, reveals a
less cheerful picture. The depression of trade resulting from the
expenditure of capital during the South African War led to a fall in
wages and a serious increase in unemployment. The hardships of the
workers were aggravated by a period of rising prices and by the reflex
effects of the American crisis. The statistics of pauperism in 1907 and
{231} 1908 showed a proportion of 24 per thousand inhabitants against
an average of 22 per thousand for the preceding decade. In October and
November 1908 the Trade Unions returned 9 per cent. of their members
as unemployed, whilst amongst unorganized and casual workers the
proportion was no doubt higher.
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]
[65. “The State came into being to preserve life, but it
continues in being for the sake of good life.”--ARISTOTLE.]
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.
§ 6. TRADE UNIONISM AND THE LABOUR MOVEMENT--It was remarked in the
last paragraph that the social legislation recorded was due in part
to the pressure of the organized forces of labour upon politicians.
The membership of Trade Unions has risen from 1,688,531 in 1898 to
2,426,592 in 1910; while in Parliament the Labour Party consisted in
1911 of about forty members, the majority of whom were nominated by
Trade Unions and {234} maintained out of Trade Union funds. Through
these representatives Trade Unionists have been able to exert a
considerable influence upon legislation. By the decision, on appeal,
of the House of Lords, in the Taff Vale Case (1901), the Trade Unions
Act of 1871 was so interpreted as to make it possible for a Trade Union
to be sued in tort for the acts of its members, and for Trade Union
funds to become liable for any damages that might be awarded. Trade
Unionists protested against the decision as contrary to the spirit of
the legislation of 1871, and sufficient pressure was exerted by the
Labour members to ensure the passage of the Trade Disputes Act in 1906.
This restored Trade Unions to their original position under the law of
1871.
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.
{236}
§ 7. RECENT INVENTIONS AND INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENTS--With regard
to industrial machinery recent years have shown rather a greater
perfection and rapidity of working than any actually new invention.
Perhaps the greatest technical improvements have been made in
engineering and steel production, but in many branches of industry the
part of the machine constantly increases in importance and that of the
individual worker diminishes.
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.
[66. The _Lusitania_ and _Mauretania_ are over 31,000 tons
burden; the _Olympic_ and the _Titanic_, 45,000 tons.]
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.
[67. Hobson, _Evolution of Modern Capitalism_, p. 388.]
§ 8.[68] THE NECESSITY OF STUDYING ECONOMIC FACTORS IN
HISTORY--Hitherto our prosperity, great as it is, has frequently had
its drawbacks, and has passed through many vicissitudes. Our ancestors
and ourselves have made many mistakes, and till recently, as we have
seen, the growth of our national wealth has been slow. But a study
of industrial history is not without its uses, if it helps us to-day
to understand how we have come into our present position, and what
faults and follies we must avoid in order to retain it. Unfortunately,
few historians have thought it worth their while to study seriously
the economic factors in the history of nations. They have contented
themselves with the intrigues and amusements of courtiers and kings,
the actions of individual statesmen, or the destructive feats of
military heroes. They have often failed to explain properly the great
causes which necessitated the results they claim {239} to investigate.
But just as it is impossible to understand the growth of England
without a proper appreciation of the social and industrial events
which rendered that growth possible, and which provided the expenses
which that growth entailed, so it will be impossible to proceed in the
future without a systematic study of economic and industrial affairs.
Many of the great political questions of our day derive most of their
difficulty from economic causes; while international politics tend
more and more to centre round matters of commercial and industrial
importance. After all, the means by which we gain our daily bread form
for the majority of mankind the most pressing of problems; and what is
true of the individual is true on a larger scale of the nation also.
Man is by no means a purely economic animal, but the material wants
of human life must be satisfied, and much of human activity must be
directed toward their fulfilment. The history of mankind is the history
of man’s activity, and so long as human nature and men’s material
conditions are what they are, so long must economic and industrial
factors have a potent influence in the course of political and social
life. We have seen in these pages how such factors have influenced the
growth of our own nation and contributed towards bringing us into our
present position; and it is only reasonable to believe that commercial
and industrial considerations must weigh more and more heavily with
us if that position is to be secured and maintained. And those of us
who wish to help in maintaining and advancing our national progress
must seek carefully to answer the economic questions that are forcing
themselves continually upon us, by looking at them in the light
afforded by the industrial history of a great industrial nation.
[68. This paragraph originally formed the conclusion to Dr Gibbins’
volume.]
{241}
NOTE ON AUTHORITIES FOR INDUSTRIAL HISTORY
For the earlier periods of English industrial history the ordinary
student will find Cunningham’s _Growth of Industry_ and Ashley’s
_Introduction to English Economic History and Theory_ useful. Besides
these he should endeavour by all means to read the _Domesday Book_, a
translation or copy of which may be found in most public libraries. The
well-known histories of Stubbs and Freeman are also a great help. Then,
for the whole of the period from Henry III. to the eighteenth century,
the large work, _The History of English Agriculture and Prices_ (in
six volumes) by Professor Thorold Rogers affords a perfect mine of
information. The same author’s _Six Centuries of Work and Wages_ and
_Economic Interpretation of History_ are absolutely indispensable
for anyone who wants to understand, not only our industrial, but our
general history. Time spent over these two books is amply repaid.
For the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries especially, Toynbee’s
_Industrial Revolution_ and Leone Levi’s _History of Commerce_ must be
read, and the Blue-books of the period should also be consulted.
Besides these works by modern authors, Arthur Young’s _Northern and
Southern Tours in England_, and Defoe’s _Tour_ afford a valuable
picture of English industries in the last century, as also does the
_Wealth of Nations_ by Adam Smith. There is likewise a useful little
_History of British Commerce_, from the earliest times, by G. L. Craik
(published in 1844 by Charles Knight, but now long since out of print),
which I have found very helpful and fairly complete.
For the political portion of our history Green’s _History of the
English People_ will probably be sufficient for general readers; and
it contains occasionally a reference to industrial events. Mr George
Howell’s _Conflict of Capital and Labour_ should be read, as affording
a clear view of the old gilds and their modern descendants, the Trade
Unions; and no student of modern industrial questions should omit to
familiarize himself with the {242} _History of Co-operation_, by Mr
Holyoake. A little book called _The Romance of Trade_ gives a number
of interesting industrial facts in a disconnected sort of way, and may
be read with advantage when the student knows the general outlines of
industrial history. Harrison’s _Elizabethan England_ (now published in
the Camelot Classics Series) might be read in a similar way, as giving
a picture of sixteenth century life.
I must acknowledge my indebtedness to all the above works, which I
have freely used in this little history, and especially to the works
of Professor Thorold Rogers, without which no complete industrial
history could have been written. I have also utilized in some places
the material already existing in my own _Short Account of the Growth
of English Industry_ in the _Co-operative Annual_ of 1890, and in
my article on _English Agriculture_ in the _Westminster Review_
of December 1888. I have preferred to state in this note the more
accessible works that I have consulted, omitting others which are not
immediately necessary for ordinary readers, rather than to burden
my pages with continual footnotes and references. I trust that the
works here indicated may help to guide students of economic history
in reading far beyond the limits within which this short outline is
necessarily confined.
I have also dealt with this subject more fully in a larger work
entitled _Industry in England_ (Methuen: London, 1896).
H. de B. G.
Of recent years some standard works on Domesday have been published,
including Round’s _Feudal England_, F. W. Maitland’s _Domesday Book and
Beyond_, Vinogradoff’s _Villeinage in England_ and Ballard’s _Domesday
Inquest_--the last being an excellent summary. Webb’s _Industrial
Democracy_ and _History of Trade Unionism_, Hobson’s _Evolution of
Modern Capitalism_ and Booth’s monumental _Life and Labour of the
People of London_, all deal with the modern period. No serious student
should fail to consult the publications of Government departments and
Royal Commissions concerning questions of trade, industry, and social
progress. The census returns and the current Statistical Abstracts
are also useful. Bowley’s _Elementary Manual of Statistics_ affords
valuable help in the interpretation of these publications.
M. E. H
{243}
NOTES
1. POPULATION OF ROMAN BRITAIN (p. 2)--It is, of course, impossible
to state this accurately. Much of the land that supported a large
population in Roman times afterwards fell waste--_e.g._ the fens of the
eastern counties (p. 111); but the numerous Roman remains still left to
us testify to a considerable economic development. (Cf. also the facts
given in Cunningham’s _Growth of English Industry_, p. 53).
2. MARKETS ON BOUNDARIES (p. 3)--A good example of this is
Moreton-in-Marsh, an ancient market town situated on the boundaries
of the four counties of Oxford, Gloucester, Worcester and Warwick
shires. This fact is recorded by a stone, known as “the four shires’
stone,” and situated about a mile from the town on the London Road.
The religious origin of many markets, alluded to in the case of
Glasgow, should not be forgotten. (Cf. Cunningham’s _Growth of English
Industry_, p. 76.)
3. DANISH INFLUENCE ON COMMERCE (p. 4)--The Danes, before ever they
came to England, were enterprising navigators, as is shown by their
very early commerce with Russia, their colonization of Iceland (A.D.
874), and discovery of Greenland (A.D. 985), and the coast of the (now)
Eastern United States. They settled chiefly in the north of England,
in very large numbers and formed an active industrial population, many
of them becoming leading merchants. They were instrumental in causing
English trade to develop in the north of Europe, and generally speaking
gave a stimulus to navigation. (Cf. Cunningham’s _Growth of English
Industry_, p. 83 _sqq._--1890 ed.)
4. MANORIAL COURTS (p. 19)--The court baron was composed of a kind
of jury of freeholders and was concerned with civil proceedings. The
court leet was composed of all tenants, both free and serf, who acted
as a jury in criminal cases, minor offences, and so forth. Both courts
were presided over by the lord of the manor or his bailiff. Thus local
discipline and law was concentrated in the hands of the inhabitants
of the parish themselves, and the {244} manorial courts were a very
useful means of education in local self-government. Unfortunately their
power, utility, and educational influence declined with the decay of
the whole manorial system. (Cf. Rogers’ _Work and Wages_, pp. 63 and
420.--1889 ed.)
5. DECAY OF MANORIAL SYSTEM (p. 22)--The decay of this social and
economic system begins most clearly and markedly with the changes made
by the Black Death (1348), and by the social revolution which followed
it, of which the Peasants’ Revolt was the first and most startling
symptom (cf. pp. 73, 74–77). The legislation of Edward I. forms, again,
another epoch from which to date the decay of manorial institutions.
As Dr Cunningham says (_Growth of Industry_, p. 243), “In regard to
commerce, manufactures, and to agriculture alike, the local authorities
were gradually overtaken and superseded by the increasing activity of
Parliament, till in the time of Elizabeth the work was practically
finished.” The essentially local and personal relations of the manor
gave way to the more general and impersonal relations of national
government and national economy.
6. THE JEWS (p. 36)--It appears that this expulsion of the Jews was not
absolutely complete, and Jewish tradition gives the year 1358 as the
date of final expulsion; but in 1410 a Jewish physician, Elias Sabot,
was certainly allowed to practise in England. There seems to have been
a certain immigration of Jews to England, when they were expelled from
Spain by Ferdinand and Isabella (1492), for there are notices of them
recovering debts in English law-courts. Their presence in this country
was, however, only first _publicly_ sanctioned by Cromwell; and during
the Commonwealth and the reign of Charles II. they came back here in
considerable numbers. (Cf. Wolf’s _Anglo-Jewish Exhibition Papers_, p.
57; and my own _History of Commerce in Europe_, p. 99.)
7. COMMERCIAL RELATIONS WITH FLANDERS (p. 49)--We may add to the
notices here given the treaty of 1274 between Edward I. and the
Countess of Flanders, protecting the export of English wool to
Flanders, and the well-known case of Perkin Warbeck. This impostor
was supported by the dowager Duchess of Burgundy, and was well
received in Flanders, then ruled by the Archduke Philip. As Philip,
at the instigation of the Duchess, encouraged Warbeck, Henry VII.
took the step of banishing all Flemings from England (1493), and as
Philip replied by expelling all the English from Flanders, commercial
intercourse between the two countries was almost entirely suspended.
The result was, as {245} Bacon tells us, this interruption “began to
pinch the merchants of both nations very sore,” and they besought their
respective sovereigns “to open the intercourse again.” Philip withdrew
his support from Warbeck and the impostor was left without resources,
so that his subsequent appearance in England was a complete failure.
The want of English wool thus altered the policy of the Flemish rulers,
and before long the “great treaty,” or _Intercursus Magnus_, was made
between the two nations (1496), by which trade was once more allowed
to proceed unchecked, and “the English merchants came again to their
mansion at Antwerp where they were received with procession and great
joy.”
Henry VII. also made a commercial treaty with Denmark (1490); and one
with the Republic of Florence, securing to that city a stipulated
supply of English wool every year. (Cf. _Commerce in Europe_, p. 98.)
8. OTHER SOURCES OF INCOME (p. 50)--Of course we must not forget
that the kings who fought against the French got money for their
wars by other means as well. Large amounts were extorted from the
Jews; enormous debts were contracted by Edward III. with the great
Florentine bankers the Bardi; and his repudiation of them in 1345
caused the failure of that firm. Edward III. also pawned his crown and
jewels, which were in pledge at Cologne, and could not redeem them,
till the Hansa merchants in England came to his rescue and lent him
the necessary cash in return for trading privileges in London. (Cf.
_Commerce in Europe_, §§ 44 and 62. The question of taxation, etc., may
be studied from larger political histories.)
9. ASSIZE OF BREAD AND ALE (p. 61)--The best example of such regulation
is found, perhaps, in the Act 13, Rich. II., st. 1, c. 8 (1389–90),
which ordains: “Forasmuch as a man cannot put the price of corn and
other victuals in certain, the justices of the peace shall every year
make proclamation “by their discretion,” according to the dearth of
victuals, how much every mason, carpenter, tiler, and other craftsmen,
workmen, and other labourers by the day shall take by the day, with
meat and drink or without meat and drink, and that every man shall obey
such proclamations from time to time, as a thing done by statute.”
Finally, provision is made for the correct keeping of the _assize_, or
_assessment_ from time to time, of the prices of bread and ale. The
earliest notice of an “assize” in England is found in the Parliament
Rolls for 1203, but the practice is probably much {246} older; and the
most ancient law upon the subject is the 51st Hen. III. (A.D. 1266),
“Assisa Panis et Cerevisiæ.” The assize of bread was in force till the
beginning of the nineteenth century, and was only then abolished in
London.
10. STOURBRIDGE FAIR (p. 63)--This Stourbridge or Sturbridge is now
almost in Cambridge itself, the relics of the fair being held in a
field near Barnwell, about a mile and a half from the city. In ancient
times it was very easy for merchants to come up the River Ouse in
barges or light boats, as water-transport was much more used then than
now, and even the sea-going ships were very light craft. Probably a
Flemish merchant would find no difficulty in sailing all the way from
Antwerp to Cambridge in a light ship.
11. SURVIVALS OF VILLEINAGE (pp. 74, 79)--Of course an ancient and
universal custom could not die out all at once, but its decay after
1381 was certainly rapid. Dr Cunningham (_Growth of Industry_, p.
360) quotes cases to prove that villeinage existed in the fifteenth
and sixteenth centuries, but he himself says that Fitzherbert (_On
Surveyinge_, 1539) “laments over the continuance of villanage as
a disgrace to the country”; and Fitzherbert would surely not have
spoken thus if it was a recognized institution, instead of a decaying
survival. Again, in 1574 Elizabeth enfranchised all bondmen on her
estates; and she would hardly have done this if it had been the
universal custom to retain villeins in their old bondage. We may
readily admit that there were plenty of survivals of villeinage,
although the old institutions were practically obsolete.
11_a_. MONOPOLIES (p. 102)--These had been used by the crown partly in
order to raise money by their sale and partly as a convenient method
of paying or rewarding ministers or court favourites. Thus Elizabeth’s
favourite, Essex, had a monopoly of sweet wines. But by Elizabeth’s
time they had become so unpopular, and people saw so clearly the taxes
which they inflicted on all articles thus monopolized that Parliament
demanded (in 1601) their abolition. So determined was the House that
the Queen gave way, though she was no doubt within the legal limits
of her prerogative. James I., however, used his prerogative to create
so many new monopolies that Parliament again protested (in 1609), and
he also revoked them all. But after the suspension of Parliamentary
government in 1614 monopolies were granted again, till in 1621 their
revocation was one of the main points mentioned among the grievances
which the House {247} of Commons proceeded to redress, and monopolies
were then once more abolished. The three patents (or monopolies)
chiefly complained of were those on (1) inns and hostelries, (2)
alehouses, (3) gold and silver thread. The Act abolishing monopolies
is the 21 Jac. I. cap. 3 (1624). This Parliamentary struggle about
monopolies shows very clearly the beginnings of the great fight between
Parliament and the Crown, the former trying to regain rights which had
for some time (especially under the Tudors) been in abeyance, and the
Crown to keep prerogatives which had hitherto been exercised unchecked.
12. ELIZABETH’S POOR LAW (p. 107)--There is no doubt that the original
intention of the Act was beneficent, and its framers are not to be held
responsible for the use made of it in later times.
The ACT OF APPRENTICESHIP, incidentally fixing wages by assessment, was
mainly concerned with the relations of masters to their journeymen and
apprentices; and enacted also that no person should exercise a craft or
trade unless he had been apprenticed to it for seven years.
13. BANKING AND THE STOP OF THE EXCHEQUER (p. 130)--Banking was now
becoming a regular business, carried on especially by goldsmiths,
who often advanced money to the sovereign upon the security of taxes
or personal credit. A pamphlet of 1676, called “The Mystery of the
Newfashioned Goldsmiths or Bankers Discovered,” shows how banking and
money-lending had become a regular business, and gives the year 1645
as about the time when commercial men began regularly to put their
cash in the hands of goldsmiths. It also states that “the greatest of
them (_i.e._ of the goldsmiths) were enabled to supply Cromwell with
money in advance upon the revenues, as his occasions required, at
great advantage to themselves.” Similarly the famous goldsmith George
Heriot had frequently obliged James I. It is well known how the London
goldsmiths advanced Charles II. as much as £1,300,000, at 8 to 10 per
cent. interest, upon the security of the taxes; and how (in 1672) he
suddenly refused to pay them, saying they must be content with the
interest, and closed the exchequer, thus causing a serious commercial
panic.
The unsatisfactory method of obtaining loans from goldsmiths and other
private persons was partly the cause of William Paterson’s project, now
known as the BANK OF ENGLAND (1694). Paterson offered to provide the
Government of William III. with £1,200,000, to be repaid by taxation
on beer or other liquors and {248} by rates on shipping, while those
who subscribed this money were incorporated into a regular company
which was to receive 8 per cent. interest and also £4000 a year for
management. Thus the matter of loans was first placed upon a proper
basis and the Bank thus formed, and supported by Government credit,
took at once a leading position in English commerce. (Cf. Rogers’
_First Nine Years of Bank of England_.)
14. NATIONAL DEBT (p. 145)--This loan, mentioned in the last note, was
the beginning of a regular National Debt, the system of contracting
loans upon the security of the supplies or upon Government credit,
and of paying them off gradually in succeeding generations. (Cf. my
_Commerce in Europe_, p. 145, and Grellier’s _National Debt_.)
THE RESTORATION OF THE CURRENCY was due to Montague, the Chancellor
of the Exchequer. Up to the time of Charles II. silver money was made
by simply cutting the metal with shears, and shaping and stamping it
with a hammer. It was thus quite easy to clip or shear the coins again
without being detected, and then pass them off to an unsuspecting
person for their full nominal value. So the coins became smaller
and smaller, and people often found on presenting them at a bank or
elsewhere that they were only worth half their nominal value. At first,
under Charles II., it was thought sufficient to issue new coins with a
ribbed or “milled” edge, but the only result of this was that the good
coin was melted or exported and (as is always the case) the inferior
money remained at home. It was then seen, by Montague and Sir Isaac
Newton (the Master of the Mint), that the only way was to _call in_ the
old coinage and issue an entirely new and true milled currency. The
expenses of this re-coinage, which cost some two and a half millions,
were defrayed by a tax on window-panes. (Cf. Rogers’ _Economic
Interpretation of History_, p. 200.)
THE EAST INDIA COMPANY’S NEW CHARTER was granted on October 7th, 1693,
by William III., and restored all the former powers and privileges
of the Company. This Company’s monopoly of trade with India had been
frequently infringed by private traders, and it was generally regarded
with such great hostility that the House of Commons in 1692 requested
the King to dissolve the Company upon the ground of mismanagement and
conduct injurious to national interests. However, the enemies of the
Company failed, and all its privileges were confirmed by the Charter of
1693. Its monopoly was nevertheless still often disregarded, and {249}
the validity of it denied by Parliament in spite of the King’s favour.
A New Company was even formed in 1698, but after a few years the two
rival Companies were amalgamated (1708).
15. EXPORT OF BULLION (p. 169)--“In form the prohibition on the export
of gold and silver coin continued to 1816. People were allowed to
export gold in bars, foreign coin, and bullion the produce of foreign
coin; and an oath had to be taken that exported bars were of this
character. People were hired to swear that they were so, and sworn-off
gold, as it was called, was worth 1½_d._ an ounce more than other
gold was. Three-halfpence an ounce was the bullion-dealer’s payment for
perjury” (Rogers’ _Economic Interpretation of History_, p. 187).
The necessities of their Eastern trade compelled the East India Company
to acquire large stores of bullion and export it to India, in spite of
any prohibition to the contrary; and their trade, with its enormous
profits, was thus a very clear example of the mistaken character of the
theory which taught that gold and silver must not be exported for fear
of impoverishing the country. This fact, in the case of the East Indian
trade, was seen by some economists early in the eighteenth century, and
was then clearly stated by a writer in the paper called the _British
Merchant_ (i. 26), who estimated the export of bullion to India and
China at £400,000 or £500,000 a year (in 1764 it was £369,831, and
£532,705 in 1790). The _British Merchant_ was first published in 1713.
16. IMPORTANT COMMERCIAL EVENTS (p. 125)--Among the important
commercial events of this period one ought certainly to include the
_Darien Scheme_ and the _Union of England and Scotland_, although these
belong more fitly to a History of Commerce than of Industry. The Darien
scheme was a project originated by William Paterson, the founder of the
Bank of England, who proposed to colonize the Isthmus of Darien and
use it as “the key of the Indies and door of the world” for commerce.
English capitalists, however, would not support his scheme and it
was denounced by the English Parliament. Nevertheless a company was
formed in Scotland, called “The Scottish African and Indian Company,”
a charter was given it by the Scotch Parliament in 1695, and a capital
of £900,000 was ultimately raised, £400,000 coming from Scotland, then
a very poor country, and the rest from English and Dutch merchants.
The hostility of the East India Company, the Levant Company, and of
the Dutch in {250} general, however, never ceased, and it was owing
to their influence that, when the ill-fated colony at last set out for
Darien in July 1698, the settlers were left quite unaided against the
attacks of the Spaniards, who claimed the monopoly of South American
trade. In fact, Spanish attacks and the climate, so utterly unsuited
for European colonists, sealed the fate of the expedition, and few who
went out ever returned. This failure had the most serious effect in
impoverishing the Scotch, who could then ill afford the loss, but there
is little doubt that it greatly helped to bring about the subsequent
Act of Union between England and Scotland, in which William Paterson
was largely concerned (1707). The Union proved of considerable benefit
to Scotland, as, by it, trade between the two countries became free,
English ports and colonies were thrown open to the Scotch, and Scotland
found a large market for woollen and linen goods and cattle in England.
The date of the _Methuen Treaty_ is 1703, and it was arranged by John
Methuen between England and Portugal. It was agreed that British
woollen goods should be admitted into Portugal and her colonies,
provided that at all times Portuguese wines were admitted into
England at two-thirds of the duty (whatever it might be) levied on
French wines. The result was a considerable increase of trade with
Portugal, but an even greater decrease of trade with France, while the
wine-drinking of our upper classes took a very different direction,
for port, which had hitherto been almost unknown in England, became
the typical drink of the English gentleman, and more port was sent to
the United Kingdom than to all the rest of Europe together. It was not
till the time of the commercial treaty of 1860 with France, that the
heavy duties on light French wines were reduced, and with them the
duties on French manufactures. Till then, as Gladstone said in his
speech on the subject in 1862, “it was almost thought a matter of duty
to regard Frenchmen as traditional enemies,” not only in politics but
in commerce. This treaty was only one among the many great services of
Cobden to the commerce of his country.
17. DEPOSITION OF EAST INDIA COMPANY (p. 217)--In June, 1858, the
East India Company ceased to exist, the territories of India were
transferred to the Crown of England, and the Queen was proclaimed
sovereign of India on November 1st, 1858. The Company’s army
became part of the Queen’s army, and Lord Canning, who had been
Governor-General, became the first Viceroy. All the powers hitherto
exercised by the East India {251} Company, or by the Board of Control,
were vested in the Secretary of State for India, assisted by a Council
of fifteen members appointed by the Crown.
18. HUSKISSON’S REFORMS (p. 213)--It was Huskisson who in 1823 passed
a “Reciprocity of Duties Bill,” by which English and foreign ships had
equal advantages in England whenever foreign nations allowed the same
to English vessels in their ports. He threw open the commerce of our
colonies, under certain restrictions, to other nations. He reduced the
duties on silk and wool in 1824, and in the same year the Acts fixing
wages (cf. p. 107), and limiting the free travelling about of workmen
(p. 189) were repealed. So also were all laws controlling combinations
of either masters or workmen; though combinations of workmen to
intimidate employers were made illegal in 1825.
{253}
INDEX
Accounts, bailiffs’ mediæval, 18; modern farmers’ lack of, 113, 205
Acreage of England (A. Young), 114
Adam Smith, 150, 189
Agriculture, early combined, 8; before and after Great Plague, 71, 73;
mediæval, 40–45; in 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries, 109–117; modern,
198–201; depression of, 202, 209
Agricultural improvements, 104, 113, 201; gangs, 208; labourer, 40, 71,
79, 119, 142, 150, 188, 205, 208; reforms, 210; wages, 79, 119–121;
wealth, 152, 209; population, 150, 153, 206; writers, 42, 110; union,
208
Alfred, 4, 5
Allowance system of relief, 188
American War, 170
Anglo-Saxon trade, 3
Antwerp, 59, 95; decay of, 97
Apprentices, in gilds, 29; in factories, 179, 181
Arable land in a manor, 6, 20
Arch, Joseph: his work, 207, 208
Aristocracy: feudal, 32; land-owning, 143, 198
Arkwright’s inventions, 159
Artisans: mediæval, 29; modern, 174, 190, 221; wages of, 71, 79, 120,
150, 162, 174, 187, 195; Huguenot, 134, 135
Assessments of wages, 107, 119, 187
Aston, manor of, 12
Australian colonies, 216, 225, 229
Aviation, 236
Bailiffs’ Accounts, 18, 42
Baltic trade, development of our, 99
Bank of England, 144, 173, 223
Barons’ wars, 31
Beaconsfield, 227
Beggars (Defoe’s remark), 149
Berlin decree, 173
Birmingham, 152
Black Death. _See_ Great Plague
Blincoe, Robert, on factories, 181
Bodmin, staple for tin, 92
Bombay, 123, 127
Bordars, 12
Boston, port, 64
Boulton’s inventions, 165
Bounties on corn, 200
Bradford, 161, 163, 183
Bread, wheat, 68, 150; price of, 150
Brickmaking, 105, 142
Bristol, 23, 39, 64
Britain in Roman times, 1, 2
Bruges, 95; staple at, 59
Burslem, 140
Bye industries, 155
Calais, our staple town, 59
Cambridge, coal at, 138
Canada, 125, 128, 216, 229
Cape Colony, 216, 230
Capital, 223
Capital in agriculture (A. Young), 115; to-day, 205; loss of farmers’,
203
Capitalist agriculture, 42; cessation of, 73; artisans, 147;
manufacturers, 147, 174, 176
Capitalist manufacture, epoch of, 162; present system of, 219
Capitalists and workmen, 221, 222; the coming of, 146, 162; mistakes of
(Mercantile Theory), 168
Captains of industry, 218
Cartwright’s inventions, 160
Carucate of land, 16 (_note_)
Castles, growth of towns near, 23
Cattle in mediæval times, 44; improvements in breed of, 114
Census, 237
Chamberlain, 228
Champaign land, 43
Charlemagne, commercial treaty with, 5
Charles I. and coal trade, 137
Charter, the Great, 34
Charters of towns, 25, 28; of companies, 98
Chartism, 191
Cheese, consumption of, 151
Chester a Roman town, 2, 24
Chinese wars, 217
Cistercian monks wool-growers, 42, 49
Civil Service, 226
Civil War in England, its effect, 134
—— in America, 217
Climate, our, useful for manufactures, 133
Closes, 21, 43
Cloth trade, 54, 55, 135. _See_ Manufactures
Clover, introduction of, 113
Coal trade, 136, 137; influence on manufactures, 164 and _map_
Cobbett, 175
Cobden, 201, 215
Colonies, our, 122, 128, 167, 170, 215
Combination Laws, 189, 190; power of, 221; of workmen, 191;
Combination of peasants in the Peasants’ Revolt, 76, 78
Commerce, early, 4; our first treaty of, 5. _See_ Trade
Commerce and war, 121–129, 169, 216
Commercial progress, 129; depressions, 218, 225
Common fields, 8, 20; enclosure of, 116, 199; pasture, 20
Communal land, 8, 43
Commutation of services for money payments, 16, 41, 74
Companies, formation of trading, 98, 129, 212
Company, East India, 98; Levant, 129; Hudson’s Bay, 131
Competition, appearance of, 92; checked by feudalism, 32; foreign, 209,
220; modern, 219
Condition of the people. _See_ Wages and Artisans and Agricultural
labourers
Conquest, England after Norman, 37, 39
Continental War, 171, 195
Co-operation, growth of, 221
Corn Laws, 200, 201, 215; Repeal of, 186, 201, 227
Cort’s inventions, 165
Cottars, 12
Cotton manufacture, 164
Counties, Eastern, cloth trade in, 57, 135, 163; Northern, desolation
of in mediæval times, 38; Northern, shifting of population to, 163, and
_map_; Southern most populous, 11, 37, 152
Craft gilds, 27, 29
Crisis (United States), 225
Cromwell’s commercial wars, 123
Crusades, 26, 33
Currency, debasement of, 86
Cuxham manor, 17, 18
Dairy Farming, 210; dairyman, 43
Debasement of currency, by Henry VIII., 86
Defoe, references to his _Tour_, 64, 145, 148
Demand for labourers after Great Plague, 71
Discoveries of Columbus and others, 89
Dissolution of monasteries, 84
Distress of working classes after 1815, 174, 192
Distribution of wealth before Industrial Revolution, 153, 156
Domesday Book, its historical value, 10; condition of England as shown
in, 11, and _map_; towns in, 24; manors in (Cuxham and Aston), 16, 17;
population in, 12, 13
Drawbacks of mediæval life, 79, 80
_Dreadnought_, 227
Dutch, agricultural improvements due to, 105, 110; other improvements,
140; wars with (Cromwell’s), 123, 130; carrying trade once in hands of,
130
Dyeing, 55, 133
Earthquakes, 224
East, development of trade with, after Crusades, 33; in James I.’s
reign, 129
East India Company, 98, 127, 145, 216
Eastern counties, manufactures in, 57, 135, 163
Economic folly, 170, 203, 211
Economics, importance of, in history, 238
_Economist_, 226
Edward I. and Edward III., usefulness of wool to them, 49; their
alliances with Flanders, 49
Edward III. and Statute of Labourers, 71; and manufactures, 53
Edward VI. and the Hansa in London, 95
Eight Hours’ Movement, 186, 235
Elizabethan England, 100–109; sea-captains, 97, 122
Emancipation of villeins, 74
Employers, capitalist, 67, 146, 192, 221; their assessments of wages,
107
Enclosures, 46, 116
England before Norman Conquest, 1–9; after it, 11, 37; in Middle Ages,
68, 81; in Elizabeth’s reign, 100; modern, 211 _sqq._; a commercial
power, 121
England and other nations’ wars 216
Estone manor, 16
Expenditure, public increase of, 226
Export of corn, 200
Exports in Roman times, 2; in 12th century, 33; of wool, 36, 48, 51,
92; exports in 15th century, 92, 96; later, 103, 130, 131, 132, 166,
174, 212
Factories set up, 161
Factory Acts, 181–185
Factory children, 179, 182
Factory system, germs of, 66; growth of, 176–181, 186
Fairs, 53, 61–63
Famine of 1315, 70
Farmers, losses of, 209
Fens, the, 38; drainage of, 111
Feudal system, 8; effects of, 31
“Firma Burgi,” the, 25
Flanders, its manufactures, 48, 52; our trade with, 95, 132, 169
Flemish weavers in England, 36, 37, 53, 103
Foreign competition, 134, 209, 216, 220
France and England, 123, 126, 157, 167, 172, 213
Frauds, Statute of, 115
Free Trade, 212, 213, 227
Friars, the coming of the, 75
Game, 111
Gangs, agricultural, 208
Germany, 134, 167, 217, 227, 228
Gilds, 27–30; in cloth trade, 54
Gild lands, confiscation of, 86
Gladstone’s budget of 1853, 215, (quoted), 227
Glasgow, 3
Gold, discoveries of, 216
Greshams, the, 96
Guicciardini on trade, 96, 103
Hansa, the, factory in London, 94, 95
Hargreaves, 159
Harrison’s _Elizabethan England_, 104, 108
Henry of Huntingdon (quoted), 33
Henry II., 31; Henry V., 49; Henry VIII., 83–91
History, economic questions in, 238
Hobson, 237, 238
Holland, 122, 123, 168, 230. _See_ Dutch
Home trade, value of, 219
Houses, mediæval, 19
Housing and town-planning, 230
Huguenots in England, 134
Hull, 64
Huskisson and Free Trade, 213
Imports, 34, 63, 93, 212. _See_ Trade
Income-tax, 223
India, 5, 127, 225
Industrial Revolution. _See_ Revolution
Industrial transition in 14th century, 55
Industrial villages (mediæval), 65
Industries, manual, 142
Industry, growth of, 212
Infant mortality, 230
Inhabitants of a manor, 12, 13
Inventions, 138, 140, 159, 160, 165, 236
Iron trade, 138, 139, 164
Jews in England, 35
Jewries, 35
John, King, 39
Joint-Stock Companies, 237
Ket’s Rising, 47
King, Gregory, referred to, 112, 114, 116
“Knight’s Fee,” a, 18
Labour, power of, 221
Labour. _See_ Agricultural labourer, Manufacturing population, and
Artisans; _also_ Wages and Capitalist
Labour Exchanges, 232
Labour Party, 233
Labourer, the “Golden Age” of, 79
Lace, 103
Land, different kinds of, in a manor, 21
Landlords, 73, 77; rapacity of, 109, 204; their gains, 198; services
of, 198, 204
Latimer on rent, 118
Leeds, 151, 156, 163
Liverpool, 152, 236
Lloyd-George, 232
London, 2, 24, 39; the Western emporium, 97
Lord of the manor, 7, 11
Manchester, 152
Manor, 7, 12
Manufacturers and politics, 56, 145; large and small, 147
Manufacture, domestic system of, 155
Manufactures, 36, 51, 100, 135
Manufacturing towns, mediæval, 57; decay of, 65; monopolies of, 101;
population, 149, 152, 178, 231
Marconi, 236
Mark, the, 5, 6; mark-moot, 6
Markets, 3, 38, 60; “a sole market,” 168; new, 219
Master clothiers, 66
Meadow land valuable, 21
Members, payment of, 234
Mercantile Theory, the, 168
Merchant gilds, 27, 28
Middle Ages, close of, 81
Mining, 141, 164; women in mines, 194
Misery of working classes, 194
Monasteries, dissolution of, 84, 85
Money, 3
Monopolies, 101, 237
More, Sir Thomas, evidence of, 88, 90
Motor transport, 236
Napoleon I., 173
National Debt, 145, 173, 225
Navigation Acts, 130, 169, 213
Newcastle (coals), 130, 137
New World, discoveries in, 89
Norfolk, 46, 51, 112; agriculture in, 199
Northern counties, desolation of, 38; growth of, 162
Norwich, 26, 39
Nottingham, 24, 58, 60
Oastler, Richard, 183
Old Age Pensions, 226, 228, 232
“Osborne Judgment,” 234
Over-production, 220
Oxford, origin of, 23, 25
Pauperism, 100, 192, 193, 232
Peasants’ Revolt, 78
Petition, the Merchants’, in 1820, 213
Pigs, 45
Pitt, 171
Plague, the Great, 70; its effects, 71, 73
Ploughing, 44
Politics and industry, 49, 55, 144, 175, 222
Poor Law Commission Report, 233
Poor Laws, the, 107, 188. _See_ Allowance and Assessments
Poor priests, the, 76
Population of England, 37, 41, 108, 151, 162
Ports, mediæval, 64
Post Office, 226
Pottery trade, 140
Prices after the Plague, 72; mediæval, 80; later, 90, 112, 174, 202;
inflation of, 90, 225
Productiveness of land, 41
Protectionism, 169, 216, 227, 237
Protestant refugees to England, 97, 103, 110, 134
Railways, 214, 224
Reforms, needed agricultural, 210
Rent, mediæval, 15, 22
Rent, rise of, 88, 112, 118, 119, 204, 224
Restrictions on labour, 189
Revolution, the Industrial, 144 _sqq._, 157, 161, 164, 190; the French,
157, 171, 190; the Agricultural, 158, 206
Rights of villeins, 13, 43
Rush for new markets, the, 219
Salt, 142
Seamen, the Elizabethan, 91, 97
Serfs, 13
Services due to a lord, 14, 15
Settlement, law of, 189
Shaftesbury, Lord, 183
Sheep, 45
Sheep farming, 46
Sheffield, 58, 152
Silver, discoveries of, 90
Sixteenth century, changes of, 88, 90
Slave, 13; in modern England, 179
Small Holdings, 232
Smith, Adam, 150, 189
Social movements, 68, 75, 142, 146, 190
Social comforts, 105
Soke-men, 15
South Africa, 225, 229
Southampton, 25, 64
South Sea and other Companies, 125
Spain and England, 121, 126, 167
Speenhamland Act, 188
Staple towns, 59
Steam and machinery, 160
Steamers, 214, 236
Steelyard, the, 94
“Stock and Land Lease,” the, 42, 85
Stourbridge fair, 63
Strikes, 235
Taff Vale Case, 234
Tax on wool, 49, 50
Taxation, 174, 232
Telegraphs, 214
Telegraphy, wireless, 236
Telephone, 236
Ten Hours’ Bill, 185
Tenants of a manor, 11; free tenants, 15
Town, life in a mediæval, 30
Towns: in Domesday, 11; origin of, 21; growth in England, 23; charters
of, 25; mediæval, 58; staple, 56
Township, 7
Toynbee, Arnold, 186
Trade, Anglo-Saxon, 3, 4, 5; later, 33; expansion of, 91–99, 103, 125,
129, 131, 173, 212, 224
Trade Unions, 191, 207, 221, 231, 233
Trading clauses in the Great Charter, 34
Transit, means of, 214, 224
Truck Act, 194
Trusts, 237
Tyler’s Revolt, 78
Unemployment, 230
United States, 225, 228
Venetian Fleet, the, 63, 93
Village, a mediæval, 19; industrial, 65
Villeinage, land in, 20
Villeins, 13, 41, 68; emancipation of, 74, 79
Virgate, 12
Wage-earning class, rise of, 40, 69
Wages, 71, 79, 106, 119, 120, 150, 174, 195, 206, 220, 224, 230
Walter de Henley on farming, 42, 44
War, South African, 225, 230
War, the Thirty Years’, 134; the Continental, 171, 195
—— cost of, 173
Wars and industry, 81, 122–129, 134, 166, 167–175, 216, 224
“Waste,” the, 6, 20
Watt’s inventions, 138, 160, 165
Weavers’ gilds, 29, 54
Wedgwood, 141
Wheat, prices of, 174, 195, 200, 203; and _see_ Wages
Wiklif, 75
Winchester fair, 62
Women and girls in mines, 194
Women’s wages, 196
Wool, 47, 50, 104, 136
Workers’ Educational Association, 231
Working classes. _See_ Artisans, Agricultural labourer, and
Manufacturing population; _also_ 187–197
Workmen’s Compensation, 233
Worsted industry, the, 53
Writers on commerce, 130
Yeomen, rise of the, 73; decay of, 115–116
Young, Arthur, referred to, 114, 117, 150, 153, 199, 206, 221
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE:
Original spelling and grammar have been generally retained, with some
exceptions noted below. Original printed page numbers are shown like
this: {52}. Original small caps are now uppercase. Italics look _like
this_. Footnotes have been relabeled 1–68, and moved from within
paragraphs to nearby locations between paragraphs. The transcriber
produced the cover image and hereby assigns it to the public domain.
Ditto marks have been removed, replaced by the referenced text.
Original page images are available from archive.org—search for
“industrialhistor00gibb”.
Page 135. “Norfork” to “Norfolk”.
Page 170. “with South America,” to “with South America.”
Page 245. There is an unmatched double quotation mark in this sentence:
‘“Forasmuch as a man cannot put the price of corn and other victuals in
certain,” the justices of the peace shall every year make proclamation
“by their discretion,” according to the dearth of victuals, how
much every mason, carpenter, tiler, and other craftsmen, workmen,
and other labourers by the day shall take by the day, with meat and
drink or without meat and drink, and that every man shall obey such
proclamations from time to time, as a thing done by statute.”’. This
edition omits the one following ‘certain,’, but that’s just a guess.
Page 246. “Parlamentary” to “Parliamentary”.