Adams J.T. Empire on the Seven Seas. The British Empire 1784-1939
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THE
INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION
noting
in
a
Dorsetshire
village
only
two
farms
where
twenty
years
before
there had
been
thirty.
The
enormous
increase in
enclosures,
particularly
after
1793,
was due
to
both
economic
and
psychological
factors.
In
the
famine
and
war
years
agricultural
produce, particularly
wheat,
which
sold
above 126
shillings
by
1812,
added
immensely
to the
profits
of
landlords and
progressive
farmers.
The
latter
found
themselves
hampered by
the old
communal
system,
which
prevented
them
from
introducing
new
ideas
and
methods
unless
they
could
edu-
cate and
carry
with them all
their
more conservative
and
stubborn
neighbors.
They
therefore
naturally aligned
themselves
with
the
enclosure movement
so
that
they might
be
free to do as
they
would
on their own lands
without the
need of
consultation
with
those
who
were
not
willing
to move with the times.
In
spite
of
this,
the
concentration
of
landholdings
did not
in this
period
go
nearly
as far
as in Ireland or
Scotland,
and
as late
as 1 8
5
1
two-thirds
of all
the
farms in
England
and
even
Scotland
were
less than
a
hundred
acres
in
extent.
Nevertheless,
in
one
way
and
another
a
considerable
part
of the
old
farming
population
found
themselves
worse
off,
though
production
for
the
land
as
a
whole
increased.
Many
became
landless and
went to
swell
the ranks
of
the
agricultural
labor class
as well
as
the urban
population
which
was
to be available for
the new industries
being
developed.
II.
THE INDUSTRIAL
REVOLUTION
Another
factor
of an unconscious and
impersonal
sort
was also
at
work to
reduce
the comfort
and
security
of the rural
population,
the
so-called
Industrial
Revolution,
which
was
deeply
to
affect not
only
the
countryside
but towns as
well.
It
is
impossible
either
to
define the
term
or
date
the movement
precisely.
Arnold
Toynbce
found
its
essence
to
be
"the
substitution of
competition
for
the
medieval
regulations
which
had
previously
controlled
the
produc-
tion
and
distribution
of wealth." In
that
aspect
we
find
one
of its
first
great
landmarks in
the
appearance
of Adam
Smith's
Wealth
of
Nations
>
published
in
1776,
which
advocated
freedom
in
indus-
trial
and
commercial
life instead
of
regulation
or
restriction. The
EMPIRE
ON
THE
SEVEN
SEAS
book
was
for
long
to
be
of
immense
influence
on the
thought
of
both statesmen
and
business
men
and
helped
to
give
unbridled
scope,
in the
popular
doctrine
of
IMSSBK
jmrey
to the
results of the
Industrial
Revolution
in
its
more
usual
sense.
What
is
generally
meaiut
by
it is the
whole
complex
of
changes
which
have
occurred
from
the
inauguration
of the machine
age.
We
may
date
it
1760-1800
or
1760-1
840, but,
although
it
has as
yet
far
from
worked
itself
out
and
some
of the new
inventions date
from
earlier
in
the
eighteenth
century,
the
above
years
mark
more
or
less
accurately
the overthrow
of
the old order
of
life
which,
with
variations,
the civilized
world
had known
almost from the
first,
and
the
harsh
beginning
of that
new order
in
which
we are
4
still
living.
We
usually
think
of the
introduction
of
machinery
as
the work
of
certain
inventors,
but in
fact
many
of these
were
merely
adapt-
ing
principles
long
known
but which
had
not
been
worked out in
practical
form because
the
time had not come
when
they
would
have
any
commercial use
or value.
Many
things
combined
toward
the
end of the
eighteenth
century
to
create
a
demand
for
machinery.
A
larger
production
than
the
old
hand methods
had
permitted
would
have
been
of
no
use unless
there
had
also been
larger
mar-
kets,
nor would markets
have
availed
unless there
were means
of
transport.
Capital
was
also
required,
and
this
was
being
provided
by
the introduction
of modern
banking
and the increased
use
of
the cor-
poration, although
the
latter,
as
yet,
was more
notable
in
the fields
of
finance,
insurance and
transportation
than
in the
manufacturing
companies
which
were
largely
effecting
the
industrial
revolution
but which
still
remained
chiefly
individualistic.
England
led
the
world
in the
vast transformation
then
going
on in
the world not
because
of
her
inventions,
but
the inventions
came because
she
had the
markets,
capital
and
raw
materials,
notably
coal and
iron,
which made new
forms
of
production
profitable.
Before
considering
these
points
we
may
note
one to
which
his-
torians
have
usually
paid
no
attention.
If,
in
spite
of
known
scien-
tific
facts and
principles
from which
practical
inventions
would
naturally
follow
when the
time was
ripe,
machines
had
to
await
6
THE
INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION
specific
commercial
needs,
they
had
also
to await
another
condition.
That
was the
invention
and
production
of
the
machme
tools
with
which
large
machines
could be
made.
For
example,
Watt
so
im-
proved
the
idea
of
the
steam
engine
as to
make it
an
assured
com-
mercial
success
provided
it
could
be manufactured. But
it
could
not
be,
because
of
lack of
tools.
These were
incredibly
crude
during
most
of the
eighteenth
century,
and such as there were were
almost
wholly
for
working
in
wood.
The new
machinery
demanded tools
for
working
iron
and other
metals,
and
Watt's
engine
could not
be
built
because there
was
no
tool which
could
bore
accurately
a
cylinder
six
inches
in diameter
and
two
feet
long.
It was more than
ten
years
before
the
proper
tools
could
be
devised
and made
so
as
to
build the
engine
which
Watt
had conceived
of
in
1765.
The
story
of the advent of
the
machine
age
is
usually
told
in
terms
of
the
great
inventors, Watt,
Arkwright,
Hargreaves,
Crompton
and
others,
but
the inventions
of these men
would
have been of no use
had it
not
been
for
another
group
of
great
men,
the
tool
builders
who made the
machines
pos-
sible,
and
whose
names
are almost
unknown to
history,
Joseph
Bramah,
Sir
Samuel
Bentham,
Henry
Maudsley
(greatest
of
all),
and
many
more.
1
For
some
reason,
during
the
period
of
this
chap-
ter
and
up
to about
1850
the
English,
and in
the
later
portion
the
Americans,
were
the finest
tool
makers
in
the
world.
Other
na-
tions had
ideas,
but
they
could
not
apply
them.
The
industry
which
led
in
the revolution
was
the
textile
and
particularly
cotton. In
1764
Hargreaves
invented
the
spinning-
jenny,
in
which
eight spindles
were
combined,
thus
increasing
the
output
of
one
operator.
Five
years
later
Arkwright
invented
the
water-frame,
by
which
water
power
instead
of
human
labor could
be
used
in
the
spinning.
By
1793,
in
America,
Eli
Whitney,
with
his
cotton
gin,
started the
production
of
American
cotton on
its
amazing
upward
course.
The
supply
of
raw
material
increased an-
nually by
leaps,
and at
the
same
time the Far
East,
particularly
England's
Indian
Empire,
afforded
an
almost illimitable
market
for manufactured
cotton
goods.
It
is an
example
of how
many
fac-
l
Vide
t
Joseph
W.
Roe, English
and American
Tool
3uilders>
New
York,
1926,
who
has
made
this field
of
history practically
his own.
7
EMPIRE
ON
THE
SEVEN
SEAS
tors,
including
England's
insular
position,
all
combined
at
about
the same
time
to
make
machinery
both
necessary
and
profitable.
Again,
the
increased
demand
for iron
for
machinery
and
other
purposes
came
at
just
the
period
when
the
wood
supply
of
England,
which
had been
used
in
the
iron
works
for
fuel,
was
giving
out.
About
1783,
under
pressure
of
this
situation,
two men
almost simul-
taneously
discovered
that
coal
could be treated
somewhat
as the
charcoal
makers had
treated wood.
The
great significance
of
the
coking
of
coal
lay
in
its
use
for
the
smelting
of
iron,
thus utiliz-
ing
two
of
England's greatest
natural
resources
of
the
greatest
im-
portance
in
the transition
to the
machine
and
factory
age.
The
rapid
advance
of
both
the
coal
and iron
industries
caused
a
demand
for better
transportation
of
heavy
material,
and the
great
era
of
canal
building
began.
Better internal
transport
combined
with
con-
trol
of the
sea routes
helped
to
give
England
her
start
on
the
new
path.
We
cannot
recite
further in
detail
how one
thing
led
to
an-
other
and
how
all
the
factors combined
soon
made
England
the
"work-shop
of
the
world,"
but
must
return
to
the
effect
on the
people
of
the
great
change
which
began
toward
the
end
of the
eigh-
teenth
century.
Going
back
to
the
major
part
of
the
population,
the
agricultural,
we
may
note
that it
was
profoundly
affected not
only
by
the ma-
chine
as
such,
but
also
by
the
shifts
in
industries.
The
woolen
in-
dustry
over
a
large part
of
England
had
given
part
time
employ-
ment to the small farmer
with his
wife and
children within their
own
homes.
The
new
cotton
industry,
however,
was based on
ma-
chinery
and
non-human
power.
Instead of
scattering
the
work
in
various
stages
among
people
in
their
farm
homes,
many
of
whom
were
in
fact
proprietors
in
a
small
way
in
their
particular
branch
of the
industry,
the cotton
trade called
for
factories and concentra-
tion
of
population
near
them.
The
workers
ceased
to
be
proprietors
and owners
of
homes,
and
became
mere
wage
earners in rented
rooms.
During
the French
wars
wages
and
the cost
of
living
were
to
become
almost
hopelessly
out
of
balance,
and,
as
Parliament would
take
no
action,
efforts
at
amelioration of
the
situation
were
left to
THE
INDUSTRIAL
REVOLUTION
the
local
authorities.
In
the
eighteenth
century government
by
Par-
liament
was
not
only
corrupt
and
careless
of
the
needs
of
the
work-
ing
class
but it
was
also
clumsy,
and
it
was
not
until well
into the
next
century
that
it received
that
overhauling
of
methods
which
was
to enable
it
to
function under
the
new
social
and
economic
con-
ditions
that were
developing.
It
was still
largely
Tudor
machinery
trying
to
operate
under
conditions
very
different
from
those
of
Tudor
days.
The
theory
of
a
state-regulated wage,
for
example,
was
a
hoary
idea
in
English
life,
running
far back
of
the
famous
Statute
of Laborers under
Elizabeth,
but
Parliament,
coming
more
and
more
under the
influence
of
the
doctrine of
laissez
jwre
y
was to
decline at
the
end
of the
eighteenth
century
to
meddle
with
the
relations
between
employer
and
employed,
though
the old
statutes
were still
nominally
in
effect.
The local
powers,
as
represented
by
the
Justices
of
the
Peace,
were
willing
to
try
to
help
the
agricultural
laborers,
but unfortu-
nately
adopted
a
wrong
method which was
to
have
disastrous
re-
sults.
At
a
meeting
of
the
Justices
of
Berkshire
at
Speenhamland
in
1795
they
set
a
scale of
wages
which were
to
rise
and
fall
with
the
price
of
corn
[wheat]
.
Although
they
recommended that em-
ployers
raise
wages
in
accordance
with the
plan,
they
also
ruled
that
if
the laborer did
not receive the
agreed
amount he
should
be
given
the
difference
from the
parish
funds,
provided
that he
should first
be declared
a
pauper.
As
should
have been
foreseen,
employers
took
advantage
of their
opportunity
and,
instead of
raising wages,
they
allowed the
parishes
to take
up
the
slack,
with
the
result that
a
large
part
of the
rural
population
sank
to
the
status of
paupers
in
order
to
live.
As
a
consequence
there
was
a
distinct
lowering
of
their
morale. In
spite
of increase
of
local
taxes,
the
system
was
popular
with
employers.
Not
only
did
it
stave
off the
revolution
on
the
part
of
the
laboring
class
feared
by
many,
but
the
rise
in
profits
and rents
more
than
covered the
rise in taxes.
Within
a
gen-
eration the
system
had
spread
over
practically
every
county
in
England
and Wales
at
the
cost
of
much
suffering
and loss of
self-
respect
on the
part
of the
honest
laboring
poor.
The
full
effects
of
all
these
forces
were
not
felt
until
after
1815
9
EMPIRE
ON THE
SEVEN
SEAS
and the
end of the
Napoleonic
wars,
but
the
process
was
beginning
in
the
period
of this
chapter,
and
two
things,
the
increase
in
popu-.
lation
and
the
factory,
began
to show their
evil
results
almost at
once.
When,
in
the
woolen
industry,
the
work was
done in their
own homes
by
a
considerable
part
of the
workers there
was not that
bogey
of
modern
industrialism,
the "overhead" cost. But when
fac-
tories
were
built and
machinery
installed
there
was
a
heavy
invest-
ment,
and
the
failure to
earn
interest on it
might
spell
bankruptcy
for
the
owner
who
had
invested
his
own
or
borrowed
capital.
Under
the old
system
of
cottage
industry,
risk and
profits
had
been
widely
distributed in
comparatively
small
shares,
but
the new
system
meant
concentrated
ownership,
the
possibility
of
vast
wealth
for the
few,
and the
reduction
of
the former
independent
cottage
worker
to
the
position
of
a
mere
wage
earner
dependent
on the
new
factory
owner
for
everything
in
life.
Formerly
industrial
work
in
a
cottage
had
been
only
an
adjunct
to
the food
and
shelter
already
assured
in
countless
cases,
in
spite
of
much
poverty*
Now
employ-
ment
and
wages,
at
any
level,
came
to
mean for
the
factory
worker
life itself
on
any
terms
he could
make.
The
overhead and
the
desire
to
get
rich
quickly
by
the
new
methods led
most
employers,
with
some
notable
exceptions,
to
a
ruthless
treatment
of their
labor. In order
to
use the machines
to
the
utmost
o
their
productive
power,
labor was
speeded up,
so
that
little
children were
often
worked
sixteen hours
a
day,
and
the
prevailing
humanitarian
minimum
was
twelve. Had
the
supply
of
labor
been
limited,
the
position
might
have
been
better,
but
as
we
have
seea at the
very
beginning
of
the industrial
revolution
other
forces
had
been at
work
to
create
a
surplus
labor
supply,
which was
further
enlarged
by
the
rapid
increase in
population.
It
is true
that
machine-produced
goods
quickly
fell in
price,
but the
cost of
living
as
a whole
did
not,
largely
owing
to
food cost
due
to
the corn
laws
and
the
French
wars,
of
which
we
shall
speak
later.
Moreover,
unjust
and
overbearing
as the old
country aristocracy
had
been,
they
had,
from
the
long
possession
of land
and relations
with
tenants,
acquired
a
certain
sense
of
responsibility
which was
frequently wholly
lacking
in
the new rich
of the
factory-owning
10
THE
SOCIAL SCENE
class,
who
regarded
their
machines
and
those
who
operated
them
as
much
the same
in
the
money-making
process.
It
is
impossible
accurately
to
appraise
the
social
conditions
of
any
past
period,
but,
although
authorities
differ,
in
general
we
may
say,
I
think,
that
in
the
old
England
from which
we
are
now
passing
there had been a
closer
and more human relation
between
owners
of
property
or
a
business,
whether between
country
landlords
and
tenants who
might
have
lived
on their
land for
generations,
or
between town
tradesmen and the
apprentices
living
in the
homes
of their
masters,
than
between
the
new
factory
owners
and
the
shifting
multitude
of
"hands"
whom
they
might
not even
know
by
sight
or
name.
The
era
of individualism
and the
cash
relation-
ship
had
begun,
for
good
and evil.
III. THE
SOCIAL SCENE
The
period
of
the
rapid
rise of the
large factory
towns
was still
a
decade or
two
ahead,
but to
get
a
glimpse
of the "two
Englands"
we
may
glance
at London
in this
period.
The rich
and well-to-do
were
rapidly
moving
westward
from
the older
portions
of
the
city
or
building
houses
facing
on
the
newly
developing
garden
squares.
These
classes, however,
were but
a
small
part
of
the
population,
which was about
900,000
in
1801,
and
we
may
place
the
homes
of
the
rest,
in
a
descending
economic
scale,
as
on
streets,
lanes,
courts,
alleys,
yards,
and
passages.
From
novels,
diaries,
and
letters,
the
home
life of
the
upper
classes
is
fairly
well
known to
every
one
and,
together
with the
country
life
of
those
of the
same
social
grades,
usually
forms
in
our
minds
the
picture
of
Georgian England.
We
cannot,
however,
un-
derstand
either the
social
or
political history
of
the
next
century
without
bringing
into
the
picture
the
dark
shadows
of
the
lives of
the
poor,
and
it must
be
remembered that the
wages
of what
we
now
call
"the white
collar
class,"
such as clerks and
others,
were
usually
below those of skilled
artisans.
In the
laboring
class of London an entire
family
commonly
occu-
pied only
a
single
room.
The
poorest
lived
in dark
holes
in
the
cel-
ii
EMPIRE
ON THE
SEVEN
SEAS
lars;
those
a
little
better
off
in
the
attics
j
while those
still
better
off
occupied
rooms
on
the
first
or second
floors.
Among
the
poorest,
conditions
were
almost
indescribably
bad.
The
several
members,
sometimes
eight
or
more,
of the
one-room
family
would
sleep
in
one
bed,
the sheets
of
which,
if there were
any,
would
be
washed
only
two
or
three times
a
year,
and
the
vermin-infested
blankets
never.
The windows
often
could not be
opened,
and
the rooms
were
filled
not
only
with
foul
air
from
their
unwashed
crowded
occupants
and the
cooking
but
also
with
the stench from the
filthy
privies
at
the
bottom
of the
staircase.
Even those who lived on
the
better
floors
had
to suffer
from
their
fellow-tenants
above
and
be-
low
them
in
the
same house.
For artisans
in
the
"genteel
trades"
the
standard
home was
one
room,
in
which
frequently
the
trade
was
carried
on
in
addition
to
the
life
of the
family.
There
were
no
cheap
means of
transportation,
and
as
workmen,
therefore,
had
to live near their
work,
overcrowding
was
general.
Although
we
may
ascend
gradually
from
the
above
conditions to
those
of
the
comfortably
off,
we
must
also
descend
to
yet
lower
levels
for
a
large
part
of the
population,
which
lived
in
the
cheapest
t
of
lodgings
kept by
harpies
in ruinous old
buildings.
One
of
these
was
a
Mrs,
Farrell
who
died
in
1765
and was
found
to
have
ac-
cumulated
6000
by
letting
out
two-penny
lodging
rooms. In
these
refuges,
and
even
these
were not
the
lowest,
in
which
a
large
floating
population
lived,
it was
not
infrequent
to find
the bodies
of those
who
had
been
frozen
or
starved
to
death* It
is
little
won-
der
that under such
conditions
the
working
class
to
a
great
extent
succumbed
to the
universal
plague
of
gin
drinking
as
the
only
escape
from
the
intolerable
reality
of
their
existence.
We
are
apt
to
think
of
the
eighteenth
century,
in
spite
of
its
political
favoritism
and
corruption,
as
a
rather
stolid,
solid
period,
but one
of
its distinct
keynotes
was
uncertainty.
Changes
in fun-
damental
conditions,
such,
for
example,
as
we
spoke
of
in
agricul-
ture;
gambling
among
the
rich;
difficulty
for
the
tradesmen
in
collecting
bills;
the
fear or
actuality
of
unemployment
among
the
poor,
all
contributed
to this
uncertainty,
and for
the
debtor
there
remained
only
exile
or
the
debtors'
prison.
Thousands
were
thrown
12
THE
SOCIAL
SCENE
into
these
places,
such
as
the
Fleet or
the
King's
Bench in
London,
often with
little
hope
of
ever
getting
out. Sometimes
whole
fam-
ilies
were
incarcerated,
and
children were
brought
up
in them.
Here
the
debtors,
honest
or
fraudulent,
and their
families had
to
associate
with the
vilest
of criminals
and
live
among
the
wildest
scenes of
debauchery.
As late
as
1814
it
was
said
that
the
Fleet
was
the
biggest
brothel
in
the
city.
Another
characteristic
of the
period
was
violence,
as
displayed
in
looting, rioting,
highway
rob-
beries
and
the
dangers
to be
encountered
on both
country
highways
and
city
streets.
We
could
paint many
other
black
shadows into
our
picture,
but
we
have said
enough
to
counterbalance
the
Christmas-card
pictures
of old
Merry
England,
and
it
is as
easy
to
overrate
the actual
hu-
man
suffering
of
an
earlier
period
as
it
is
difficult
to
compare
the
to-
tal of
lights
and
shadows
of
one
period
with another.
To
say
this
is
not to
minimize the evils of
either
past
or
present,
but
to
point
to
the
fact
that
not
only
do
ideas and
outlooks
change,
but
appar-
ently
even the
susceptibility
to
pain
and
suffering
of our
nervous
systems.
It would
not
only,
for
example,
be considered
the
height
of
cruelty
today
to
amputate
a
man's
leg
without
an
anaesthetic,
>but it
may
well
be
questioned
whether
the man
would
not
actually
jsuffer more than his ancestor
of a
century ago
who
had never heard
K)f
an
anaesthetic,
just
as we should find it
almost
intolerably
in-
convenient
to
go
without
many
things
to which
our
ancestors
never
Igave
a
thought
because
they
had
never
heard
of
them.
Looking
back to the London of
the end of
the
eighteenth
cen-
tury
we see its
injustices
and
horrors,
but
it
may
well
be
that those
Jiving
in
it
at
that
time
^nd
comparing
it with the
beginning
of
the
century
saw advance.
There
had,
indeed,
been
progress
in
many
Vays,
such
as
water
supply,
paving,
lighting
of the
streets,
with
the resultant
effect
on
diminishing
street crimes at
night,
but
the
greatest
advance
was
in
the
changed
attitude on
the
part
of
a
large
part
of
the
public
toward those
less
fortunate. Modern
humani-
tarianism,
as contrasted
with
medieval
charity,
was
just beginning,
and
it
is
through
the
changed
color
of the
lenses
of
that
movement
that
we now
look
back
on
all
past
periods,
often
forgetting,
unhis-
13
EMPIRE
ON
THE
SEVEN
SEAS
torically,
how
new
these
modern
humanitarian
spectacles
are
and
our increased
sensitivity
to
suffering.
IV.
RELIGION
AND
THE COMMON
MAN
Another
great
reform,
initiated
by
an
individual
about
this
same
time,
was
that of
the
prisons.
John
Howard,
who
was
appointed
High
Sheriff
in
Bedfordshire
in
1773,
was
so
shocked
by
the
con-
ditions
he
found
in the
prisons
of
his district that
for
the rest
of
his
life he
devoted himself
to
the
study
of
prisons
throughout
Eng-
land and
some other
countries,
and
so
awoke
public
opinion
that
Parliament
acted to
ameliorate
the
worst,
at
least,
of
the condi-
tions
he had
discovered and
brought
to
light.
As another
instance,
among
many,
we
may
note,
in
1787,
the
formation
of the
Society
for
the
Abolition of the Slave
Trade,
for which
a
large
body
of
pri-
vate
citizens,
with William Wilbcrforce
as
leader,
worked
unceas-
ingly
until the trade
was
abolished
throughout
the
Empire
twenty
years
later,
a
matter
of
happy augury
for all the new
possessions
which
were to
become
part
of
the
Empire
in
that
century.
One
of
the most
powerful
forces
operating
in
English
life
in
this
period
and
which
was to bear
noble fruit
was
that of the Evan-
gelical
Movement,
a
recrudescence
of
that
seventeenth-century
Puritanism
which
has
always
appealed
to a
large
part
of
the
public.
Calvinistic in its
theology,
it
differed
to
some
extent from the
earlier
Wesleyan
movement,
although
it
and
Methodism
had much
in common. Both
carried
religion
to
the
poor,
and
if
the new
problems
which
were to
arise from
the
Industrial
Revolution were
largely
beyond
the
capacity
of
Evangelicalism
to
solve
4
,
it
did
do
much
to
foster,
among
the
upper,
the
middle and
the elite
of
the
working
classes,
a
sense of social
duty.
To us
in this
day,
that
sense
may
savor
of
too
much
complacency
and
smugness
with
regard
to
a
social
order
in
which
all
were
expected
to know
their
places
and
keep
them.
However,
like all
Puritan
movements,
it
weighted
the
scales
heavily
on
the
side
of
personal
responsibility,
independence
and
social
reform.
Also,
especially
among
the
workers and
lower
middle
class,
it
had
great
influence
in
lessening
violence,
sudden
changes
and
the
tendency
toward
revolution.
To
it was
due
in
no