CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
DATE DUE 
 
 -E^^4»=M3^g=#*r 
 
 , 5> Jv -t'j* 
 
 ^jOn_5^W 
 
 " tei }['. 
 
 iMr't"^-^ 
 
 "ta-iijltj. 
 
 \mii^mrw 
 
 tei^ 
 
 ^ m^ r 
 
 rr 
 
 mrw 
 
 PRINTED IN U,S.A. 
 
 I,,^0RNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRAR 
 
 3 1924 102 143 637 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tiiis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924102143637 
 
LECTURES 
 
 ON THE 
 
 INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION 
 
 OF THE i%TH CENTURY 
 IN ENGLAND 
 
LECTURES 
 
 ON THE 
 
 INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION 
 
 OF THE i8th CENTURY 
 
 IN ENGLAND 
 
 POPULAR ADDRESSES, NOTES AND 
 OTHER FRAGMENTS 
 
 BY THE LATE 
 
 ARNOLD TOYNBEE 
 
 TUTOR OF BALLIOL COLLECK, OXFORD 
 
 TOGETHER WITH A SHORT MEMOIR 
 
 I 'BY 
 
 U JOWETT 
 
 MASTER OF BALLIOL COLLEGE, OXFORD 
 
 SECOND EDITION 
 
 RIVINGTONS 
 WATERLOO PLACE, LONDON 
 
 MDCCCLXXXVII 
 
/f :3///S— 
 
 /''CORNE 
 
 >iTY| 
 
 -J 
 
 ,1,1, i-Ji i\ n ;) 
 Yll/'Ji , it' 
 
MEMOIR. 
 
 I HAVE a sad pleasure in complying with the request 
 made to me by Mrs. Arnold Toynbee, that I should write 
 a short memoir of her husband. My acquaintance with 
 him was limited to the years of his residence at Oxford ; 
 and I knew him only as an older person knows one who 
 is much younger than himself. He would not have liked 
 me to exaggerate ; and I may fail to satisfy the enthu- 
 siasm of his younger friends, who were more intimate 
 with him than I was. They may thkik, too, that I have 
 uniatentionally interpreted his views by my own. But 
 though aware of these objections, I could not refuse, 
 when asked, to offer this sHght tribute to a dearly- 
 beloved friend, 
 
 "Too little and too lately known," 
 
 whose image and example have sunk deeply into the 
 minds of some of his contemporaries. 
 
 Arnold Toynbee was the second son of Joseph 
 Toynbee, F.R.S., the celebrated aurist. He was born in 
 Savile Kow, August 23, 1852. His father died before he 
 was fourteen years of age, yet not before he had recog- 
 nised the rare gifts and promise of his son. His child- 
 hood and youth were singularly happy and innocent. 
 They were passed chiefly at Wimbledon, where he grew 
 up in a cultivated society, surrounded by hterary and 
 
vi Memoir. 
 
 artistic interests. Many eminent persons visited at his 
 father's house. Among them was the late Mx. James 
 Hinton, a philanthropist and original thinker, author of 
 the Mystery of Pain, who exercised a considerable in- 
 fluence on his early mental development. His father, 
 whose activity of mind was not exhausted by a labori- 
 ous profession, had numerous schemes of social and 
 sanitary improvement. He designed model lodging- 
 houses at Wimbledon, and was in the habit of giving 
 lectures on popular science to his neighbours, at which 
 he was assisted in the experiments by his youthftd son. 
 From him Arnold Toynbee learned to take an interest 
 in poetry and pictures. Like many boys, he had an early 
 fancy for the army, which somewhat interfered with the 
 course of his education. He never received the regular 
 drill of a public school, and hence his acquirements 
 naturally took the direction of modern literature and 
 philosophy rather than of Greek and Latin. When quite 
 young he was intrusted to the tuition of Mr. Powles 
 of Blackheath, whose kindness and tender care of their 
 early youth is affectionately remembered by so many of 
 his pupils. At a somewhat later stage he was sent to a 
 mOitary college, where he remained two years, and then 
 left at his own request. He felt that he had not been 
 guided by a true instinct in the choice of a profession ; 
 and, though he continued to take an interest in military 
 history, and kindred subjects, he gave up the idea of 
 entering the army. The want of a public school training, 
 which is sometimes held to be a reproach, affected him 
 less than others, for he was always full of coiu-age and 
 spirit. At eighteen years of age, having no one to advise 
 
Memoir. vii 
 
 him, he formed for himself the singular resolution of 
 reading alone in a retired village on the sea-coast. Here 
 he passed a twelvemonth engaged in study, revolving 
 in his mind, in such manner as a youth of eighteen 
 might, the social and religious problems of the age. He 
 was eager to devote himself to History, " especially to 
 the Philosophy of History." His education was left to 
 himself, and he seems early to have made up his miud 
 (as he says in one of his letters to Mr. Hinton) that the 
 aim of his life should be " the pursuit of truth for its 
 own sake." 
 
 Two years later he entered the University, and, after 
 a few weeks' residence, becatne a candidate for a Modern 
 History Scholarship at BaUiol College. He did not 
 succeed, but the examiners were struck with some parts 
 of his work, and invited him to become a member of the 
 College. His residence was deferred for a time by ill- 
 health and other causes. When he returned to Oxford 
 he was still incapable of any continued mental exertion, 
 and it was not thought expedient that he should try for 
 Honours. He passed his time in miscellaneous reading, 
 and in conversation with friends. An hour or two in the 
 day of serious study was as great a strain as his faculties 
 could bear. Yet few persons ever spent four years at 
 Oxford with more profit to themselves and others. 
 
 There are times in the history of the University and 
 of Colleges when small circles of distinguished young 
 men meet together and form very close ties of friendship 
 or brotherhood, which often continue in after hfe. They 
 beHeve in one another, they delight in one another's 
 society, they frame ideals of the future, and often receive 
 
viii Memoir. 
 
 a strong impulse from their mutual intercourse. The 
 recollection of those pleasant days spreads a glow over 
 their lives, sometimes mingling with a grateful attach- 
 ment to their college or to some older person who has 
 been their guide or friend. Towards such a circle or set, 
 among whom might be numbered Alfred Milner, Michael 
 Glazebrook, James Wilson (now in North- Western India), 
 T. H. Warren, Philip Gell, James Bonar, the present 
 Earl of Dalhousie, and some others, who were his con- 
 temporaries, Arnold Toynbee was greatly attracted. He 
 was himself, perhaps, the most prominent figure among 
 them, and had a remarkable hold over several of them. 
 There were others, both older and younger, whom he 
 inspired with his ideas, such as Mr. F. C. Montague 
 and Mr. L. E. Phelps, Fellows of Oriel College ; Mr. . 
 A. C. Bra^dley, and Mr. R. L. Nettleship, Fellows of 
 BaUiol College ; Mr. Bolton King, of Balliol, and Mr. 
 Albert Grey, M.P. for Northumberland; but these 
 gathered round binr) later. 
 
 Soon after he took his degree he was appointed tutor 
 to the Indian civilians at Balliol College, numbering 
 between thirty and forty. He thought himself happy 
 in having a definite sphere of work marked out for him. 
 His health had considerably improved, and for some time 
 past he had been a diligent student of Political Economy. 
 He now began to be immersed in Indian studies. He 
 also undertook the rather difficult office of CoUege 
 Bursar, in which he showed a great talent for business, 
 and was much appreciated by the tenants and dependants 
 of the College. There was an intention of electing him 
 a Fellow of Balliol College about the time of his death. 
 
Memoir. ix 
 
 which, il he had Uved a few weeks longer, would have 
 been carried out. 
 
 As tutor of the Indian students he lectured to them 
 in classes on Political Economy and on some Indian 
 subjects. He also saw them individually, and became 
 their adviser and friend. He felt that the future of India 
 would, in a great degree, depend on what could be made 
 of those young men in the course of years. Becognising 
 the vastness of the field and of the interests concerned, he 
 at once commenced the study of the excellent Blue-books 
 and Reports published by the Indian Government. He 
 knew how much India had suffered from the crude 
 appUcation of Eicardo and MiU to a state of society for 
 which they were not adapted. He would try to make 
 his pupUs understand that they must learn Political 
 Economy after the old orthodox fashion, but that the 
 theory must be applied to an Oriental or semi-civilised 
 country — with a difference. He was very desirous to 
 inspire them with just and humane feelings towards the 
 natives. If they went to India, they were to go there 
 for the good of her people, and on one of the noblest 
 missions in which an Englishman could be engaged. 
 
 Yet, though full of idealism, he had no dreams or illu- 
 sions about great poHtical or other reforms, by which the 
 old order of Indian society was to be renovated. He 
 had plenty of common sense, and this, combined with the 
 gift of imagination, enabled him to realise the difficulty 
 of changing an ancient civihsation. He never supposed 
 that abstract ideas of freedom or representative govern- 
 ment would regenerate the Indian ryot. He was aware 
 that social and industrial changes, however desirable in 
 
X Memoir. 
 
 themselves, must be relative to the habits, intelligence, 
 and public opinion of the people. He was rather anxious 
 to impress upon the minds of his pupils the value 
 of good administration, than to make them take a side 
 in vexed Indian questions. 
 
 The secret of his influence, both over them and over 
 others, was his transparent sincerity. No one could find 
 in him any trace of vanity or ambition. Whether he 
 received money or not, if he could only supply his mode- 
 rate wants, was a matter of indifference to him. He was 
 equally indifferent to the opinion of others, and probably 
 never in his life said anything for the sake of being 
 appreciated. He seemed incapable of entertaining a per- 
 sonal dislike to any one, and it may be doubted whether 
 he ever had an enemy. He was very frank and unre- 
 served. There was nothing in that " schone Seele " which 
 might not have been seen and known of all men. 
 
 There was too a singular charm in his conversation. 
 He had the rare power of talking to persons in any class 
 of life. He did not wait to be spoken to, but was himself 
 the first to begin. Except when in pain, he had a con- 
 stant flow of thoughts and words. There was in him 
 " a great deal of seriosity," yet the love of play and 
 mischief was always ready to break out. He was very 
 wiUing to plunge into an argument, which he would 
 intersperse with shght jests and humorous allusions. His 
 mind would seem to light up with the new thoughts 
 which arose within him. A few years before his death 
 he was delighted to discover, for to himself it was a 
 surprise, that he could express his ideas clearly and 
 fluently in a continuous speech. He writes to a friend : 
 
Memoir. xi 
 
 — " Having started on this career [of speaking in public], 
 he "mil endeavour with all his might to keep true to the 
 ideal with which he has begun, — devotion to God's ser- 
 vice." He was eagerly welcomed by large audiences of 
 working men in the North, whom he addressed for 
 hours without the help of notes. His graceful and 
 classical appearance did not hinder them from recog- 
 nising that he was a true friend of the people, and 
 that he understood their Wants, and had a great sym- 
 pathy with their higher aims. Yet there was also a 
 sense in the inind of some of his hearers that for such 
 efforts he was physically unfitted, and that it might 
 have been better for him if he had abstained from them. 
 The two works to which Arnold Toynbee devoted the 
 last four or five years of his life were a new Political 
 . Economy, and the reform of the Church. He did not 
 ignore the benefits which the elder generation of English 
 Economists had conferred upon mankind. He knew that 
 their doctrines were in the abstract true, but he believed 
 that they had done their work, and that the world had 
 got beyond them, and stood in need of something more. 
 If they were not to become odious and even mischievous, 
 some " second thoughts " roust be added. He was as 
 strongly in favour of freedom of labour, and freedom of 
 trade, of sound principles of currency, of the modificatibn 
 (if not the abolition) of the Poor Law, as the straitest of 
 the sect. He would not have denied the famous Theory 
 of Rent, nor would he have confounded an extension of 
 credit with an increase of capital. He admitted that the 
 condition of the lower classes had improved, and he would 
 have acknowledged that this increased prosperity was 
 
xii Memoir. 
 
 in a great measure due to free trade. Neither was he 
 slow to recognise the sacrifices which the upper classes, 
 and especially the landed aristocracy, had often madfi 
 for their good. 
 
 But he thought that the old Political Economy was 
 only half the truth, and in practice had turned out to 
 be the reverse of the truth. He quarrelled above all 
 with the extreme abstraction of the science; it was a 
 mere hypothesis which had no near relation to facts, and 
 was often contradicted by them. The laws which regu- 
 late the accumulation and distribution of wealth require 
 the pressure of a severe and equable competition before 
 they can take effect. But competition can hardly be said 
 to exist in Eastern countries, or in many parts of our own. 
 The world was moving on at different rates of progress- 
 in different trades, and at different times and places; 
 Political Economy seemed to assume that these rates of 
 progress were always the same. The Economists spoke 
 of a principle of the greatest wealth, which happened to 
 coincide with the interests of the upper and middle 
 classes, and also coincided with the prodigious extension 
 of manufacturing industry which took place at the be- 
 ginning of the century. They preached the accumulation 
 of wealth, leaving the distribution to take care of itself. 
 They assured the poor man freedom of labour, but with- 
 out education, without the chance of emigration, confined 
 as he was to his original place of abode by the action of 
 the old Poor Law, the freedom given to him was under 
 ordinary circumstances only a liberty to starve. The 
 contract which he made with his master was a contract not 
 of equal with equal, but of equal with unequal, in which the 
 
Memoir. xiii 
 
 labourer had no chance of gaining a proportionate share 
 of the increasing wealth of the country. He considered 
 also that whUe professing merely to state the laws of 
 wealth, the theories of Political Economists did indirectly 
 tend to promote a grasping spirit both in nations and 
 individuals. A subject which at one time occupied his 
 thoughts a good deal was the practicability of equalising 
 supply and demand at any given time or place, with a 
 view to the prevention of waste. As far as I remember, 
 this scheme, which was never fully worked out, depended 
 upon the possibihty of collecting statistics, which were 
 to be daily and hourly conveyed from one market to 
 another. 
 
 These remarks will enable the reader to understand 
 the attitude taken up by Arnold Toynbee towards the 
 old Political Economy. He did not, perhaps, sufficiently 
 recognise that economical laws, though operative in 
 different degrees in different states of society, are never 
 altogether set aside, but have some effect in aU ages 
 and countries (for however complex human hfe may 
 be, the relation of men to each other in trade or exchange 
 is one of the simplest, and may be the thread to guide us 
 through all the rest). Neither was he always consistent 
 in his appreciation of the great economist, Ricardo, whose 
 famous treatise he greatly admired, and yet in one 
 passage of his writings has denounced " as an intellectual 
 imposture." It was natural that he should entertain a dis- 
 like to an hypothesis which was so easily misapplied. He 
 wanted to begin where Ricardo left off ; and he was surely 
 right in thinking that something more was needed than 
 had satisfied the last generation and that which preceded 
 
xiv Memoir. 
 
 it. The new Political Economy mus.t be nearer to facts^ 
 more helpful in relieving the wants of great cities ; must 
 teach duties as well as laws — must not be satisfied with 
 true doctrines of rent or of money ; but must reconcile 
 humanity with science, the reason of men with their 
 feelings. As he wrote in one of his letters : " The politi- 
 cal economy of Ricardo has not vanished ; it has only 
 been corrected, re-stated and put into the proper relation 
 to the science of life." The older school of Economists 
 had shown the danger of Government interference ; the 
 new was to show how and when governments oughA to 
 interfere ; it might even be hoped that combination 
 and co-operation promoted by the State would create 
 new forms of industrial society. By a more general 
 diffusion of statistics, production and consumption might 
 become more nicely adapted to one another ; as formerly 
 in small villages, so now throughout the whole country 
 and in the markets of the world. Again, perhaps, he did 
 not sufl&ciently consider how difficult it would be to 
 reduce to uniform laws the commerce of the world. He 
 himself would certainly have been far from asserting 
 that he had said the last word, or discovered the final 
 harmonies of economic science. 
 
 The peculiarity of Arnold Toynbee's position was 
 this : — He was not a socialist or a democrat, though he 
 had some tendencies in both directions. He was not a 
 party politician at all ; btit he had a strong natural 
 sympathy with the life of the labouring classes, and he 
 was a student of history. Beginning with the a priori 
 hypotheses of Ricardo and Mill, he turned aside from 
 them to study the actual condition of the poor in past 
 
Memoir. xv 
 
 times, especially the progress of enclosures, the growth 
 (^f the factory system, the remuneration of the labourer, 
 the administration of the Poor Law ; by the use of the 
 " historical method " he thought that he would better 
 understand the altered country in which we are now 
 living. He had learnt how to distinguish these two lines 
 of inquiry, and yet was able to combine them. This 
 further point of view has been reached by few ; no one 
 has started from it. Nor has any one associated such 
 studies in the same manner with a personal knowledge of 
 the working classes. For several months in successive 
 years he resided in Whitechapel, and undertook the 
 duties of a visitor for the Charity Organisation Society. 
 There he lived in half-furnished lodgings, as far as he 
 could after the manner of working men, joining in their 
 clubs, discussing with them (sometimes in an atmosphere 
 of bad whiskey, bad tobacco, bad drainage) things mate- 
 rial and spiritual — the laws of Nature and of God. 
 
 The other subject in which he took an active interest 
 during the later years of his life was the Reform of the 
 Established Church, He felt strongly the ever increas- 
 ing separation between the clergy and laity ; the great 
 gulf which divided churchmen and dissenters ; the grow- 
 ing opposition of science and religion ; the hoUowness 
 and formalism of many rehgious behefs. He knew that 
 this antagonism and unreality was the source of many 
 serious evils, political and social. He lamented the un- 
 willingness to take Orders which prevailed among able 
 young men at the Universities. He saw the double mis- 
 chief which arose out of this reluctance both to themselves 
 and to the Church. The clergy were undertaking a 
 
xvi Memoir. 
 
 burden too heavy for them to bear, while the mass of the 
 laity were unorganised for the work of improvement. 
 They were the reverse of an army going up against the 
 strong places of evU. Their efforts were desultory and 
 ineffectual. Only here and there an individual might be 
 found pursuing aims of philanthropy, or perhaps getting 
 up a benevolent society. The Church of the future which 
 Arnold Toynbee had before his inind was the union of 
 the whole nation, or at least of the intelligent classes, in 
 one body for a common purpose; masters of their own 
 circumstances, and fellow- workers towards a common end. 
 There were two objects which he had immediately in 
 view, the abolition of subscription and the admission of the 
 laity to the government of the Church. Both of these he 
 conceived to be necessary changes ; the first was required 
 for the sake of truth, and in order to relieve the clergy from 
 an untenable position ; the second was intended to widen 
 the basis of the Christian society, and so to infuse a new life 
 into it. He would have left the management of parishes, 
 and, to a certain extent, the regulation of religious worship, 
 to parochial councils. The members of a church were to be 
 taught to move together and to act with one another. 
 The harmony of Church and State was to be restored, 
 not by "the free Church in the free State," but by 
 effacing the line which divided religion from ordinary «life. 
 He desired to preserve the Church of England; but 
 he thought that it must be widened and rendered more 
 comprehensive if it was to satisfy the wants and aspira- 
 tions of the nation. He would have liked to show that 
 rational faith can be as intense as irrational, and that the 
 narrowest convictions are not always the strongest." 
 
Memoir. xvii 
 
 The wish for definite theology, by some so greatly 
 felt, seems never to have occurred to his mind ; he 
 used to say that religion had been nothing to him, until 
 he began to think about it for himself, and that he had 
 not unlearned, but learned it at Oxford. Neither did he 
 think that the Christian religion required the support 
 of miracles ; in his judglnent they were not proved 
 by historical evidence, and they did not enter into his 
 conception of the nature of God. The "imitation of 
 Christ " was to him the essence of Christianity ; the life 
 of Christ needed no other witness. His labours among 
 the poor were constantly sustained by the conviction 
 that some better thing was reserved both for them and 
 for us; he saw them as they were in the presence of 
 God ; he thought of them as the heirs of immortality. 
 He woiild have repeated from his innermost soul the 
 words that " he who had no belief in another world had 
 never been truly alive in this." 
 
 There was a certain unity in all his views which 
 was the unity of his own character. In religion as 
 in political economy he was an enemy to abstractions, 
 to disputed dogmas of theology as much as to abs- 
 tract theories about capital and labour ; religious truths 
 must be clothed with flesh and blood, and brought into 
 some relation with actual life before they had any 
 hold on his mind. He was always seeking to carry out 
 in practice the ideas which he had conceived. " He 
 would gather his friends around him ; they would form 
 an organisation ; they would work on quietly for a time, 
 some at Oxford, some in London ; they would prepare 
 themselves in different parts of the subject untU they 
 
 I 
 
xviii Memoir. 
 
 were ready to strike in public." Such aspirations, com- 
 bined with the keen perception of the means by which 
 they were to be fulfilled, wUl recall to the mind of some 
 the narrative of another movement which commenced in 
 Oxford about fifty years ago, and, from a grain of mustard 
 seed, has grown up to be a great tree. 
 
 His opinions about politics and political economy, 
 about rehgion and the constitution of the Church, might 
 not all of them have been the convictions of his maturer, 
 hfe. He might probably have seen some difficulties of 
 which he was not aware, and solved others which he 
 thought that he saw, had his life been prolonged for a 
 few years. In estimating his writings we should not 
 forget that he died at the age of thirty. The reaUy 
 interesting and striking thing in his life was not what 
 he actually produced, but Himself, that is to say, his 
 simplicity and disinterestedness, his sweet and lovely 
 example, his unlikeness to anybody else. 
 
 Of distinguished young men generally it must be 
 admitted that their best thoughts partake of the nature 
 of dreams, which cannot be reaUsed in the daylight of 
 experience. By their elders they are often considered 
 unpractical ; whUe over their own generation they some- 
 times exercise an almost magical influence. Their writ- 
 ings, unless they are great poets, are commonly dis- 
 appointing ; they seem not to do them justice ; they faU 
 very far short of what their younger friends know and 
 remember of their conversation and of themselves. Arnold 
 Toynbee was no exception to these remarks. He would 
 perhaps have shrunk from some of his papers, which 
 were fragments only, being communicated to the world. 
 
Memoir. xix 
 
 Neither would lie have imagined the estimate which the 
 love and admiration of his friends formed of him to be 
 one which he could trust. He had no stereotyped opinions, 
 but he was always making progress, and having learned 
 so much in a few years, he might have been expected to 
 learn much more had he Hved. All new ideas in the 
 process of acquiring them, or of acquiring and teaching 
 them at once, are liable to a certain confusion and incon- 
 sistency ; they are bright when seen by us from within ; 
 but they are not clearly apprehended by older persons, 
 whose mind has grown critical, and who have not the 
 same focus of vision. Yet, among older persons, may be 
 found some who will value the aspirations of such a man 
 as Arnold Toynbee above the great and successful careers 
 of others ; who will desire in later life to be revisited 
 by the dreams of their youth, without inquiring too 
 curiously into the possibility of their accomplishment in 
 the brief period of human existence; who will pray, even 
 in declining years, that " they may have more of a spirit 
 like his." 
 
 B. JOWETT. 
 
 Balliol College, May 16, 1884. 
 
 The following extracts from letters to friends, and a 
 paper on Church Reform, are added in illustration of 
 the preceding sketch. 
 
XX Memoir. 
 
 The first extract occurs in one of three long letters to 
 Mr. Hinton, containing a discussion and criticism of his 
 Mystery of Pain: — 
 
 September 18, 1871. 
 For myself, I have, since the ■beginning of April, with the 
 exception of a short interval in July, been reading alone at this 
 quiet little village, near the sea-coast, ostensibly with a view to a 
 University career; but determined to devote my life, and such 
 power as I possess, to the study of the philosophy of history. With 
 this object in view I have no inclination to enter any profession ; 
 nor do I think it probable that I shall compete for a scholarship 
 at the University. To this pursuit I wish to give my whole life. 
 The small means at my disposal, and those which, without the 
 expenditure of much time, I hope to be able to add to them, wiU be 
 sufficient for my maintenance. I do not care to spend my life in 
 acquiring material benefits which might have an evil, and which, 
 at any rate, could not have a good effect upon me. These ideas 
 may appear ridiculous in one so young, and of power so immature, 
 but they are not the result of mere ambition or of an empty desire 
 for fame in itself, or for the rewards with which it is accompanied. 
 My sole and, as far as it can be so, unalloyed motive is the pursuit 
 of truth ; and for truth, I feel, I would willingly sacrifice prospects 
 of the most dazzling renown. I do not even think myself capable 
 of accomplishing any work of importance. If my labours merely 
 serve to assist another in the great cause I shall be satisfied. 
 
 From another letter to a friend : — 
 
 Novemler 2, 1876. 
 I am perfectly spell-bound by parts of the Old Testament 
 histories. ... I agree with what you say about principles, and I 
 recognise easily in a spirit of very deep emotions there would be 
 an instinctive love of principle. We struggle on bit by bit, and 
 now every day I try to beat the devil in detail. I want to get 
 drenched in the spirit of that wonderful Imitation. It is more 
 deep and keen even than I thought. The knowledge of character 
 is marvellous. As for the Psalms, I do not read them regularly, 
 though I read some every night. 
 
Memoir. xxi 
 
 From another letter : — 
 
 Every morning I read my Bible and the Imitation. I try 
 daily to be good and unselfish ; I am not very successful, but I do 
 try. A speechless thrill of spiritual desire sometimes runs through 
 me and makes me hope, even when most weary. . . . My work 
 goes on well. Political Economy is becoming clearer to me every 
 day ; I feel how right I was to choose it as my subject. I try not 
 to get excited, to let my mind work easily. I take every sensible 
 precaution about my health, and try to turn my thoughts from that 
 to spiritual things. I often think that, if we were ever as nervous 
 about our spiritual life as we are about our physical, we should 
 most of us do better. I don't mean nervous about heaven and 
 hell, but about the purity of our thoughts, and the truth of our aims. 
 
 From another letter : — 
 
 Eeligion has revealed itself to me in clearer shapes than ever, 
 and in daily words and deeds I feel its hand. Death or pain seem 
 small now to what they did a year ago. Do you know as I grow 
 up, almost instinctively there comes a cessation of the old ques- 
 tioning of the ways of heaven. The simple logical attitude is to 
 feel one deserves absolutely nothing. All I long for is strength to 
 endure, and hold to the right ; if I shrink from the worst fate that 
 ever came to man, I am unworthy of the human lot — unworthy all 
 the suffering that has made me what I am in the centuries of dead 
 existence. 
 
 Whitechapel, July 1875. 
 I spoke last night for forty minutes, with hardly a pause, and 
 without hesitating for a word ; my friend, who was with me, was 
 warm in his congratulations; the audience were impressed, very 
 friendly, and attentive. I feel as if I had discovered a new power 
 to do Grod's work with ; though I am still doubtful naturally about 
 it ; it drains my energy, I must use it sparingly, but I hope always 
 in God's service. 
 
 Ball. Coll. Oct. 20, 1875. 
 The garden quadrangle at Balliol is where one walks at night, 
 and listens to the wind in the trees, and weaves the stars into the 
 web of one's thoughts; where one gazes from the pale inhuman 
 
xxii Memoir. 
 
 moon to the ruddy light of the windows, and hears broken notes of 
 music and laughter, and the complaining murmur of the railroad 
 in the distance. . . . The life here is very sweet and full of joy ; 
 at Oxford, after all, one's ideal of happy life is nearer being realised 
 than anywhere else; I mean the ideal of gentle, equable, intel- 
 lectual intercourse, with something of a prophetic glow about it, 
 glancing brightly into the future, yet always embalming itself in 
 the memory as a resting-place for the soul in a future that may 
 be dark and troubled after all, with little in it but disastrous 
 failure. . . . The Master is very kind ; he does not want me to 
 work more than a few hours daily. I am reading Aristotle's 
 Ethics, and shall read Thucydides as well, and I hope a little 
 political economy ; that is all this term. With care I may be able 
 to do this, but even this will require great care." 
 
 The latter part of tliis letter refers, of course, to 
 the nervous delicacy wHch warned him that a complete 
 breakdown would follow any sustained mental exertion. 
 He would occasionally speak of the bitter trial it was to 
 be conscious of intellectual power and never to dare use 
 it to its fuU — to be perpetually pulled up by ill health. 
 While very unexcitable, in the ordinary sense, and un- 
 emotional, markedly quiet and calm in manner, his mind 
 yet worked within itself with painful friction ; he could 
 not help thinking intensely and laboriously of anything 
 he had on hand, and had little power of throwing off 
 thought. When remonstrated with by a friend for not 
 taking his work more coolly, he replied. 
 
 Happily I am better now ; for a whole week I have rested and 
 done nothing, and now I hope to work quietly on till the end of 
 term. You see I am like a bad pen, I can't write without a 
 sputter, and my anxiety is to prove to myself that I gain by the 
 sputter. Eemember it is not so much excitement about my work 
 as the excitement of it that I speak of ; and really I 'm afraid I 
 can't get rid of what is an element in my mental nature. 
 
Memoir. xxiii 
 
 October 2, 1876. 
 I am glad you like the programme ; the next thing will be to 
 accomplish it. With me I fear expression has a vicious habit of 
 rushing out before deeds instead of after them, and that makes me 
 unwilling to speak of the glimpses I have caught from the Bible. 
 The two things it speaks to our hearts most unmistakably are, the 
 imfathomable longing for God, and the forgiveness of sins ; and 
 these are the utterances which fill up an aching void in secular 
 religion — a religion which is slowly breaking to pieces under me. 
 It is astonishing to think that it is in the Bible itself we find the 
 most eloquent, heart-rending expression of that doubt and utter 
 darkness and disbelief which the noisy rhetoricians and calm 
 sceptics would almost persuade us were never before adequately 
 expressed. They would tell us we must look for it all in their bald 
 language. 
 
 The following letter expresses some of the motives 
 which induced him to take up the subject of Church 
 Reform : — 
 
 December 1, 1878. 
 During the last week I have been much interested in the subject 
 of the " Church and the Age ;" and questions long dormant in my 
 mind have started into activity once more. It seems true that an 
 immense spiritual destitution exists amongst that large body ofr 
 educated men and women who have parted from the old, theology, 
 and yet retain a religious attitude towards life and the world. 
 Their communion is lost, and their worship ; nothing is left but an 
 uncertain, feeble, personal ritual, which barely maintains alive in 
 them a consciousness of the true significance and relative import- 
 ance of the events of life. The cares of this life hurry them away 
 from God ; no quiet intervals of meditation and contemplation 
 remain to them, for the forms which preserved to them, in spite of 
 apathy and haste, the decent opportunities of prayer and worship 
 in the old days of their communion, have lost their significance. 
 It is very hard for the purest and most earnest of those who are 
 immersed in the work of the world, or the deep exacting problems 
 of the intellectual life, to retain their grasp in isolation of a re- 
 
xxiv Memoir. 
 
 ligion which would be always present to them if they helonged to 
 a communion, but which they seem hardly to have energy to seek 
 out with deliberation and effort when abandoned and alone. The 
 question is. Has not the Church of England the power to provide, 
 for this great forsaken body, services and ministrations which shall 
 satisfy their religious instincts without offending, as it does now, 
 their ideals and intelligence ? This brings the question. Can the 
 Church of England be reformed ? For if it is not to be disesta- 
 blished it must be reformed ; and if it be reformed, it may be the 
 natural shelter and encouragement of pure, progressive spiritual 
 life ; if it be disestablished, the world may see spiritual life lost 
 in a new outburst of sectarian bigotry and intolerance. 
 
 This is one of several letters written during the only 
 visit he paid to Italy, and is characteristic of the way in 
 which he looked at things : — 
 
 Capei, Jan. 21, 1877. 
 . . . Eome I have told you nothing about, and indeed the im- 
 pressions of one grey day in it are not very worth putting down. 
 Still I did stand under the dome of St. Peter's ; I did see the 
 ApoUo, and Eaphael's and Michael Angelo's masterpieces, and I 
 did get a side glance at the city itself — that strange, mutilated 
 phantom of past centuries. It was from Montorio, to the west of 
 the city, that I caught that glimpse. But Eome is not the city 
 Florence is for beauty of situation or loveliness of outline. Her 
 famous hills are after all now little more than slight undulations 
 in the jumbled mass of buildings. One or two buildings stand out 
 with emphasis, but to make out the world-celebrated buildings and 
 ruins one by one, would have been as tedious and difficult as de- 
 ciphering an ill-printed map. The day was duU, however, and I 
 was tired. The country round — Soracte, in shape the exact image 
 of the Malvern hills, the fabulous Alban hills, whose look gave 
 one the same thrill of childish dreamland that the scent of par- 
 ticular flowers does — and, most foreign and yet most famUiar of 
 all from its uncertain likeness to our own desolate commons, the 
 Oampagna itself, stretching far away to where we think a white 
 light is the sea — the Mediterranean ; — all this was even more in- 
 teresting to me than the city in my first eager gaze. But you 
 
Memoir. xxv 
 
 will like to know about St. Peter's. In one word, the dome 
 is the most distinct and triumphant work of man self-exultant 
 that I have seen. The size, if one is not impatient, soon makes 
 itself felt, but it would require days to understand its full beauty 
 , of proportion and splendour of gold and colour. My feeling was 
 that there was no trace of God in it all. The sad cathedrals of 
 northern countries express the submission of man to God — pain, 
 effort, reverence. This trumpet-blast of colour and marble and 
 gold, is the exaltation of man, and of human self-content and 
 proud intelligence. You may smile at my speaking of a trumpet 
 blast of colour, but do you know, I can think of no other phrase 
 to express the bewildering effect of this blaze of gorgeous architec- 
 ture as it bursts upon you as you push aside the curtain at the 
 door and enter the nave. The dome itself has no echo of the 
 heavens of which it is the grandest earthly image. The gaze is 
 unsatisfied, not because the mind is drawn upward and* upward 
 by the architecture as in a Gothic cathedral, but because of the 
 feeling that it ought to seek completeness and all the glory of the 
 skies in this work of men's hands. 
 
 Pompeii has been so daubed by modern novelists and poets, 
 that I was delighted to find I felt quite naturally about it. I 
 suppose one feels a little of what a learned student of institutions 
 feels when in India, he sees the past in the present : certainly it 
 was not difficult to people those substantial streets and houses 
 with human beings, filled with business and petty cares, knowing 
 nothing of that gossamer net-work of impenetrable spirit which 
 was woven through their slow souls, and which touches the far 
 corners of the milky way. This is an involved way of saying that 
 I was deeply touched by the dumb helpless way in which the 
 wisest of men grope their path through the world, ignorant of the 
 fine issues their frail lives are made for. We are as they were, 
 and man only quarrels with nature and God because he would in- 
 clude both, and is not contented to be included. Do you see the 
 connection ? I only mean that in the sad fate of this city I was 
 impressed for the thousandth time with man's ignorance of the 
 way of all things. He schemes and works, and the result is some 
 undreamt-of thing which is linked to some other distant purpose. 
 
xxvi Memoir. 
 
 LEAFLETS FOE WOEKING MEN. No. 1. 
 
 The Church and the People. 
 
 Eeligion is indestructible. 
 
 It is not an invention of priests, to be torn up by force or 
 withered by enlightenment ; it is a gift of God. 
 
 Elude it we may, neglect it, scorn it, deny it ; escape its pre- 
 sence we cannot, any more than we can escape from the sky which 
 overarches us, and the air we breathe. 
 
 If then it be indestructible, if the unsuspected hand of Eeligion 
 be upon all, upon all is laid the duty to use and purify it, not 
 vainly to attempt to ignore it. 
 
 For Eeligion, like other gifts of God, may be turned to good or 
 evil by the will of man ; may become a pure faith or a dark super- 
 stition, a healer of division or a sower of discord, a friend of 
 progress or a prop of injustice, a herald of discovery or a hater of 
 knowledge. 
 
 What, then, can we in England do for Eeligion ? 
 
 All that in us lies to secure a form of Christianity in harmony 
 mth progress, liberty, and knowledge. 
 
 How can this be obtained ? By making the Church of England 
 a church of intellectual freedom and a church of the people. 
 
 What ! men cry, can this church of an episcopal sect, this last 
 obstinate remnant of a dead social system, this institution of 
 feudalism and fierce obstruction, this church of dominant classes, 
 dark with memories of persecution and intolerance; can such a 
 church as this become a church of freedom and a church of the 
 people ? 
 
 Yes, it can! It is for the people to decide. Already the 
 Church of England combines more than any other church in exist- 
 ence freedom of thought with a hold on the people. Eeform it, 
 assimilate it to the other features of English civilisation, and what 
 of these accusations is true now, would then cease to be true. 
 
 What are the lines reform should take? Liberty of thought 
 and popular government. Sweep away the restraints which hamper 
 the intellectual freedom of the minister ; give to the people a voice 
 in the administration of the parish; abolish the proud isolation 
 
Memoir. xxvii 
 
 in which the church has stood to the other churches of the 
 people. 
 
 Then might be seen a body of ministers, their hearts on fire 
 with the love of God and Christ, in living contact on one side with 
 the intellectual movement of the age, on the other with the 
 political and religious life of the people. 
 
 We do not wish to force upon the church any particular body 
 of religious opinions ; we wish to let in more light and air, and 
 leave the plant of God to grow undisturbed according to the law 
 of its own nature. 
 
 Two beliefs animate the advocate of a reformed church ; first/ 
 a belief that without religion a man were better dead; secondly, a 
 belief that a Church of England endowed with a principle of 
 movement would become the purest witness to God and Christ the 
 world has ever seen, and the most trusted staff of the people. 
 
 A. T. 
 
PREFATOEY NOTE. 
 
 A FEW words of explanation are necessary as to the 
 form in wHcL. these Lectures and Addresses appear. It 
 was after considerable hesitation that I consented to 
 print them. Of aU that is contained in the volume, 
 nothing was left by my husband in a form intended for 
 publication; and, possessed of a rare love of perfection, 
 he would have been the first himself to deprecate giving 
 permanency to imperfect work. Speech rather than 
 writing was his natural mode of expression ; in conversa- 
 tion even, he would freely and ungrudgingly give forth 
 his best thoughts and the result of researches which had 
 cost him the most labour ; and he neither wrote his lec- 
 tures or addresses before deHvering them, nor used any 
 notes in speaking. Hence though he had industriously 
 collected in note-books a mass of materials, at the time 
 of his death he left nothing ready for publication ; a fact 
 which will account for the fragmentary character and 
 unequal merit of the contents of the present volume. 
 The unfinished Essay on Eicardo, the chapter on the 
 Disappearance of the Yeomanry in the lectures on the 
 Industrial Revolution, and the short paper entitled the 
 Education of Co-operators, alone are of his own writing, 
 except, of course, also the short fragments and jottings 
 printed at the end of the book. 
 
 It will be observed that repetitions occur in the 
 different parts of the volume ; this arises from my hus- 
 band having himself had no idea of giving a permanent 
 
 xxix 
 
XXX Prefatory Note. 
 
 form to these Lectures and Addresses, and therefore 
 naturaUy sometimes using the same matter on various 
 occasions. It was found that to remove all these repeti- 
 tions before publication would have broken up the con- 
 text of many passages to an extent which made their 
 retention appear the lesser disadvantage. 
 
 The Essay on Eicardo was begun early in 1879, hut 
 thrown aside unfinished, because he was dissatisfied with 
 it, and perhaps also because Bagehot's Economic Studies, 
 which were published after the greater part of the essay 
 had been written, appeared to him somewhat to cover 
 the same ground. 
 
 During the last year or two of my husband's hfe he 
 was collecting materials for a detailed histoiy of the 
 revolution in English industry at the end of the last 
 century. While engaged in these studies he dehvered, 
 between October 1881 and May 1882, a course of lectures 
 on the economic history of England from 1760 to 
 1840 for the Honour History Schools at Oxford. In the 
 earher part of this course he made use of some of the 
 material which he was gathering for his intended book, 
 and notes of the course are now printed under the general 
 name of " The Industrial Revolution." In Chapter v. 
 a fragment of a separate article on the disappearance of 
 the yeomanry at the end of the 18th century is incor- 
 porated. In the later lectures of the course he aimed 
 at giving his hearers a general idea of the development 
 of industry, and of economic speculation, in the period 
 with wHch he was dealing. The time at his disposal 
 only allowed of this being done in outline, hence the 
 sketchmess of these later lectures. A strong wish was, 
 however, expressed by friends and former pupils that the 
 course as a whole should be recovered as far as possible, j 
 The lectures as they now appear have been prepared fori 
 
Prefatory Note. xxxi 
 
 publication by Mr. W. J. Ashley, B.A., and Mr. Bolton 
 King, B.A., of Balliol College, from their own excellent 
 notes compared with those of others among his hearers and 
 with such of his own as belonged to the course. They 
 remain notes and notes only, those of the later lectures 
 being also much less full than those of the earlier ones ; 
 but my warmest thanks are due to both Mr. Ashley and 
 Mr. King for the large expenditure of time and trouble 
 and the great care which they have bestowed upon the 
 work. 
 
 The Popular Addresses have been put together from 
 my husband's own notes, and from newspaper reports. 
 They were delivered during the Christmas and Easter 
 vacations of 1880, 1881, and 1882, to audiences of work- 
 ing men and employers, at Bradford, Bolton, Leicester, 
 and Newcastle, in pursuance of an idea he had much at 
 heart, namely, the advantage of an impartial discussion 
 of questions affecting the relation of capitalists and work- 
 ing men before audiences composed of members of both 
 classes. 
 
 The Fragments at the end of the book are jottings 
 from his note-books — thoughts and images which struck 
 him at different times and in different places. To his 
 friends, if not to the general public, these will perhaps be 
 of more interest than anything else in the book, as being 
 most truly representative of himself. 
 
 The whole has been revised by the friend who shared 
 my husband's entire intellectual life, Mr. Alfred Milner, 
 without whose help the volume would have been far 
 more imperfect than it is, but whose friendship was too 
 close and tender to, allow now of a word of thanks. 
 
 0. M. TOYNBEE. 
 
 OxroRD, M(mj 1884. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Mbmoie, ,,...,.. V 
 
 Prefatory Note, ....... xxix 
 
 KIOARDO AND THE OLD POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 I. 
 
 The change that has come over Political Economy — Bicardo responsible 
 for the form of that Science — The causes of his great influence — The 
 economic assumptions of his treatise — Kicardo ignorant of the nature 
 of his own method — Malthus's protest — Limitations of Rioardo's doc- 
 trine recognised by Mill and Senior — Observation discouraged by the 
 Deductive Method— The efifeot of the Labour Movement on Eco- 
 nomics — Modifications of the Science by recent writers — The new^ 
 method of economic investigation, . .... 1 
 
 IL 
 
 The philosophic assumptions of Bicardo — They are derived from Adam 'J 
 Smith — The worship of individual liberty — It involves freedom of 
 competition and removal of industrial restrictions — The flaw in this 
 theory — ^It is confirmed by the doctrine of the identity of individual 
 and social interests — Criticism of this doctrine — The idea of invari- 
 able law — True nature of economic laws — Laws and Precepts — The 
 great charge brought against Political Economy — Its truth and its 
 falsehood, . . ■ . . . .11 
 
 THE INDUSTRIAL EEVOLUTION. 
 I. Inteodttctort. 
 Division of the subject — Advantages of combining the study of History 
 and Political Economy — The Deductive Method — The Historical 
 Method — Importance of a discussion of Method — Laws and precepts 
 
 V 
 
xxxiv Contents. 
 
 The Inditstrial Ebvolution — (continued). 
 
 ^ PAGE 
 
 relative — The Social Problems of the Present to be borne in mind in 
 studying the history of the Past, ..... 27 
 
 vl 
 
 II. Bnoland in 1760— Population. ^" 
 Numbers of population difficult to determine — FinlaySOn's estimate — The 
 distribution of population — The growth of the great towns — Rural 
 and urban population — The occupations of the people, . . 32 
 
 III. England in 1760 — Aqricultdtie. v 
 
 Proportion of cultivated land to waste — Large amount of common land — 
 Beneficial effect of enclosures upon agriculture — Comparative pro- 
 gressiveness of different districts — Improvements in cultivation and 
 in the breed of live stock — Slowness of agricultural development 
 between 1700 and 1760, ...... 38 
 
 \y 
 
 I 
 
 %. 
 
 J 
 
 IV. England in 1760 — Manufactures and Trade. 
 
 Great importance of the Woollen Manufacture — Its introduction into Eng- 
 land — Its chief centres : 1. In the eastern counties. 2. In Wilts, 
 Gloucester, and Somerset. 3. In Yorkshire — The Iron, Cotton, 
 Hardware, and Hosiery Trades — Tendency to concentration — State 
 of the mechanical arts — Imperfect division of labour — Means of com- 
 munication — Organisation of industry — Simple system of exchange — 
 Growth of Foreign Trade and its effects, . . . .46 
 
 V. England in 1760 — The Decay of the Yeomanry, v 
 
 The historical method not always conservative — Changes commonly attri- 
 buted to natural law are sometimes shown by it to be due to human 
 injustice — The decay of the Yeomanry a case in point — The position 
 of the Yeomanry in the seventeenth century — Their want of political 
 \ initiative — Effect of the Revolution upon them — The aristocracy and 
 
 the moneyed class absorb the land — Pressure put upon small owners 
 to sell — The custom of settlement and primogeniture — The effect of 
 enclosures upon small properties, . . . . .57 
 
 VI. England in 1760 — The Condition op the Wage-earners. , 
 
 The agricultural labourer — Improvement in his condition since the be- 
 ginning of the oenturyT— Comparison of his position in 175D and 1850 
 
Contents. xxxv 
 
 The iNDusTKTAi Revolittion — {wntiwrnS). 
 
 PAGE 
 
 — Contrast between North and South — Inequality of wages and its 
 cause — T he position of the artisan s — Gr eat rise in their wages since 
 1760 — C ertain dis advantages of their condition now, as compared 
 with that existing then, ...... 67 
 
 VII. The Mercantile System aitd Adam Smith. 
 Change in the spirit of commercial policy — The medieval idea of the State 
 — The regulation of internal trade and industry — Restrictions upon 
 the movement of labour — The law of apprentices — Wages and prices 
 fiyed by authority — The regulation of Foreign Trade — Chartered 
 l/companies — The Mercantile System and Protection — Evils of that 
 system — The struggle of interests — Injustice to Ireland and the 
 Colonies— Characteristics of the Wealth of Nations — Its arrangement 
 — ^Adam Smith's cosmopolitanism and belief in self-interest, . . 72 
 
 VIII. The Chief Features op the Revolution. '^ 
 Growth of Economic Science — Competition — Its uses and abuses — The 
 symptoms of the Industrial Revolution — Rapid growth of population 
 — Its relative density in North and South — The agrarian revolution — ' ^ 
 Enclosures — Consolidation of farms and agricultural improvements — 
 The revolution in manufactures — The factory system — Expansion of 
 trade — Rise in rents — Change in the relative position of classes, . 85 
 
 IX. The Growth op Pauperism. 
 Political Economy and the instinct of benevolence — The History of the 
 Poor Laws — Pa uperism in the sixteen th century — The Poor Law of 
 1601 and its modifications — Sl ow growth of pauperism during the 
 seventeenth and eigh teenth centuries — Its rapid increase at t he end y> 
 of t ae latter — The c auses of this development of p au pe rism : consoU- y 
 dation of farms, enclosures, rise of prices, introduction of machinery ) 
 — Remedies which might have been applied — Vicious principle of the 
 old Poor Law, ....... 93 
 
 X. Malthus and the Law op Population. 
 Malthus and Godwin — Malthus's two propositions — The Law of Diminish- 
 ing Returns certainly true — The Law of Population not universally 
 true — Henry George on Malthus — The causes of the growth of popu- 
 lation in rural districts and in towns in the Eighteenth Century — 
 Malthus's remedies : Abolition of the Poor Law, Moral Restraints — 
 
xxxvi Contents. 
 
 The Industrial Eevoltjtion — icontrn'mS). 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Actual remedies since his time : Reform of the Pool* Law, Emigra- 
 tion, Importation of Food, Moral Restraint in the middle and artisan 
 classes — Artificial checks on population considered — The problem not 
 a purely economic one, . . . . . .105 
 
 XL The Wage-fund Theory. 
 Malthus originated the Wage-fund Theory — Mill's statement of it — Its 
 bearing on Trades-Unions — Its appUeation to wages at a given time 
 — Its fallacies — Origin of the theory — Difficulty of forming a com- 
 plete theory of wages — Wages in a given country depend upon the 
 total amoimt of produce, and the division of that produce — Why 
 wages are higher in America than in England — Influence of Protec- 
 tion and of commercial " rings " on wages — Comparison of Wages in 
 England and on the Continent — High wages in England mainly due 
 to efficiency of labour — Limits to a rise in wages in any particular 
 . trade — Possible effects of a general rise in wages — Explanation of the 
 
 faU in wages between 1790 and 1820, . , . ,114 
 
 XII. ElCARDO AND THE GROWTH OF ReNT. 
 
 Influence of Eicardo on economic method — His public life — His relation 
 to Bentham and James Mill — Eicardo supreme in English Economics 
 from 1817 to 1848 — His Law of Industrial Progress — His influence 
 on finance and on general legislation — The effect of the idea of natural 
 law in his treatise — The Socialists disciples of Eicardo — Assumptions 
 on which he grounds his theory of the constant rise in rents — His 
 correct analysis of the cause of Eent — Eent not the cause, but the 
 result of price — Explanation of rise in rents between 1790 and 1830 
 — ^Rise of rents in towns — Proposal to appropriate rent to the State, . 126 
 
 XIII. Two Theories of Economic Progress. 
 Distribution of Wealth the problem of the present time — Ricardo's theory 
 that wages will remain stationary and interest faU — Facts disproye 
 both propositions-j^Henry George's theory of economic progress like- 
 wise contradicted by facts, ...... 137 
 
 XIV. The Future op the Working Classes. 
 
 Causes of improvement in the condition of the working classes since 1846 
 
 — Free trade — Steady price of bread and of manufactured produce — 
 
 Steadiness of wages and regularity of employment — Factory legisla- 
 
 lation — Trades- Unions — Co-operation — Will the same causes con- 
 
Contents. xxxvii 
 
 The Ikdustrial Eevolution — {contmued). 
 
 PAGE 
 
 tinue to act in the future ? — Moral improvement among the working 
 classes — Better relations between workmen and employers— Evil as 
 well as good in the close personal relationships of former times — 
 Trades-Unions have improved the relations of the two classes — Can 
 the workmen really secure material independence ? — Various solu- 
 tions of the problem — Industrial partnership — Communism — Modified J 
 Socialism, , . . . . . . . 143 
 
 POPUIiAE ADDRESSES. 
 
 1. Wages and Natural Law, ..... 155 
 
 2. Industry and Democract, . , . . .178 
 
 3. Are Radicals Socialists 1 . . . . ,203 
 
 The Education of Co-opbbators, . . . . , 222 
 
 The Ideal Relation of Church and State, . . , 231 
 
 Notes and Jottings, . , , . . . ,241 
 
RICARDO AND THE OLD POLITICAL ECONOMY, 
 THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION. 
 
EICARDO AND THE OLD POLITICAL 
 
 ECONOMY. 
 
 The change that has come over Political Economy — Ricardo responsible for 
 the form of that Science — The causes of his great influence — The economic 
 assumptions of his treatise — Ricardo ignorant of the nature of his own 
 method — Malthus's protest — Limitations of Ricardo's doctrine recognised 
 by Mill and Senior — Observation discouraged by the Deductive Method — 
 The effect of the Labour Movement on Economics — Modifications of the 
 Science by recent writers — The new method of economic investigation. 
 
 The bitter argument between economists and human beings has 
 ended in the conversion of the economists. But it was not by the 
 fierce denunciation of moralists, nor by the mute visible suffering 
 of degraded men, that this conversion was effected. What the 
 passionate protests of Past and Present and the grave ofi&cial 
 revelations of government reports could not do, the chDl breath 
 of intellectual criticism has done. Assailed for two generations 
 as an insult to the simple natural piety of human affections, the 
 Political Economy of Eicardo is at last rejected as an intellectual 
 imposture. The obstinate, blind repulsion of the labourer is 
 approved by the professor. 
 
 Yet very few people even now understand the nature of that 
 system. I have called it the Political Economy of Eicardo, because 
 it was he, more than any one, who gave to the science that peculiar 
 form which, on the one hand, excited such intense antagonism, 
 and, on the other, procured it the extraordinary influence which it 
 has exercised over English thought and English politics. 
 
 No other book on the subject ever provoked the same fierce, 
 intellectual disparagement and moral aversion as the Principles of 
 Political Economy and Taxation; no other book, not even the 
 Wealth of Nations, obtained the same immediate ascendency over 
 men of intellectual eminence. Evidence of the first statement may 
 
2 Ricardo and 
 
 be sought in innumerable refutations by economists and moralists; 
 evidence of the second it seems worth while, in view of recent 
 controversies, to recall once more. To Colonel Torrens, an econo- 
 mist of remarkable vigour and independence, Eicardo was still in 
 1844 "his great master; "to John Mill, writing about 1830, his 
 book was the " imniortal Principles of Political Economy and Taxa- 
 tion"; to Charles Austin, many years later, there was, with one or 
 two exceptions, nothing in that great work which he desired to see 
 altered ; and to De Quincey, writing soon after his first perusal of 
 the book, it seemed the revelation of a new science. " Had this 
 profound work," he writes in the Confessions of an Opium Eaier, 
 " been really written in England during the nineteenth century ? 
 Was it possible ? I supposed thinking had been extinct in Eng- 
 land. Could it be that an Englishman, and he not in academic 
 bowers, but oppressed by mercantile and senatorial cares, had 
 accomplished what all the universities of Europe and a century of 
 thought had failed even to advance by one hair's-breadth ? AH other 
 writers had been crushed and overlaid by the enormous weight of 
 facts and documents ; Mr. Eicardo had deduced, cb priori, from the 
 understanding itself, laws which first gave a ray of light into the 
 unwieldy mass of materials, and had constructed what had been 
 hut a collection of tentative discussions into a science of regular 
 proportions, now first standing on an eternal basis." Not merely 
 the members of the school to which Eicardo belonged, and literary 
 philosophers like De Quincey, but even the Tories themselves, the 
 ancient natural enemies of the economists, joined in the applause. 
 Christopher North, in Blackwood's Magazine, in a professed eulogy 
 of Adam Smith, placed Eicardo above him. 
 
 At first sight nothing appears more strange than this anti- 
 pathy to, and this adotation of Eicardo. The bitter antagonism, 
 the unqualified admiration seem aUke inexplicable. Why 
 should a treatise so remote, so abstract, so neutral, not filled 
 with passion, like the Wealth of Nations, not eloquent in 
 denunciation and exhortation, stating conclusions without eager- 
 ness, suggesting applications almost without design, why should 
 such a treatise as this excite an uncompromising moral repu"- 
 nance? Because it was remote, abstract, neutral, because 
 while excluding from its consideration every aspect of human 
 life but the economic, and dealing with that in isolation, it 
 
The Old Political Econotny. 3 
 
 came, nevertheless, though not with the conscious intention of its 
 author, to be looked upon and quoted as a complete philosophy of 
 social and industrial life. And this isolation, this artificial separa- 
 tion of elements, carried by the same habit of mind into the 
 explanation of economic facts themselves — this separation it is, 
 which explains the persistent criticism of many of the leading 
 theories of the treatise. The moral wickedness of the whole ten- 
 dency of Political Economy, and the intellectual fallacies of the 
 theory of value, have been denounced almost in the same breath, 
 and for precisely the same cause. 
 
 But again, we may ask, why should a treatise so destitute of 
 sympathy, observation, imagination, even literary style — a great 
 part of it is nothing more than bald disjointed criticism of other 
 books — deaUng as it did with the most interesting, the most vital 
 of human affairs ; why should such a treatise as this dominate the 
 minds of nearly all the distinguished men of a distinguished time ? 
 Because, I answer — though no one answer will serve as a complete 
 explanation — of its marvellous logical power, the almost faultless 
 sequence of the arguments. Systems are strong not in proportion 
 to the accuracy of their premises,' but to the perfection of their 
 reasoning;^ and it was this logical invulnerability that gave to 
 the Princijples of Political Economy its instantaneous influence. 
 Eicardo has been recently compared to Spinoza ; and what was 
 said of Spinoza may be said of him : grant his premises and you 
 must grant all. The contrast in the case of Eicardo, between the 
 looseness and unreality of the premises and the closeness and vigour 
 of the argument, is a most curious one. 
 
 For a complete explanation, we must push our investigation 
 further. We have seen that admiration of Eicardo was not con- 
 fined to any one class or school ; but, undoubtedly, the influence of 
 his book was increased by the fact that in method and spirit it 
 coincided completely with the mental habits of the most vigorous 
 and active thinkers of that age. Indeed, Eicardo was their disciple. 
 " I am the spiritual father of James Mill, James Mill is the spiritual 
 father of Eicardo, therefore I am the spiritual grandfather of 
 Eicardo," was an utterance of Bentham's ; and it is exactly true. 
 James Mill exercised over Eicardo the greatest influence. Eicardo's 
 disciple in Political Economy, he was his master in everything else. 
 It is probable that it was only through the encouragement of 
 
4 Ricardo and 
 
 Mill that Eicardo, by nature unambitious and diffident, resolved 
 to undertake the composition of his famous treatise. It is certain 
 that it was by Mill's express exhortation that he bought his seat in 
 Parliament; and Eicardo's speeches in the House of Commons 
 popularised — for he was far more persuasive and lucid as a speaker 
 than as a writer — the principles of his treatise. 
 
 Though in Parliament only four years, Eicardo revolutionised 
 opinion there on economic subjects. " It is known," says a writer 
 a few months after his death, "how signal a change has taken 
 place in the tone of the House of Commons, on subjects of 
 Political Economy, during his short parliamentary career." "It 
 was only," said Joseph Hume, the most distinguished disciple 
 of Eicardo in Parliament, " by the advice and in hopes of the 
 assistance of a distinguished individual, whose recent loss the 
 kingdom has to deplore," that he (Hume) called attention to the 
 subject of the combination laws. " The late Mr. Eicardo was so 
 well acquainted with every branch of the science of Political 
 Economy, formerly and until he had thrown light upon it so ill 
 understood, that his aid in such a question would have been of 
 the utmost value." " Surprising as it may appear," says a writer 
 in the Westminster Beview, " it is no less notorious, that up to the 
 year 1818, the science of Political Economy was scarcely known or 
 talked of beyond a small circle of philosophers, and that legislation, 
 so far from being in conformity with its principles, was daily 
 receding from them more and more." 
 
 Besides the influence of the school of Bentham on political 
 thought, and Eicardo's presence in Parliament, we may find still 
 another reason for the magical effect of his treatise in the circum- 
 stances of the time. He lived in an age of economic revolution 
 and anarchy. The complications of industrial phenomena were 
 such as to bewilder the strongest mind. No light had been 
 thrown by Adam Smith on those vital questions, discussed before 
 every Parliamentary committee on industrial distress, as to the rela- 
 tions between rent, profits, wages, and price. Adam Smith had dis- 
 tinctly spoken of rent, profits, and wages as the causes of prices. Not 
 one of those who pored over piles of blue-books, or spent years in 
 minute industrious observation of the actual world, had offered one 
 single suggestion for the solution of these problems. The ordinary 
 business man was simply dazed and helpless. He thought on the 
 
The Old Political Economy. 5 
 
 ■whole that a rise or fall in wages was the cause of a rise or fall in 
 prices ; but he could not explain himself, and was not sure. " Does 
 a diminution in the prices of the goods generally precede a dimi- 
 nution of wages ?" asks a member of a committee. " It has been 
 both ways," answers the manufacturer, " for I have known people 
 decrease the wages before there was a diminution ; but it follows the 
 moment the wages are decreased, the goods follow immediately."^ 
 
 To people groping in this darkness, Eicardo's treatise, with 
 its clear-cut answers to their chronic difficulties, was a revelation 
 indeed. But Eicardo's solution of the problem, i.e., that the prices 
 of freely produced commodities jepend_jppncp^ of. production, 
 measurgJjnJI a^ur J' an d that wages, profits, and rent are not_the 
 causes but the results of pricej this solution was only reached by 
 making certain audacious assumptions which it would have been 
 hardly possible for any economist before his time to make. Adam 
 Smith lived on the eve of an industrial revolution. Eicardo lived 
 in the midst of it. Assumptions which could never have occurred 
 to Adam Smith, because foreign to the quiet world he lived in, a 
 world of restrictions and scarcely perceptible industrial movement, 
 occurred to Eicardo almost as a matter of course. That unceasing, 
 all-penetrating competition — that going to and fro on the earth in 
 search of gold — that rapid migration of men and things, the pre- 
 mises of all his arguments, were but the exaggeration, however 
 wild, of the actual state of the industrial world of Eicardo's time. 
 The steam-engine, the spinning-jenny, the power-loom, had torn up 
 the population by the roots; corporation laws, laws of settlement, acts 
 of apprenticeship, had been swept away by the mere stress of physical 
 circumstances ; and with all that visible movement of vast masses 
 of people before his eyes, with that ceaseless tossing and eddying 
 of the liberated industrial stream ever before him, is it to be 
 wondered at that, with the strong native bias of his mind already 
 in this direction, he should make without hesitation that postulate 
 of pure competition on which all the arguments of his treatise 
 depend? It was this assumption, together with its corollaries, 
 which enabled him to pour such a flood of light upon the chaotic 
 controversies of his time, and to appear to his contemporaries like 
 the revealer of a new gospel. But it was this assumption also, 
 
 y Committee on Woollen Petitions, 1808. 
 
6 Ricardo and 
 
 wrongly understood, which has led to so much misconception; 
 which has, on the one hand, brought upon Political Economy so 
 much undeserved opprobrium, and, on the other, has led econo- 
 mists themselves into so many mistakes. 
 
 Eicardo himself never realised how great were the postulates he 
 was assuming. It is a strange but indubitable and most impor- 
 tant fact that he was unconscious of the character of his own 
 logical method. He thought, as has been recently pointed out,^ 
 //that he was talking of actual men and things when he was in fact 
 '/dealing with abstractions. He makes but one allusion to the 
 ' great assumption of pure competition. Of his other assumptions, 
 ' such as private property, perfect mobility of labour, perfect know- 
 ledge of wages and profits at all times and in all places, there is no 
 trace of recognition from beginning to end of his treatise. And 
 just as Eicardo remained unconscious of the nature of his method, 
 so he never seems to have realised the scope and effect of his work. 
 His intention was to investigate certain concrete problems which 
 bewildered his contemporaries. His achievement was to create 
 an intensely abstract science — Deductive Political Economy. Of 
 the influences which determined Eicardo to adopt the method of 
 purely abstract reasoning, the intellectual ascendency obtained over 
 him by James Mill was one of the strongest. The method of 
 deduction and abstract analysis was that of the whole school of 
 thinkers, to whom he was so closely related — Bentham, Mill, 
 Austin ; and it is signiflcant that Sir H. Maine, who has applied 
 the historical method with so much perseverance to the legal 
 theories of Bentham and Austin, should have turned aside more 
 than once to criticise Eicardo from the same point of view. 
 
 But, independently of this influence, it is evident that deduc- 
 tion was natural to Eicardo's mind. The splendid exhibition of 
 logic in his works is alone sufficient proof of this, even if it were not 
 possible to detect signs of the same tendency in his early love -of 
 mathematics, and, perhaps, in the extraordinary rapidity with which 
 he made his fortune on the Stocli Exchange. Nor is it surprisino-, 
 when we remember his want of early education, which is visible in 
 the lack of style and arrangement in his book, that Eicardo should 
 never have reflected on the nature of the premises on which he 
 
 ' Bagehot's Emnormc Sludies, p. 157. 
 
The Old Political Economy. 7 
 
 built. His powerful mind, concentrated upon the argument, never 
 stopped to consider the world which the argument implied, — that 
 world of gold-seeking animals, stripped of every human affection, 
 for ever digging, weaving, spinning, watching with keen undeceived 
 eyes each other's movements, passing, incessantly and easily from 
 place to place in search of gain, all alert, crafty, mobile — that world 
 less real than the island of LiUiput, which never has had and never 
 can have any existence. 
 
 A logical artifice became the accepted picture of the real world. 
 Not that Eicardo himself, a benevolent and kind-hearted man, 
 could have wished or supposed, had he asked himself the question, 
 that the world of his treatise actually was the world he lived in ; 
 but he unconsciously fell into the habit of regarding laws, which 
 were true only of that society which he had created in his study / 
 for purposes of analysis, as applicable to the complex society really / 
 existing around him. And this confusion was aggravated by some 
 of his followers, and intensified in ignorant popular versions of his 
 doctrines. His hard, clear delineation, with its audacious solutions 
 of hitherto insoluble problems, asserted itself in spite of protests. 
 It was laid as a mask over the living world, and hid its face. 
 
 We must not indeed imagine that, rapid and irresistible as was 
 the influence gained by Eicardo over the minds of his contempo- 
 raries, his system was allowed to establish itself without objection 
 even on the part of economists. Unavailing protests were repeatedly 
 raised by Eicardo's greatest rival in economic study, Malthus. 
 "I confess to you," writes Malthus to Mr. ISTapier, with refer- 
 ence to his proposed contribution to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, 
 " that I think that the general adoption of the new theories of my 
 excellent friend, Mr. Eicardo, into an encyclopaedia, while the ques- 
 tion was yet sub judice, was rather premature. The more I con- 
 sider the subject, the more I feel convinced that the main part of 
 his structure will not stand." ^ In a second letter on the same 
 point he is still more explicit. " An article of the kind you speak 
 of on Political Economy, would, I think, be very desirable ; but 
 no one occurs to me at this moment with sufficient name and suf- 
 ficient impartiality to do the subject justice. I am fully aware of 
 the merits of Mr. M'CuUoch and Mr. Mill, and have a great respect 
 
 I Maovey Napier's Cwrespondcnce. Letter from Maltlms, Septenil>er 27, 1821. 
 
8 Ricardo and 
 
 for them both; but I certainly am of opinion, after much and 
 repeated consideration, that they have adopted a theory which will 
 not stand the test of experience. It takes a partial view of the 
 subject, like the system of the French economists ; and, like that 
 system, after having drawn into its vortex a great number of very 
 clever men, it will be unable to support itself against the testimony 
 of obvious facts, and the weight of those theories which, though 
 less simple and captivating, are more just, on account of their 
 embracing more of the causes which are in actual operation in 
 all economical results."^ 
 
 In these sentences, written four years after the publication of 
 the first edition of Eicardo's work, we find a prediction, curiously 
 exact, of the course taken by Political Economy in England for the 
 last fifty years. But Malthus stood almost alone in England in 
 his opposition to Eicardo. James Mill and M'Culloch were un- 
 compromising disciples. " I think," writes M'Culloch to Mr. Napier, 
 in allusion to the assertion of Malthus that the new theories were 
 stiU sm6 judice, " I think the Su^lement will gain credit by being 
 among the first publications which has embodied and given circu- 
 lation to the new, and, notwithstanding Mr. Malthus's opinion, I 
 will add correct, theories of political economy. Your publication 
 was not intended merely to give a view of the science as it stood 
 forty-five years ago, but to improve it and extend its boundaries. 
 It is, besides, a very odd error in Mr. Malthus to say that the new 
 theories are all s-uh judice. He has himself given his complete and 
 cordial assent to the theory of Eent, which is the most important 
 of the whole; and the rest are assented to by Colonel Torrens, 
 Mr. Mill, Mr. Tooke, and all the best economists in the country."* 
 
 It is true that M'Culloch, in later days of humility, somewhat 
 abated the confident dogmatism into which his honest zeal had led 
 him, " I believe," he says to Mr. Napier, " I was a little too fond 
 at one time of novel opinions, and defended them with more heat 
 and pertinacity than they deserved ; but you will not charge me 
 with anything of the sort at any time during the last seven 
 years."^ But more than seven years before the dace of this letter 
 M'Culloch had expounded the new theories to fashionable audiences 
 
 ' Macvey Napier'' s Correspondence. Letter from Malthus, Octobers, 1821. 
 - Ibid. Letter from M'Culloch, September 30, 1821. 
 3 Ihid. Letter from M'CuUooh, March 6, 1833. 
 
The Old Political Economy. g 
 
 of yoting Whig statesmen ;i and at the time when he wrote it, 
 Miss Martineau was enchanting children and inspiriting dis- 
 couraged politicians by her dramatic representations of Eicardo. 
 AH the world had become political economists of the Kicardian 
 persuasion. . The protests of Malthus and his able successor, 
 Richard Jones, were lost in the tumult of applause. 
 
 The unbounded ascendency of Eicardo's system was not greatly 
 modified by the labours of his principal successors. They did 
 indeed recognise clearly enough its limitations. If Eicardo him- 
 seK was unconscious of the logical character of his method, the 
 same cannot be said of his chief disciples of the next generation. 
 Both Mill and Senior state with the utmost plainness the exact 
 character of their abstract science, and the assumptions upon which 
 its conclusions are true. Mill in his Logic, published in 1843, and 
 in his essay on the Method of Political Economy, written much 
 earlier, and largely quoted in the Logic, hvA not published as a| 
 whole tiU 1844, explains the nature of Eicardo's method with a' 
 clearness which leaves nothing to be desired. But what both Mill 
 and Senior ought to have done was not merely to point out what 
 the assumptions were which Eicardo made, but to ascertain from 
 actual observation of the industrial world they lived in how 
 far these assumptions were facts, and from the knowledge thus 
 acquired, to state the laws of prices, profits, wages, rent, in the 
 actual world. 
 
 This work they never attempted. Had MiU and Senior com- 
 pletely emancipated themselves from the influence of their master, 
 the history of Political Economy in England would have been a 
 very different one. Endless misunderstanding and hatred would 
 have been avoided, and some great problems would be much nearer 
 their solution. But it was not to be. Eicardo's brilliant deduc- 
 tions destroyed observation. A method so clear, solutions so 
 simple, carried all before them, " Political Economy," said Senior, 
 "is not greedy of facts ; it is independent of facts." Mill, it is 
 true, recognises the opposition to Political Economy caused by its 
 apparent disregard of facts, and does something to meet it. " These 
 sweeping expressions," he says, speaking of the unqualified deduc- 
 tions of Political Economy, "puzzle and mislead, and create an 
 
 1 Macvey Napier's Correspondence. Letters from M'CuUooh, May 2, 1824, 
 April 23, 1825. 
 
lo Ricardo and 
 
 impression unfavourable to Political Economy, as if it disregarded 
 the evidence of facts." But he retained to the end the confidence he 
 had imbibed from early familiarity with the method ; and though 
 he often, by a painful effort, recognised the existence of facts not 
 included in his premises, he failed to see their importance. 
 
 For many years every effort made by economists to restore 
 obs ervation to their science, and to institute a new method, met 
 with little encouragement from the general world. The great 
 question of the time was still the removal of restrictions and the 
 establishment of freedom in trade. For the solution of this 
 problem the method of deduction was adequate, and of primary 
 importance. All the most forcible arguments in favour of indus- 
 trial freedom are deductions from certain familiar facts of human 
 nature. Cobden on the platform was as deductive as Eicardo ia 
 the study. But after 1846 the mission of the deductive method 
 was fulfilled. Up to that time economists had seen in the removal 
 of restrictions the solution of every social difiiculty. After that 
 time they had no remedy to offer for the difficulties which yet 
 remaine'd. Political Economy, in spite of Mill's great work, 
 published two years after the chief triumph of the old method, 
 became barren. And it was worse than barren. Instead of a 
 healer of differences it became a sower of discord. Instead of an 
 instrument of social union it became an instrument of social divi- 
 sion. It might go on its way unshaken by denunciation when 
 tearing down the last remnants of obsolete restrictions imposed 
 in the interest of a class ; it could not remain unshaken by such 
 denunciation when opposing the imposition of new restrictions in 
 the interest of the whole people. 
 
 It was the labour question, unsolved by that removal of restric- 
 tions which was all Deductive Political Economy had to offer, 
 that revived the method of observation. Political Economy was 
 transformed by the working classes. The pressing desire to find a 
 solution of problems which the abstract science treated as prac- 
 tically insoluble, drew the attention of economists to neglected 
 facts. Mr. Thornton, Professor Cairnes, and Professor Walker 
 restored observation to its place. Mr. Thornton pointed to the 
 existence of reserved prices — a fact patent in every newspaper; and, 
 together with Professor Walker, overthrew the accepted theory of 
 wages. Professor Cairnes showed the bearing of the existence 
 
The Old Political Economy. 1 1 
 
 of non-competing groups of workmen — a fact noticed and then 
 neglected by Mill— on the theory of value. Professor Walker 
 explained the function of the employer as distinct from the 
 capitalist in the economy of industrial life. The step which 
 might have been taken half a century ago has been taken at last 
 in the past decade, and Political Economy bids fair to bear fruit 
 once more. Not that the deductive method, which failed so 
 lamentably after its first triumphs, wiU be discarded as useless. 
 It will take its place as a needful instrument of investigation, but 
 its conclusions will be generally recognised as hypothetical.__ Care- 
 will be taken to include in its premises the greatest possible 
 number of facts, and to apply its results with the utmost 
 scrupulousness to existing industrial and social relations. It will 
 no longer be a common error to confuse the abstract science of 
 Economics with the real science of human life. 
 
 II. 
 
 The philosophic asstunptiong of Eicardo — They are derived from Adam Smith 
 — The worship of individual liberty — It involves freedom of competition and 
 removal of industrial restrictions — The flaw in this theory — It is confirmed 
 by the doctrine of the identity of individual and social interests — Criticism 
 of this doctrine — The idea of invariable law — True nature of economic laws 
 — Laws and precepts — The great charge brought against Political Economy 
 — Its truth and its falsehood. 
 
 But in examining the system of Eicardo and the causes alike of 
 its extraordinary success, and the deep repugnance which it has 
 excited, it is not sufficient to consider only the nature of his logical 
 method. We must take iiito account also the general philosophical 
 conceptions which underlie his treatise. Eicardo's economic 
 assumptions were of his own making. Not so his philosophical 
 assumptions. These were derived from his great predecessor, Adam 
 Smith, whose intellectual position he accepted in the main with- 
 out question. Two conceptions are woven into every argument 
 of the Wealth of Nations — the belief in the supreme value of indi-! 
 vidual liberty, and the conviction that Man's self-love is God's; 
 providence, that the individual in pursuing his own interest is pro- j 
 moting the welfare of aU. To these conceptions there is not a 
 single allusion in Eicardo's treatise, but that is simply because, 
 
1 2 Ricardo and 
 
 neither a theologian nor a politician himself, he was not aware of 
 the political and theological elements in his economic inheritance. 
 Though not expressly acknowledged, these two ideas permeate his 
 do(3trine, as they do that of aU the economists of the old school. The 
 first belief is too familiar to need illustration, but the second, which 
 is the foundation of all the practical precepts of the old economists, 
 it may be worth while once more to exhibit in its most unmis- 
 takeable shape. " Private interest," writes James Anderson, the 
 Scotch farmer whose theory of rent was brought to light by his 
 laborious countryman MacCuUoch, " is in this, as it ought to be in 
 every case in well-regulated society, the true primum, mobile, and 
 the great source of public good, which, though operating unseen, 
 never ceases one moment to act with unabating power, if it be 
 not perverted by the futile regulations of some short-sighted poli- 
 tician." ^ But it is in the great work of the clergyman Malthus 
 that the opinion takes its most theological form. " By this wise 
 provision," he says, " i.e. by making the passion of self-love beyond 
 comparison stronger than the passion of benevolence, the more 
 ignorant are led to pursue the general happiness, an end which they 
 would have totally failed to attain if the moving principle of their 
 conduct had been benevolence. Benevolence, indeed, as the great 
 and constant source of action, would require the most perfect know- 
 ledge of causes and effects, and therefore can only be the attribute 
 of the Deity. ~ In a being so short-sighted as man it would lead to 
 the grossest errors, and soon transform the fair and cultivated soil 
 of human society into a dreary scene of want and confusion." * 
 This is the doctrine which, divested of its theological fervour and 
 blended with the political doctrine of individual liberty, constitutes 
 the main philosophical assumption of Eicardo's treatise. ' 
 
 It is necessary to consider the effect of these ideas upon the 
 attitude of the economists, and the reception which was accorded 
 to their doctrines. And first, for the idea of the supreme value of 
 individual liberty. 
 
 It was as the gospel of industiial freedom that the Wealth of 
 Nations obtained its magical power. The civilised world was 
 
 1 A Comparative View of th.e Effects of Rent and of Tythe in influencing the 
 Price of Com, 180U In Secreations in Agriculture, vol. v. (2d series vol i ) 
 p. 408. 
 
 2 Malthus, Essay on Population, 1872 (7th edition, Appendix), p. 492. 
 
The Old Political Economy. 1 3 
 
 restless with dreams of political emancipation ; it trembled with 
 expectation of a deliverance to come. The principle which was in 
 the mind of every eager politician Adam Smith and the Physiocrats 
 applied to industry and trade. They claimed " as one of the most 
 sacred rights of mankind," not merely Uberty of thought and 
 speech, hut liberty of production and exchange. Personal, politi- 
 cal, and industrial liberty were for them but parts of one greati 
 system; and if they dwelt with greater emphasis on industrial 
 liberty it was because they saw in that the most certain and least 
 dangerous remedy for the evils of their time. It was impossible, 
 however, to advocate the one without giving support to the other ; 
 and it is interesting to find Adam Smith pointed to in the House 
 of Lords as the real originator of the " French Principles," against 
 which a crusade was contemplated. "With respect to French 
 principles, as they have been denominated," said the Marquis of 
 Lansdowne, three years after Smith's death, " these principles have 
 been exported from us to France, and cannot be said to have 
 originated among the people of the latter country. The new prin- 
 ciples rf government founded on the abolition of the old feudal 
 system were originally propagated among us by the Dean of 
 Gloucester, Mr. Tucker, and have since been more generally incul- 
 cated by Dr. Adam Smith in his work on the Wealth of Nations, 
 which has been recommended as a book necessary for the infor- 
 mation of youth by Mr. Dugald Stewart in his Elements of the 
 Philosophy of the Human Mind."'^ 
 
 Without stopping to comment on this curious statement, we may 
 remark that it is a striking evidence of the impression produced 
 on a cultivated mind by Adam Smith's great work as a treatise of 
 political philosophy. Such in fact it was, as we know from Adam 
 Smith's own words, the statements of his pupil, and the composi- 
 tion of the work itself. Whether he writes as a pamphleteer or a 
 historian ; whether he is pursuing a grave investigation into the 
 influence of political institutions on economic progress, or dogging 
 tedious and confused advocates of the mercantile system through 
 all the weary windings of their arguments ; whether he is engaged 
 in learned research, fierce denunciation, or dubious refutation, 
 every page of Adam Smith's writings is illumined by one great 
 
 ^ House of Lords, February 1, 1793. 
 
14 Ricardo and 
 
 I passion, the passion for freedom. This was the first and last word 
 of his political and industrial philosophy, as it was the first and 
 last word of the political and industrial philosophy of the age. 
 All around were the signs of an obsolete system of restriction, 
 cramping and choking political and industrial life. Every philo- 
 sopher, every enlightened statesman, every enlightened merchant 
 saw only one remedy. Talking with Turgot in Paris, or with 
 Cochran, " one of the sages of the kingdom," in Glasgow, Adam 
 Smith found the same echo of his own opinions. Turgot in 
 Limousin, Adam Smith in Glasgow, saw in a different form the 
 hateful evils of the ancient system. Whilst Turgot, the governor 
 of a province, was labouring day and night to improve the con- 
 dition of down-trodden peasants, Adam Smith, the professor, 
 was shielding from the effects of obsolete privileges the greatest 
 mechanical genius of the age. Nothing can be more interesting 
 than that story of James Watt, refused permission to practise 
 his trade by the corporation of hammermen, but admitted by the 
 professor within the walls of the University of Glasgow, and 
 allowed there to set up his workshop. Thus in Glasgow, " a perfect 
 bee-hive of iudustry/' according to Smollett, where people were 
 filled "with a noble spirit of enterprise," where commercial and 
 intellectual activity went hand in hand — many of the principal 
 writings of the mercantile system being reprinted there whilst 
 Adam Smith was giving his lectures — and in Limousin, the 
 oppressed and poverty-stricken French province, the same lesson 
 was being forced into men's minds — the need of liberty; and 
 at the same time great mechanical inventions were preparing the 
 way for a new age. 
 
 The Wealth of Nations was published on the eve of an 
 industrial revolution. When Adam Smith talked with James 
 Watt in his workshop at Glasgow, he little thought that by the 
 invention of the steam-engine Watt would make possible the 
 realisation of that freedom which Adam Smith looked upon as a~^ 
 dream, a utopia. It is true we see traces iji the Wealth of Nations 
 of the great changes that were everywhere beginning, but the 
 England described by Adam Smith differed more from the Eng- 
 land of to-day than it did from the England of the middle aces. 
 The cotton manufacture is mentioned only once in Smith's book. 
 The staple industries of the country were still wool, tanned leather 
 
The Old Political Economy. 1 5 
 
 md hardware, while silk and linen came next in importance, 
 [ron was still smelted chiefly by charcoal, though smelting by pit- 
 ;oal had been introduced. It was not, however, produced in such 
 quantities as to supply the greater part of England's demand ; 
 nuch was imported from America, Eussia, and Sweden. Wool and 
 iilk were woven and spun in scattered villages by families who eked 
 )ut their subsistence by agriculture. " Manufacturer " meant not 
 ;he owner of power-looms and steam-engines and factories, buying 
 md selling in the markets of the world, but the actual weaver at 
 lis loom, the actual spinner at her wheel. But seven years before 
 ;he publication of the Wealth of Nations Arkwright had patented 
 lis water-frame and James Watt his steam-engine. A few years 
 ifter its publication Cartwright invented the power-loom, Crompton 
 ;he mule. It was by these discoveries that population was drawn 
 )ut of cottages in distant valleys by secluded streams and driven 
 together into factories and cities. Old restrictions became obso- 
 lete by sheer force of necessity, and the freedom of internal trade 
 ;o which England, according to Adam Smith, owed so much, 
 ivas completed under conditions which Adam Smith could not 
 imagine. 
 
 In all respects but one the internal trade of England in the 
 ;ime of Adam Smith was completely free. " The inland trade," 
 tie says, "is almost perfectly free." And he adds, " this freedom of 
 interior commerce ... is perhaps one of the principal causes of , 
 ;he prosperity of Great Britain." But there was one great except' 
 ion to this general freedom, and that was the position of labour,.- 
 svhich was entangled in a perfect network of restrictions. Combi- 
 lation was'illegal — a strike generally ended in " nothing but the 
 punishment or ruin of the ringleaders." Laws of settlement pre- 
 rented the emigration of artisans and labourers. " There is scarce 
 I poor man in England of forty years of age, I will venture to say," 
 «frote Adam Smith, "who has not in some part of his life felt 
 limself most cruelly oppressed by this ill-contrived law of settle- 
 nent." Emigration, of labourers was forbidden by statute. Cor- 
 poration laws and the law of apprenticeship closed innumerable 
 jmployments. Adam Smith's condemnation of these restrictions is 
 nemorable : " The property which every man has in his own labour, 
 is it is the original foundation of all other property, so it is the most 
 lacred and inviolable. The patrimony of a poor man lies in the 
 
i6 Ricardo and 
 
 strength and dexterity of his hands, and to hinder him from 
 employing this strength and dexterity in what manner he thinks 
 proper, without injury to his neighbour, is a plain violation of this 
 most sacred property." Equally memorable is the famous edict of 
 Turgot for the dissolution of the jwrandes, which adopts almost 
 the same language : " God, when He made man with wants, and 
 rendered labour an indispensable resource, made the right of work 
 the property of every individual in the world, and this property is 
 the first, the most sacred, and the most imprescriptible of all kinds 
 of property. We regard it as one of the first duties of our justice, 
 and as one of the acts most of all worthy of our benevolence, to 
 free our subjects from every infraction of that inalienable right of 
 humanity." It is correctly stated by Malthus that Adam Smith 
 mixes up with one profound subject of his treatise " another still 
 more interesting" — "the causes which affect the happiness and 
 comfort of the lower orders of society, which in every nation form 
 the most numerous class." And the result of his investigation was 
 the demand for free exchange of labour. " Break down," he writes, 
 " the exclusive privilege of corporations, and repeal the statute of 
 apprenticeship, both which are real encroachments on natural 
 liberty, and add to these the repeal of the law of settlement." This 
 was his remedy for the distress of the mass of the people. 
 
 Now it is not the doctrine of free exchange of goods that has 
 brought political economists into collision with the feelings of the 
 people — it is the doctrine of free exchange of labour. Yet we see 
 that this doctrine was first popularised by a warm champion of the 
 labourers as the true solution of all the evils of their state. It is 
 impossible to ascertain how far this demand for the abolition of 
 corporation and apprentice laws really represented the opinions of 
 the workmen of that age. Adam Smith's language would lead-us to 
 suppose that it did. But whatever may have been their wishes with 
 respect to the removal of particular restrictions then, it is certain 
 that this doctrine of freedom of labour has since then become the 
 principal weapon against the methods by which the labourers have 
 sought to improve their condition. The explanation of this result 
 of the theory of industrial freedom must be sought in the latent 
 assumption which made it possible for Adam Smith to offer it as a 
 complete solution of the labour question. Had he attempted to 
 analyse competition, even under the conditions of his own time, he 
 
The Old Political Economy. 1 7 
 
 would have become conscious of the fatal flaw in his doctrine. He 
 would have discovered that what he sought to establish was the 
 fn& competition of equal industrial units, that what he was in fact ; 
 helping to establish was the free competition of unequal industrial ' 
 units. This was the disastrous oversight. Adam Smith believed in 
 the natural economic equality of men. That being so, it only 
 needed legal equality of rights and all would go well. Liberty was 
 to him the gospel of salvation ; he could not imagine that it might 
 become the means of destruction — that legal liberty, where there 
 was no real economic independence, might turn to the disadvantage 
 of the workman. He never dreamed that Freedom, the instrument 
 by which monopoly was to be destroyed, might become the means 
 of establishing monopoly. 
 
 It is true that Adam Smith saw that the labourer was not a 
 match for his employer in making a bargain, that he was poorer, 
 weaker, and oppressed by the law. But he did not on that a,ccount 
 recognise the necessity of combination. Misled by the observation 
 that all obstacles to industry seemed in the past to have come from 
 associations, all progress from individuals — an observation which 
 partly explains the indifference of the early economists to co-opera- 
 tion — he distinctly condemned every form of association, and 
 though his belief in the limited functions of the State prevented 
 him from suggesting that the State should suppress them, he was 
 of opinion that it should at least give no facilities for them. As 
 soon, however, as the factory system was established, the inequality 
 of women and children in their struggle with employers attracted 
 the attention of even the most careless observers; and, attention once 
 drawn to this circumstance, it was not long before the inequahty 
 of adult men was also brought into prominence. The recog|nition 
 of the first resulted in the Factory Acts ; the recognition of the / 
 second in the abolition of the combination laws and the acknow- j 
 lodgment of the triie function of trades-imions in the settlement | 
 of wages. 
 
 It is a remarkable fact that Hume, who, at the advice of Eicardo, 
 proposed the repeal of the combination laws, though quoting Adam 
 Smith in favour of free-trade in labour, yet based his argument 
 largely on the inequality of the isolated workman in making his 
 bargain with his employer. "The property of the masters," he 
 said, quoting a particular case, " enabled them to get the better of 
 
 B 
 
1 8 Ricardo and 
 
 the men; who were at last ohliged to come in unconditionally. 
 When they did this, the masters punished their resistance in a very 
 decided manner ; for they actually deducted the loss they had 
 sustained by this cessation of labour from the amount of the men's 
 wages, the men being obliged to pay at the rate of 10 per cent, per 
 week until the masters declared themselves satisfied." Again, in 
 another debate : " If the masters combined to give their men only 
 half a sufficient rate of wages, and had strength enough to starve 
 them into taking it, there was nothing in the biU to prevent their 
 doing so. And how could this danger be met by the workmen, 
 except by counter-combination ; for which, short of carrying them 
 to the extent of violence, he still thought they ought to have the 
 fullest permission." This argument of Hume's is the more notice- 
 able, because, nearly ten years afterwards, in a debate on the Factory 
 Acts, he ignored it altogether. He could see the force of the argu- 
 ment when seeking to remove old restrictions on trade : he could not 
 see it when seeking to resist the imposition of new restrictions on 
 trade. In the debate on the Government Factory BiU, 18th August 
 1833, he declared himself "perfectly satisfied that aU legislation of 
 this nature is pernicious and injurious to those whom it is intended 
 to protect ; and I have not the slightest doubt that, if this bill 
 should continue in operation five years, it will have produced in- 
 calculable mischief It must be the interest of masters to protect 
 their workmen ; and it is a libel upon human nature to suppose 
 that they will allow persons in their employment to be injured for 
 the want of due caution." A changed estimate this of the masters' 
 humanity from his estimate nine years before. 
 
 Very different from Hume's attitude was that of Michael 
 Thomas Sadler, the Tory socialist, who attacked the economists 
 in the House of Commons, questioned their infallibUity and, as 
 his followers delighted to assert, endangered their ascendency. 
 Speaking on the same subject in the year before, Sadler used 
 the argument which Hume himself had once employed but now 
 repudiated, only with much greater passion and significance. 
 Dealing with the expected opposition to his bill, he said: "I 
 apprehend the strongest objection that will be offered on this 
 occasion will be grounded upon the pretence that the very principle 
 of the bill is an improper interference between the employer and 
 the employed, and an attempt to regulate by law the market of 
 
The Old Political Economy. ig 
 
 labour. Were that market supplied by free agents, properly so 
 denominated, I should fully participate in their objections. Theo- 
 retically, indeed, such is the case ; but practically, I fear the fact is 
 far otherwise, even regarding those who are of mature age ; and 
 the boasted freedom of our labourers in many pursuits wOl, in a 
 just view of their condition, be found to be little more than nominal. 
 Those who argue the question on mere abstract principles seem, in 
 my apprehension, too much to forget the condition of society, the 
 unequal division of property, or rather its total monopoly by the 
 few, leaving the many nothing whatever but what they can obtain 
 by their daily labour ; which very labour cannot become available 
 for the purpose of daily subsistence without the consent of those 
 who own the property of the community, all the materials, 
 elements, call them what you please, on which labour is bestowed, 
 being in their possession. Hence it is clear that, excepting in a 
 state of tilings where the demand for labour fully equals the supply 
 (which it would be absurdly false to say exists in this country), 
 the employer and the employed do not meet on equal terms in the 
 market of labour ; on the contrary, the latter, whatever his age, and 
 call him as free as you please, is often almost entirely at the mercy 
 of the former. He would be wholly so were it not for the operation 
 of the poor laws, which are a palpable interference with the market 
 of labour, and condemned as such by their opponents."^ It was 
 the refusal of the economists to recognise this truth — their absolute 
 disregard of it — which gave the greatest impulse to socialistic 
 speculation in England. Had they acknowledged, instead of seeking 
 to disprove, the industrial inequality of men, the epithets, " cruel, 
 inhuman, infant killer," heaped upon them would have been spared, 
 and the best part of the popular repugnance to PoUtrcal Economy 
 would have been avoided. 
 
 The influence of a recognition of the economic inequality of men 
 on our estimate of competition is immense. Not admitting, with 
 the socialist, the natural right of aU men to an equal share in the 
 benefits of civilisation, not proposing, with the socialist, to stamp 
 out competition, and substitute a community of goods, we yet 
 /plead for the right of all to equal opportunities of development, 
 according tojlifiii:— nature. Competition we now recognise to be a 
 
 1 House of Commons, March 16, 1832. 
 
20 Ricardo and 
 
 thing neither good nor bad ; we look upon it as resembling a great 
 physical force which cannot be destroyed, but may be controlled 
 and modified. As the cultivator embanks a stream and distributes 
 its waters to irrigate his fields, so we control competition by posi- 
 tive laws and institutions. These we recognise may be altered and 
 reformed ; a better economy of competition may be obtained, and 
 better results may be reached. But just as the cultivator knows 
 that when he has obtained the best system of irrigation, he must 
 have sunlight and rain from heaven to ripen his crops, so we know 
 that when we have done our best with competition, when we 
 have controlled it and modified it, the fuUest life will not be 
 reached without the action of religion and morality. The old 
 economists thought competition good in itself. The socialists think 
 it an evil in itself We think it neither good nor evil, but seek to 
 analyse it, and ascertain when it produces good and when it pro- 
 duces bad results. The old economists thought competition all- 
 sufi&cient to secure the welfare of mankind. The socialists think 
 community of goods and equality of distribution aU-suificient. We 
 accept competition as one means, a force to be used, not to be 
 blindly worshipped ; but assert religion and morality to be the 
 necessary conditions of attaining human welfare. 
 
 The conception of individual liberty in Adam Smith was, 
 however, as we have seen, not a merely negative conception. 
 It had a positive side, and received substance and reality from 
 the second idea already referred to — the idea of the desire of 
 the individual to better his condition as the mainspring of pro- 
 \ gress, of the identity of individual and social interests. It was 
 this idea which lent force to the advocacy of unrestricted com- 
 petition and absolute freedom of contract, as we see in the 
 words of Hume quoted above. It was this idea which made 
 the economists, in the first instance, so indifferent to associa- 
 tion. A long and bitter experience was required to convince 
 them of the insufficiency of individual effort to secure the general 
 good. Their suspicion of trade combinations and reluctant admis- 
 sion of co-operation as a social remedy, are both due to the same 
 cause. 
 / Closely connected with this idea is the principle of Laissez 
 ^ Faire. Undoubtedly related to the worship of nature — that great 
 reaction of the eighteenth century against artificial conditions of 
 
The Old Political Economy. 2 1 
 
 life — and in many instances visibly confirmed by experience, this 
 doctrine obtained an extraordinary bold upon the minds of men. 
 It became identified with Political Economy as a practical science. 
 Later economists, like Mill and Cairnes, have indeed modified it ; 
 but just as the belief in a natural or divine arrangement of human 
 instincts lent power to it at first, so an elaborate analogy between 
 the individual and social organism, which is the latest product of our 
 philosophy, bids fair to give fresh power to it in our own days. 
 And yet this theory of the sufficiency of individual self-seeking 
 for the salvation of the race, with its practical outcome in the 
 precept of Laissez Faire, includes within itself, like other generalisa- 
 tions of the early economists, some unwarrantable assumptions. 
 It assumes not only that the economic interest of the individual is / 
 in fact identical with that of the community, but that he knows} 
 his own interest and follows it. But it is perfectly clear that, ini 
 the case of adulteration, of jerry-building, and of the hundred and 
 one devices of modern trade by which a man may grow rich at the 
 expense of his neighbours, the first of these assumptions breaks 
 down. Whatever may be the case with his higher moral interests, 
 the economic interest of the individual is certainly not always 
 identical with that of the community. Neither can it be said 
 that he always even knows his economic interest, especially under 1 
 the complex conditions of modern industry and commerce. That 
 he follows his interest, or what he conceives to be his interest, is 
 no doubt a safer assumption, though even this truth lacks the uni- 
 versality attributed to it in this mechanical conception of human 
 action. 
 
 The whole theory, indeed, of the identity of individual and com- / 
 mon interests is a perfect instance of the reckless abstractness of | 
 the old kind of Political Economy. There is a truth underlying it, 
 but it is a truth which the theory overstates. The truth in question 
 is, that under a system of division of labour each man can only live 
 by finding out what other people want. The pressure of com- 
 petition does undoubtedly- tend to the satisfaction of the greatest 
 number of wants at the lowest cost, but not without iunumerable 
 evils in the process — evils which, as we now see, the wise regula- 
 tion of the competitive impulse may, in a number of instances, 
 avert. But as long as the identity of the individual and general 
 interest was preached as a universal truth, every attempt to regu- 
 
22 Ricardo and 
 
 late competition was decried as an unwise and even an impious 
 interference with the providential scheme for making each man's 
 selfishness subservient to the good of all his neighbours. ^ 
 
 Another conception which strengthened the belief in individual 
 liberty — the mere freedom from restrictions — as the great eco- 
 nomic truth, was the idea of invariable law. This was one of 
 the chief bulwarks of Laissez Faire. It is in Malthus that the idea 
 of invariable law in the economic world first makes its appearance. 
 A little later we find in Eicardo the first instance of that com- 
 parison of economic laws to the law of gravity which has been 
 echoed with wearisome iteration ever since. Economists have 
 failed to distinguish between laws of physical and laws of social 
 science. They have refused to see that whilst the former are 
 inevitable and eternal, the latter — though some of them too, like 
 that of" diminishing returns," are immutable — express, for the most 
 part, facts of human nature, which is capable of modification by 
 self-conscious human endeavour. 
 
 It must be admitted, however, that this idea of law produced 
 one great effect. It made men patient — those men at least who 
 believed in it. To this fact must be attributed the singular confi- 
 dence exhibited by economists in the result of teaching Political 
 Economy to the working classes. Teach them, it was said, that 
 the rate of wages is not the result of accidental causes within the 
 control of man, but of great natural laws beyond his control, and all 
 will be well. But, so far from having the desired effect, it was just 
 the insistence on this doctrine which brought Political Economy 
 into conflict with the working classes. The wage-fund theory, of 
 which Malthus is the undoubted author, and the consequent 
 denunciation of combinations of workmen as useless, was the 
 great cause of feud. In this case the law, so far from being of 
 universal validity, was not true at all. This is now generally 
 recognised. But the popular expounders of economic principles, 
 especially in the newspapers, were prompt to accept it, and thus 
 Political Economy entered into alliance with the capitalists against 
 the labourers. 
 
 But it was not only that Political Economy asserted the exist- 
 ence of laws that did not exist. More misleading stUl was the 
 failure of ordinary economic writers to distinguish between laws 
 and precepts, between general statements of fact and the practical 
 
The Old Political Economy. 23 
 
 maxims based upon them. It is true that writers like Cairnes 
 have striven to make it clear that the laws of economics are as 
 distinct as possible from rules of action, that Political Economy 
 is " neutral." But they forget that the laws of Political Economy 
 are converted into rules by sheer force of necessity, and that the 
 maintenance of this neutrality is practically impossible. Some 
 answer must be given to the pressing questions of the day, and if, 
 Political Economy did not lay down rules and become a practical' 
 science, journalism would. And, as a matter of fact, while affect- 
 ing the reserved and serious air of students, political economists 
 have all the time been found brawling in the market-place. 
 
 By these various influences acting upon them from so many 
 sides was the belief in individual freedom, in the uselessness of 
 industrial restrictions, established and confirmed in the minds of 
 the older economists as the central doctrine of their science. But 
 it was just this doctrine which was the chief cause of the fierce 
 antagonism they aroused. If we would probe to the bottom the 
 cause which excited the liveliest invective against economists we 
 always come back to the charge of individualism. Of that con- 
 tinuous storm of denunciation which has been poured down upon 
 the central doctrine of liberalism, the economists have received 
 the largest share. And this is natural ; for the conception of men, 
 not as members of families, associations, and nations, but as 
 isolated individuals connected only" by pecuniary interests, is 
 essentially the conception of them which pervaded economic 
 science. And not only was this conception the peculiar charac- 
 teristic of Political Economy as a theoretical science, but it deter- 
 mined its whole bearing as a practical science. I have alluded to 
 the fatal confusion between laws and precepts which made Political 
 Economy appear as the gospel of self-interest. But though it was 
 not the gospel of self-interest in the sense often supposed, it did 
 vdthout doubt place absolute reliance on individual action; it 
 did without doubt practically assert that pecuniary interest was a 
 sufficient bond between men — the primary bond at any rate in 
 the present age. N"o wonder, then, that against the economists 
 were arrayed philosophers, moralists, even statesmen. All these 
 saw in the doctrine of individualism a solvent of domestic, 
 political and national union — a great, disintegrating element of 
 social life. They all saw in the proclamation of the reign of self- 
 
24 Ricardo and 
 
 interest the universal abolition of feelings of kindliness and grati- 
 tude, of filial reverence and paternal care, of political fidelity and 
 patriotism — in short, of all the sentiments which welded society 
 into a whole. Christian ministers lamented the decay of domestic 
 ties, the refusal of children to support parents, the neglect of 
 parents to educate children. Moralists deplored the growing 
 alienation of masters and workmen — the harsh self-seeking of the 
 employers, the indolence and hatred of the employed. Statesmen 
 lamented the destruction of national life, the subordination of 
 national welfare to individual gain, the advocacy of measures 
 which might enrich individuals, but must, they thought, disin- 
 tegrate the empire. "If an empire were made of dust," said 
 Napoleon, " it would be pounded to dust by the economists." " The 
 entire tendency of the modern or Malthusian Political Economy is 
 to denationalise," said Coleridge. " At the very outset," he said 
 on another occasion, " what are we to think of the soundness of 
 this modern system of Political Economy, the direct tendency of 
 which is to denationalise, and to make the law of our country a 
 foolish superstition?" "We have profoundly forgotten," wrote 
 Carlyle some years later, "that cash-payment is not the sole 
 relation of human beings ; we think, nothing doubting, that it 
 absolves and licLuidates all engagements to man. . . . ' My starving 
 workers?' answers the rich mill-owner; 'did not I hire them 
 fairly in the market ? did I not pay them to the last sixpence the 
 sum covenanted for ? what have I to do with them more ? ' " 
 " Society," writes his disciple Mr. Froude, " is an aggregate of 
 dust." 
 
 Such was the accusation. Political Economy, it was said, 
 destroyed the moral and political relations of men, and dissolved 
 the social union. It is remarkable that this accusation was made 
 not only by philosophers and moralists, but by politicians. And 
 it is still more remarkable that the defects of Political Economy 
 were never more clearly stated than in the days of its greatest 
 influence — in the golden era of economic discussion which pre- 
 ceded free-trade. But for all the force with which the accusation 
 was urged, the opponents of Political Economy were defeated. 
 In one memorable point, and in one alone — the regulation of 
 factories — were they successful. In their general attack upon 
 individualism they were completely beaten. And the reason was 
 
The Old Political Economy. 25 
 
 because they failed to see that the old economic conditions had to 
 be destroyed before new moral relations could come into existence. 
 Eight in their general conception, they were wrong in their parti- 
 cular application of it. For the moral relations which they wished 
 to preserve were based upon the dependence of the labourer, and 
 until that dependence was destroyed no new life could be reached. 
 The historical method, the great enemy of the old Political 
 Economy, is here on the side of the old economists against their 
 assailants. For it shows us how the "cash-nexus," which the 
 latter denounced so vehemently, is essential to the independence 
 of the labourer. And that independence is a necessary condition 
 of the new and higher form of social union, which is based on the 
 voluntary association of free men.^ 
 
 The historical method has revolutionised Political Economy, 
 not by showing its laws to be false, but by proving that they are 
 relative for the most part to a particular stage of civilisation. 
 This destroys their character as eternal laws, and strips them of 
 much of their force and all their sanctity. In this way the his- 
 torical method has rescued us from intellectual superstitions. 
 
 The earlier economists, like Adam Smith, were concerned with 
 production. Increased production was necessary for man as an 
 instrument of social and political progress. And the old economy 
 succeeded in establishing new conditions of production. But 
 when it came to the more delicate task of distribution it failed. 
 A more equitable distribution of wealth is now demanded and 
 required. But this end can only be attained coincidently with 
 moral progress. For such an end a gospel of life is needed, and the 
 old Political Economy had none. This was its great fault, a fault 
 which, now its work is done, has become glaring in the extreme. 
 Such a gospel must now be put forward or aU that work wiU fail. 
 Morality must be united with economics as a practical science. 
 The better distribution which is sought for wiU then be found in 
 
 1 At tWs point the consecutive MSS., which bears traces of being hastily 
 written in the preceding paragraph, breaks off altogether, and there remain only 
 some fragmentary passages which Toyubee never wove into the thread of his 
 argument. — Ed. 
 
26 Ricardo and the Old Political Economy. 
 
 the direction of (1) a modification of the idea of private property 
 by (a) public opinion and (J) legislation, but not so as to destroy 
 individualism, which wUl itself be modified by duty and the love 
 of man ; (2) State action in the interest of the whole people ; 
 (3) association not only of producers but of consumers. 
 
THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION.^ 
 
 INTRODUCTOEY. 
 
 Division of the subject — Advantages of combining the study of History and Poli- 
 tical Economy — The Deductive Method — The Historical Method — Import- 
 ance of a discussion of Method — Lawa and precepts relative — The Social Pro- 
 blems of the Present to be borne in mind in studying the history of the Past. 
 
 The subject of these lectures is the Industrial and Agrarian 
 Eevolution at the end of the eighteenth and beginning of the nine- 
 teenth centuries. The course is divided into three parts. The 
 first deals with Adam Smith and the England of his time. It will 
 describe England on the eve of the Industrial Eevolution, and the 
 system of regulation and protection of industry as it existed in 
 1760. It will give also an outline of Adam Smith's book, its aims 
 and character, and especially his theory of free trade. The second 
 part will group itself round the work of Malthus, who dealt not 
 so much with the causes of wealth as with the causes of poverty, 
 with the distribution of wealth rather than with its production. 
 It will describe England in the midst of the Industrial Eevolution, 
 and will inquire into the problem of pauperism and the subjects 
 conneeted with it. The third part wiU be associated with the 
 name of Eicardo, and will deal with England at the time of the 
 Peace. It will discuss the doctrine of rent and wages together 
 with certain theories of economic progress, and will cover the 
 questions of currency, so much agitated at that period, and the history 
 of the commercial and financial changes which followed the Peace? 
 
 ^ The fragment of economic history here printed under the title of the 
 " Industrial Eevolution," a title that Toynbee had himself selected for a book, 
 of which the following pages contain some of the raw material, consists of notes 
 of lectures delivered by Toynbee in the Hall of BaUiol College, Oxford, between 
 October 1881 and Midsummer 1882. 
 
 2 The sequel, as readers will observe, realises very imperfectly the plan here 
 sketched out by Toynbee, and especially fails to deal with those portions of the 
 scheme which are described in the words printed in italics. This is due partly 
 to the fact that Toynbee hiniself found his subject, as he first conceived it, 
 too large to be dealt with in a single course of lectures, and partly to the imper- 
 fection of even the best notes taken by his hearers, especially on the more diffi- 
 
 27 
 
2 8 The Industrial Revolution. 
 
 I have chosen the subject because it was in this period that 
 modern Political Economy took its rise. It has been a weakness 
 of the science as pursued in England that it has been too much 
 dissociated from History. Adam Smith and Malthus, indeed, had 
 historical minds ; but the form of modern text-books is due to 
 Eicardo, whose mind was entirely unhistorical. Yet there is a 
 double advantage in combining the two studies. In the first place 
 Political Economy is better understood by this means. Abstract 
 propositions are seen in a new light when studied in relation to the 
 facts which were before the writer at the time when he formulated 
 them. So regarded they are at once more vivid and less Kkely to 
 mislead. Eicardo becomes painfuUy interesting when we read the 
 history of his time. And, in the second place. History also is 
 better understood when studied in connection with Political 
 Economy ; for the latter not only teaches us in reading History 
 to look out for the right kind of facts, but enables us to explain 
 many phenomena like those attending the introduction of enclo- 
 sures and machinery, or the effects of different systems of currency, 
 which without its assistance would remain unintelligible. The 
 careful deductive reasoning, too, which Political Economy teaches, 
 is of great importance to the historian, and the habits of mind 
 acquired from it are even more valuable than the knowledge of 
 principles which it gives, especially to students of facts, who might 
 otherwise be overwhelmed by the mass of their materials. 
 
 Of late years, however, there has been a steady sustained attack 
 upon the abstract Deductive Method of Political Economy pur- 
 sued by Eicardo and Mill, and an attempt to set' up historical 
 investigation in its place as the only true method of economic 
 inquiry. This attack rests on a misconception of the function of 
 the Deductive Method. The best exposition of the place of Abstract 
 Political Economy is to be found in Bagehot's Economic Studies. 
 Bagehot points out that this abstract science iolds good only upon 
 certain assumptions, but though the assumptions are often not 
 entirely correct, the results may yet be approximately true. Thus 
 the economists, iirstly, regard only one part of man's nature, and 
 treat him simply as a money-making animal ; secondly, they dis- 
 regard the influence of custom, and only take account of com- 
 
 cult and abstruse, aud in particular the purely financial and monetary topics 
 discussed by him. — Ed. ' 
 
Introductory. ■ 2<~ 
 
 petition. Certain laws are laid down under these assumptions 
 as, for instance, that the rate of wages always tends to an equality 
 the permanent difference obtaining in various employments beinj 
 only sufficient to balance the favourable or unfavourable circum 
 stances attending each of them — a law which is only true after i 
 certain stage of civilisation and in so far as the acquisition o: 
 wealth is the sole object of men. Such hypothetical laws, thougl 
 leading only to rough conclusions, are yet useful in giving us i 
 poiat of view from which to observe and indicate the existence o: 
 strong overmastering tendencies. Advocates of the Historica 
 Method, like Mr. Cliffe Leslie, therefore go too far when they con 
 demn the Deductive Method as radically false. There is no rea 
 opposition between the two. The apparent opposition is due to £ 
 wrong use of deduction; to a neglect on the part of those em 
 ploying it to examine closely their assumptions and to bring theii 
 conclusions to the test of fact; to arguments based on premises 
 which are not only not verified but absolutely untrue (as in the 
 wage-fund theory) ; and generally to the failure to combine induc- 
 tion with deduction. But this misuse of the method does nol 
 imply any radical faultiness in it. The right method in any par 
 ticular case must be largely determined by the nature of the 
 problem. Neither is it fair to make abstract Political Economj 
 responsible for the confusion in many minds between its laws and 
 the precepts which are based on them. It is a pure science, and 
 its end is knowledge. But the Political Economy of the press and 
 the platform is a practical science, that is, a body of rules and 
 maxims to guide conduct. Journalists and Members of Parlia- 
 ment confound the laws of the pure science with the maxims o1 
 the practical science. It was thiis that Mr. Gladstone in the 
 Land Act controversy of 1881 was constantly accused of violating 
 the laws of Political Economy. It was impossible for Mr. Gladstone 
 to dp any such thing. The laws of Political Economy can no more 
 be violated than those of physical science. What the journalists 
 meant was that he had departed from a great economic precept — 
 that which recommends freedom of contract. 
 
 The Historical Method pursues a different line of investigation 
 It examines the actual causes of economic development and con- 
 siders the influence of institutions, such as the mediaeval guilds 
 our present land-laws, or the political constitution of any giver 
 
30 The Industrial Revolution. 
 
 country, in determining the distribution of wealth. Without the 
 aid of the Historical Method it would be impossible, for instance, 
 to understand why one-half of the land in the United Kingdom is 
 owned by 2512 persons.^ 
 
 "* And not only does it investigate the stages of economic 
 development in a given country, but it compares them with 
 those which have obtained in other countries and times, and seeks 
 by such comparison to discover laws of universal application. Take, 
 as an instance of the discoveries of this Comparative Political 
 Economy, the tendency which Sir H. Maine and M. de Laveleye 
 have pointed out to pass from collective to individual ownership of 
 land. This is a law which is true of nearly aU civilised countries. 
 We must be careful, however, not to generalise too hastily in these 
 matters. A clever pamphlet lately published in Dublin appeals to 
 another generalisation of Sir H. Maine — " Maine's Law," as it is 
 denominated — in condemnation of recent legislation. " Sir H. 
 Maine," says the writer, " in his Ancient Law has remarked that the 
 movement of all progressive societies has hitherto been a move- 
 ment from status to contract. The demand of this agitation is that 
 Ireland should be legislatively dfeclared a- retrograde society, and 
 that the social movement should be from contract back again to 
 status."^ " Is it expedient," asks another, " to reform our laws so 
 as to assimilate them to those in use among nations of an inferior 
 social development V ^ A deeper study of existing civilisation in 
 England, and of other civilisations, past and present, would have 
 shown that the step was not a retrograde one, — that whUst the 
 sphere of contract has been widening, it has been also narrowing, ~ 
 and that such a condition of things as we see in Ireland has never 
 existed anywhere else without deep social misery, outrage, and dis- 
 turbance. Custom or law or public opinion, or all three, have in- 
 tervened in the past, and will intervene in the future. It is true 
 that there is a movement from status to contract ; yet if we look 
 closely, we find that the State has over and over again had to in- 
 
 1 The owners of properties over 3000 acres, and yielding a rental of at least 
 £3000 are 2512 ; they own in 
 
 England and Wales, 14,287,373 acres out of 34,344,226. 
 Scotland, . . 14,118,164 „ 18,986!694". 
 
 Ireland, . . 9,120,689 „ 20,316,129. 
 
 — Bateman's Oreat Landowners. 
 
 2 Confiscation or Contract? (Dublin, 1880), p. 23. 
 ^ Eiohey, The Irish Land-Laws, p. 108. 
 
Introductory. 3 1 
 
 terfere to restrict the power of individuals in which this movement 
 results. The real course of development has been fii'st from status 
 to contract, then from contract to a new kind of status determined 
 by the law, — or, in other words, from unregulated to regulated con- 
 tract. 
 
 The Historical Method is also of vabie because it makes us 
 see where economic laws and precepts are relative.^ The old econo- 
 mists were wont to speak as if these laws and precepts were 
 universal. Free trade, for instance, is a sound policy, no doubt, 
 for England, and for all nations at a certain stage of development ; 
 but it is open to any one to say that free trade is only good 
 under certain conditions. No English economist, it is true, has 
 dared to say this. Mr. Jevons, to take an example, would admit 
 restrictions only for considerations of the most paramount import- 
 ance.^ But it is an unjustifiable prejudgment of the question to 
 lay down that this policy must be wise at all times and places. I 
 do not mean to assert, however, that there are not some laws which 
 are universally true, such as the law of diminishing returns. 
 
 This discussion about method may seem barren, but it is not 
 really so. Take such a question as the functions of the State. Mr. 
 Senior spent much time in attempting to discover an universal 
 formula which should define their proper limit all the world over. 
 Such an attempt must be abandoned. The proper limits of Govern- 
 ment interference are relative to the nature of each particular state 
 and the stage of its civilisation. It is a matter of great importance 
 at the present day for us to discover what these limits are in our 
 own case, for administration bids fair to claim a large share of our 
 attention in the future. It would be well if, in studying the past,^ 
 we could always bear in mind the problems of the present, and go 
 to that past to seek large views of what is of lasting importance to 
 the human race. It is an old complaint that histories leave out of 
 
 ,1 Comte was one of the first to recognise this truth, and it was from him, 
 that-Mill learned that "the deductive science of society will not lay down a theorem 
 asserting in an universal manner the eflfeot of any cause, but will rather teach 
 us how to frame the proper theorem for the circumstances of any given case. It 
 will not give the laws of society in general, but the means of determining the 
 phenomena of any given society from the particular elements or data of that 
 society." — System of Logic, bk. vi. c. 9, § 2. 
 
 2 As, for instance, to check the exhaustion of our coal supplies. — 3%e Coal 
 Question, 247-354. 
 
 ^ Toynbee was addressing an audience principally composed of men studying 
 for the History Schools.— Ed. 
 
yl^ The Industrial Revolution. 
 
 sight those vital questions which are connected with the condition 
 of the people. The French Eevolution has indeed profoundly 
 modified our views of History, but much stiU remains to be done 
 in that direction. If I could persuade some of those present to 
 study Economic History, to foUow out the impulse originaUy given 
 by Malthus to the study of the history of the mass of the people, 
 I should be indeed glad. Party historians go to the past for party 
 purposes ; they seek to read into the past the controversies of the 
 present. You must pursue facts for their own sake, but penetrated 
 with a vivid sense of the problems of your own time. This is not 
 a principle of perversion, but a principle of selection. Tou must 
 have some principle of selection, and you could not have a better 
 one than to pay special attention to the history of the social pro- 
 blems which are agitating the world now, for you may be sure that 
 they are problems not of temporary but of lasting importance. 
 
 n. 
 
 ENGLAND IN 1760. 
 
 POPULATIOIt. 
 
 Numbers of population difficult to determine — Einlayson's estimate — ^The distri- 
 bution of population — The growth of the great to'wns — ^Rural and urban 
 population — The occupations of the people, 
 
 Peeviously to 1760 the old industrial system obtained in 
 England ; none of the great mechanical inventions had. been intro- 
 duced ; the agrarian changes were still in. the future. It is this 
 industrial England which we have to contract with the industrial 
 England of to-day. For determining the population ofjbhe time we 
 have no accurate materials. There are no official returns before 
 1801, A census had been proposed in 1763, but rejected as " sub- 
 versive of the last remains of English liberty." i lu this absence 
 
 1 Mr. Thornton, member for the City of York, said : " I did not believe that there 
 was any set of men, or indeed any individual of the human species, so presump- 
 tuous and so abandoned as to make the proposal we have just heard. I 
 hold this project to be totally subversive of the last remains of English' liberty 
 . . . The new Bill wiU direct the imposition of new taxes, and indeed the addi- 
 tion of a very few words will make it the most effective engine of rapacity and 
 
England in 1760.- Population. 33 
 
 of trustworthy data all sorts of wild estimates were formed. During 
 the American War a great controversy raged on this subject. Dr. 
 Price, an advocate of the Sinking Fund, maintained that popula- 
 tion had in the interval between 1690 and 1777 declined from 
 6,596,075 to 4,763,670.1 On the other hand, Mr. Hewlett, Vicar of 
 Dunmow, in Essex, estimated the population in 1780 at 8,691,000,^ 
 and Arthur Young, in 1770, at 8,500,000 on the lowest estimate.^ 
 These, however, are the extremes in either direction. The com- 
 putations now most generally accepted are those made by Mr. 
 Finlaison (Actuary to the National Debt Office), and published in 
 the Preface to the Census Eeturns of 1831. These are based on 
 an examination of the registers of baptisms and burials during the 
 eighteenth century, But the data are deficient in three respects : 
 because the number of people existing at the date when the com- 
 putation begins is a matter of conjecture; because in some parishes 
 there were no registers ; and because the registration, being volun- 
 tary, was incomplete^* Mr. Finlaison, however, is stated to have 
 subjected his materials to "every test suggested by the present 
 comparatively advanced state of physical and statistical science." ^ 
 Now, according to Mr. Finlaison, the population of England 
 and "Wales was, in 1700, 5,134,516, in 1750, 6,039,684, an increase 
 of not quite a million, or between 17 and 18 per cent, in the first 
 haK of the century.^ In 1801 the population of England and 
 Wales was 9,187,176, showing an increase of three millions, or 
 
 oppression which was ever used against an injured people. . . . Moreover, an 
 annual register of our people will acquaint our enemies abroad with our weak- 
 ness." — Vide Preface to Prelimmm-y Census Returns, 18S\, p. 1. The Bill was 
 carried in the Commons by large majorities, but thrown out on second reading 
 by the Lords. 
 
 1 An Essay on the Population of England from the Bevolution to the Present 
 Time, by Richard Price, D.D., F.R.S. (London, 1780). 
 
 2 An Examination of Dr. Price's Essay on the Population of England and Wales, 
 by Rev. John Hewlett (1781). See M'Culloch's Literature of Political Economy, 
 p. 258. 
 
 3 Northern Tour, iv. 419 (2d edition, 1771). 
 
 * Porter's Progress of the Nation, p. 5 (2d edition, 1847). 
 5 Ibid. p. 13. 
 
 * Slightly different calculations are made by Mr. Eickman {Introductory 
 Remarks to Census Returns of 1841, pp. 36, 37), and Mr. Marshall in his Qeo- 
 gra^Meal and Statistical Display (1833), p. 22. The former gives the popula- 
 tion in 1700 at 6,045,008, and in 1750 at 6,517,035, being an increase of nearly 
 8 per cent. ; the latter gives 5,475,000 and 6,467,000 for the two dates, or an 
 increase of 18'1 per cent. Gregoiy King, in 1696, estimates, from "the assessments 
 on marriages, births, and burials>\vthe population at 5,500,000. 
 
 - C 
 
34 The Industrial Revolution. 
 
 more than 52 per cent, in the second half.i The difference in the 
 rate of increase is significant of the great contrast presented by the 
 two periods, fin the former, England, though rapidly iacreasing in 
 wealth owing to her extended commercial relations, yet retained 
 her old industrial organisation ; the latter is the age of transition 
 to the modern industrial system, and to improved methods of agri- 
 culture3^ 
 
 The next point to consider is the distribution of population. 
 A great difference will be found here between the state of things 
 at the beginning of the eighteenth century, or in Adam Smith's 
 time, and that prevailing now. Every one remembers Macaulay's 
 famous description in the beginning of his history of the desolate 
 condition of the northern counties. His picture is borne out by 
 Defoe, who, in his Tour through the Whole Island (1725), remarks 
 that " the country south of Trent is by far the largest, as weU as 
 the richest and most populous," though the great cities were rivalled 
 by those of the north.^ If we consider as the counties north of 
 Trent Northumberland, Durham, Yorkshire, Cumberland, West- 
 moreland, Lancashire, Cheshire, Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire, and 
 Staffordshire (about one-third of the total area of England), we 
 shall find on examination that in 1700 they contained about one- 
 fourth of the population,* and in 1750 less than one-third,* while, 
 in 1881, they contamed more than two-fifths ; * or, taking only the 
 six northern counties, we find that in 1700 their population was 
 under one-fifth of that of all England, in 1750 it was about one- 
 fifth, in 1881 it was all but one-third.* 
 
 In 1700 the most thickly peopled counties (excluding the metro- 
 politan counties of Middlesex and Surrey) were Gloucestershire, 
 Somerset, and Wilts, the manufacturing districts of the west ; Wor- 
 cestershire and Northamptonshire, the seats of the midland manu- 
 factures ; and the agricultural counties of Herts and Bucks — all of 
 them being south of the Trent. Between 1700 and 1750 the greatest 
 increase of population took place in the following counties : — 
 
 1 Mr. Riokman gives the rate of increase at 41 per cent., and Mr. Marshall at 
 42 per cent. 
 
 2 iii. 57 (7th edition, 1769). 
 
 8 1,285,300 out of 5,108,500. 
 
 ■• 1,740,000 out of 6,017,700. These are Marshall's estimates j they differ a 
 little from those of Mr. Finlaison. 
 
 s 10,438,705 out of 24,608,391. 
 
 " In 1700, 902,100 out of 5,108,500 ; in 1750, 1,261,500 out of 6,017 700 • 
 in 18^1, 7,906,760 out of 24,608,391. 
 
England in 1 760 : Population. 
 
 35 
 
 Lancashire increased from 
 
 Waxwickshire „ 
 The West Riding 
 
 of Yorkshire „ 
 
 Durham „ 
 
 Staffordshire „ 
 G-loucestershire 
 
 297,400, 
 
 or 
 
 78 per cent 
 
 140,000, 
 
 )> 
 
 45 „ 
 
 361,500, 
 
 » 
 
 52 „ 
 
 135,000, 
 
 » 
 
 41 „ 
 
 160,000, 
 
 )j 
 
 36 „ 
 
 207,800, 
 
 j> 
 
 34 „ 
 
 166,200 to 
 96,600 „ 
 
 1 236,700 „ 
 
 95,500 „ 
 
 117,200 „ 
 
 155,200 „ 
 
 while Cornwall, Kent, Berks, Herts, Worcestershire, Salop, Cheshire, 
 Northumberland, Cumberland, and Westmoreland each increased 
 upwards of 20 per cent.^ 
 
 The change in the distribution of population between the 
 beginning of the eighteenth century and Adam Smith's time, and 
 again between his time and our own, may be further illustrated by 
 the following table. The twelve most densely populated counties 
 and their density to the square mile were in — 
 
 1700 
 
 
 1750 
 
 
 1881 
 
 
 Middlesex, . . . 
 
 2221 
 
 Middlesex, 
 
 . 2283 
 
 Middlesex, . . 
 
 10,387 
 
 Surrey, . . . 
 
 207 
 
 Surrey, . 
 
 . 276 
 
 Surrey, . 
 
 1,919 
 
 Gloucester, . . 
 
 123 
 
 Warwick, 
 
 , 159 
 
 Lancashire, 
 
 1,813 
 
 Northampton, . 
 
 121 
 
 Gloucester, 
 
 . 157 
 
 Durham, . . 
 
 891 
 
 Somerset, . . 
 
 119 
 
 Lancashire, 
 
 . 156 
 
 Stafford, . . 
 
 862 
 
 Worcester, . . 
 
 119 
 
 Worcester, 
 
 . 148 
 
 -Warwick, . . 
 
 825 
 
 Herts, . . . 
 
 115 
 
 Herts, . . 
 
 . 141 
 
 West Riding, . 
 
 815 
 
 Wilts, . . . 
 
 113 
 
 Stafford, . 
 
 . 140 
 
 .Kent, ... 
 
 600 
 
 Bucks, . . . 
 
 110 
 
 Durham, . 
 
 . 138 
 
 Cheshire, . . 
 
 582 
 
 Butland, . . . 
 
 . 110 
 
 Somerset, 
 
 . 137 
 
 Worcester, . . 
 
 515 
 
 Warwick, . . 
 
 . 109 
 
 West Eiding 
 
 , . 135 
 
 Nottingham, . 
 
 475 
 
 , Oxford, . . . 
 
 107 
 
 Berks, 
 
 . 131 
 
 Gloucester, 
 
 455 
 
 The most suggestive fact in the period between 1700 and 1750 
 
 is the great increase in Lancashire and the West Eiding, the seats 
 
 of the cotton and coarse woollen manufactures. Staffordshire 
 
 and Warwickshire, with their potteries and hardware, had also 
 
 largely grown. So had the two northern counties of Durham 
 
 and Northumberland, with their coalfields. The West of 
 
 England woollen districts of Somerset, and Wilts, on the other 
 
 hand, though they had grown also, showed nothing like so great 
 
 an increase. The population of the eastern counties Norfolk, 
 
 Suffolk, and Essex, had increased very little ; though Norwich was 
 
 still a large manufacturing town, and there were many smaller 
 
 towns engaged in the woollen trade scattered throughout Norfolk 
 
 1 J. Marshall: A Geographical and Statistical Display, etc. (1833), p. 12} 
 printed also at the end of his Analysis of Returns made to Parliament, 1833. 
 
36 The Industrial Revolution. 
 
 and Suffolk. Among the few agricultural counties which showed 
 a decided increase during this period was Kent, the best farmed 
 county in England at that time. 
 
 If We turn to the principal towns we shall find in many of them 
 an extraordinary growth between the end of the seventeenth century 
 and the time of Adam Smith. While the population of Norwich 
 had only increased, according to the best authority, by about one- 
 third, and that of Worcester by one-half, the population of Sheffield 
 had increased seven-fold, that of Liverpool ten-fold, of Manchester 
 five-fold, of Birmingham seven-fold, of Bristol more than three-fold. 
 The latter was still the second city in the kingdom. Newcastle 
 (including Gateshead and North and South Shields) numbered 
 40,000 people. 
 
 The following are the estimates of population for 1685, 1760, 
 and 1881 in twelve great provincial towns : — 
 
 
 1685. 
 
 c. 1760. 
 (40,000 = 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 1881.>' 
 
 ' Liverpool, 
 
 4,000 » 
 
 \ 30-35,0004 
 ( 34,000 « 
 
 } 
 
 
 552,425 
 
 Manchester, 
 
 6,000" 
 
 / 30,000 « 
 (.40-45,0004 
 
 \ 
 
 
 393,676 
 
 Birmingliaiii, 
 
 4,000 » 
 
 f 28,000 >> 
 130,000 4 
 
 ■ 
 
 
 400,757 
 
 Leeds, 
 
 7,000 » 
 
 
 
 
 309,126 
 
 Sheffield, 
 
 4,000" 
 
 ( 30,000" 
 ( 20,0004 
 
 
 
 284,410 
 
 Bristol, 
 
 29,000" 
 
 100,0004 
 
 
 
 206,503 
 
 Nottingham, 
 
 8,000" 
 
 17,711' 
 
 
 
 111,631 
 
 Norwich, 
 
 28,000 " 
 
 ( 40,000 « 
 \ 60,000 4 
 
 
 
 87,843 
 
 Hull, 
 
 
 ( 20,000 " 
 (24,000 4 
 
 \ 
 
 
 161,519 
 
 York, 
 
 10,000 " 
 
 
 
 
 59,596 
 
 Exeter, 
 
 10,000" 
 
 
 
 
 47,098 
 
 Worcester, 
 
 8,000" 
 
 11-12,000° 
 
 
 
 40,421 
 
 Another point 
 
 to be considered is the relation 
 
 of rural to 
 
 urban population. 
 
 According to 
 
 Gregory King, 
 
 writing in 1696, 
 
 £ondon contained 530,000 inhabitants, other cities and market- 
 
 " Macanlay's History of England, c. 3. b Defoe's Tour (1725). 
 
 « Arthur Young (1769). 4 Maopherson's AnnaU of Commerce (1760). 
 
 ° Levi's History of British Commerce. 
 
 ' Eden's State of tJie Poor (1797). s Local estimate in Arthur Young, 
 
 b The returns for 1881 are those of the parliamentary district. 
 
England in 1 760 : Population. 
 
 Z7 
 
 towns, 870,000, while villages and hamlets numbered 4,100,000.^ 
 Arthur Young, seventy years later, calculated that London con- 
 tained one-sixth of the whole population,^ and remarked that, " in 
 flourishing countries," as England, " the half of a lotion is found 
 in towns." ^ Both estimates are very unreliable, apart from the 
 fact that both,'and especially that of Arthur Young, over-estimate 
 the total number of the population, but the contrast between them 
 justly iadicates the tendency of towns even then to grow out of 
 proportion to the rural districts. That disproportion has, of course, 
 become even more marked since Arthur Young's day. In 1881 
 the total urban population was 17,285,026, or 66'6 per cent., while 
 the rural was 8,683,026, or 33-3 per cent.* 
 
 The only estimates of occupations with whicb I am acquainted 
 are again those of Gregory King in 1696, and Arthur Young in 
 1769. They are too vague, and too inconsistent with one another, 
 to be relied on, but I give them for what they are worth. Accord- 
 ing to the former, freeholders and their families numbered 940,000, % ' 
 farmers and their famUies, 750,000, labouring people and out ser- , 
 vants, 1,275,000, cottagers and paupers, 1,300,000 ; making a total I 
 agricultural population of 4,265,000, against only 240,000 artisans j 
 and handicraftsmen.^ 
 different classes as follows : — 
 
 Arthur Young estimates the number of 
 
 Farmers (whether freeholders or leaseholders), their 
 
 servants and labourers. 
 
 Manufacturers of all kinds. 
 
 Landlords and their dependants, fisher- 
 men and miners. 
 
 Persons engaged in commerce. 
 
 Non-industrious poor. 
 
 Clergy and lawyers. 
 
 Civil servants, army and navy. 
 
 Total, 
 
 2,800,000 
 3,000,000 
 
 800,000 
 700,000 
 500,000 
 200,000 
 500,000 
 
 8,500,000 8 
 
 ^ Natural and Political Observations upon the State and Condition of England, 
 by Gregory King, Lancaster Herald, 1696 (printed in Chalmers's Estimate, 1804). 
 p. 36. 
 
 2 Southern Tour, p. 326 (2d edition, 1769). 
 
 3 Travels in France (2nd edition), i. 480. He contrasts it with France, where 
 "less than one-fourth of the people inhabit towns." His estimate is, however, 
 in aU probability exaggerated. 
 
 * Census Returns. See Preliminary Report, p. vii. 
 
 6 Eden's State of the Poor, i. 228, and Chalmers's Estimate (1804), p. 203. 
 
 ' Northern Tour, iv. 417-19 ; cf. also 364. 
 
38 The Industrial Revolution. 
 
 But the number set down to manufactures here is probably as 
 much too high, in proportion to the total population, as the total 
 itself is in excess of the fact. 
 
 HI. 
 
 ■■V 
 
 ENGLAND IN 1760. 
 
 AGRICULTURE. 
 
 Proportion of cultivated land to waste. — Large amount of common land. — Bene- 
 ficial effect of enclosures upon agriculture. — Comparative progresfliveness of 
 different districts. — Improvements in cultivation and in the breed of live 
 stock. — Slowness of agricultural development between 1700 and 1760. 
 
 ■ In describing the agriculture of the time the first point of im- 
 portance is the proportion of cultivated land to waste. Gr egory 
 King, who rather over-estimated the total acreage of England and 
 Wales, put the arable land at 1 1,000,000 acres, pasture and meadow 
 at 10,000,000, houses, gardens, orchards, etc., at 1,000,000, being a 
 total of 22,000,000 acres of cultivated land, or nearly three-fifths of 
 the whole country .^ AJ554-agentJn 1 727 believed one-half of the 
 country to be waste.^ Arthur Young, writing fifty years later, puts 
 the cultivated area at a much higher figure. Estimating the total 
 acreage of England alone at 34,000,000 acres, he considered that 
 32,000,000 of these were in arable and pasture, in equal propor- 
 tions.* 
 
 One or other of the two first-mentioned estimates is certainly 
 nearer the truth than the last. The exact proportion is, however, 
 impossible to determine. 
 
 There is no respect in which the agricultural England of to-day 
 differs more from that of the period which we are considering, than 
 in the greatly reduced amiount of common land. The enclosure of 
 commons had been going on for centuries before 1760, but with 
 nothing like the rapidity with which it has been goiag on since. 
 It is known that 334,974 acres were enclosed between 1710 and 
 
 1 P. 52 (ed. Chalmers, 1804). 
 
 2 Edward Laurence, Duty of a, Steward to his Lord. London, 1727 
 
 3 Northern Tour, iv. 340-41. See also Eastern Tour, iv. 455-56, for a some- 
 what different estimate. 
 
England in 1 760 : Agriculture. 39 
 
 1760, while nearly 7,000,000 were enclosed between 1760 and 1843.^^ 
 At the beginning of the latter period a large proportion of this 
 land, since enclosed, was under the primitive tillage of the common- 
 fields. Throughout considerable districts the agrarian system of 
 the middle ages stiU existed in full force. Some parishes had no 
 common or waste lands belongingjo them, but where common lands 
 were cultivated, one and the same plan was generally pursued. The 
 a rable lan d of each village was divided into three great strips sub- 
 divided by " baulks " three yards wide.^ Every farmer would owii 
 at least one piece of land in each field, and aU were bound to 
 ■ foUow the customary tillage. One strip was left fallow every year ; 
 on the other two were grown wheat and barley ; sometimes oats, 
 pease, or tares were substituted for the latter. Th e meado ws were 
 also held in common. Up to hay harvest, indeed, every man had 
 his own plot, but, while in the arable land the plots rarely changed 
 hands, in the meadows the different shares were apportioned by lot 
 every year. After hay-harvest the fences in the meadow land were 
 thrown down, and all householders had common rights of grazing 
 on it. Similarly the stubbles were grazed, but here the right was 
 rarely open to all. Every farmer had the right of pasture on the 
 waste. 
 
 Though these common fields contained the best soil in the 
 kingdom, they exhibited the m ost w retched cultivation. " Never," 
 says Arthur Young, "were more miserable crops seen" than all the 
 spring ones in the common fields ; absolutely beneath contempt." * 
 
 1 Shaw Lefevre, Essays on English and Irish Land Question, p. 199. 
 
 2 Maine's Village Oommunities, p. 89. 
 
 ^ A. Young, Southern Tour (3rd. ed. 1772), p. 384. See also Northern Tour, 
 i. 160-62, where he compares the yields of open and enclosed lands at Risby and 
 the neighbourhood as follows : — 
 
 Open land. Inclosed. 
 
 Wheat 17"18 bushels per acre 26 
 
 Barley 36 „ 40 
 
 Oats 32 „ 44 
 
 Beans 28 „ 32 
 
 See also Vievi of the Agricultwe of Oxfordshire, by A. Young (1809),p. 100 ; Clifford's 
 Agricultural Lockout in 1874, p. 121, n. ; and Laurence's Duty of a Steward, p. 37-8. 
 The" latter gives the following preamble for a form of agreement for enclosure : — 
 " Whereas it is found by long experience that common or open fields, wherever 
 they are suffered or continued, are great hindrances to a public good, and the 
 honest improvement which every one might make of his own by diligence and a 
 seasonable charge ; . . . and whereas all or most the inconveniences and misfor- 
 tunes which usually attend the open wastes and common fields have been fatally 
 experienced at , to the great discouragement of industry and good husbandry 
 
40 The Industrial Revolution. 
 
 The causes of this deficient tillage were three in number— (1.) The 
 same course of crops was necessary. No proper rotation was 
 feasible ; the only possible alteration being to vary the proportions 
 of different white-straw crops. There were no turnips or artificial 
 grasses, and consequently no sheep-farming on a large scale. Such 
 sheep as there were were miserably small ; the whole carcase 
 weighed only 28 lbs., and the fleeces 3 J lbs. each, as against 9 lbs. 
 on sheep in enclosed fields.^ (2.) Much time was lost by labourers 
 and cattle " in travelling to many dispersed pieces of land from one 
 end of a parish to another."^ (3.) Perpetual quarrels arose about 
 rights of pasture in the meadows and stubbles, and respecting 
 boundaries ; in some fields there were no " baulks " to divide the 
 plots, and men would plough by night to steal a furrow from their 
 neighbours.^ 
 
 y For these reasons the connection between the practice of enclos- 
 ing and improved agriculture was very close. The early encl osures, 
 made under the Statutes of Merton (1235), and Westminster (1285), 
 were taken by the lords o±.the manor from the waste. But in these 
 cases the lord had first to prove that sufficient pasturage had been 
 left for the commoners ; and if rights of common existed independent 
 of the posse^b*ion of land, no enclosure was permitted. These early 
 enclosures went on steadily, but the, enclosures which first attract 
 notice towards t he end of the fifteenth century were of a different 
 kind. They were often made on cu ltivated land, and, if Nasse is 
 correct, they took the form not only of permanent conversions from 
 arable into pasture, but of temporary conversions from arable into 
 pasture, followed by reconversion from pasture into arable. The 
 result was a great increase of produce. The lord having separ- 
 ated his plots from those of his neighbours, and having consolidated 
 them, could pursue any system of tillage which seemed good to 
 
 in the Freeholders ; viz., that the poor take their advantage to pilfer and steal 
 and trespass; that the corn is subject to be spoiled by cattle, that stray out of 
 the common and high-ways adjacent ; that the tenants, or owners, if they would 
 secure the fruits of their labours to themselves, are obliged either to keep exact 
 time in sowing and reaping, or else to be subject to the damage and inoonvenience 
 that must attend the lazy practices of those who sow unseasonably, sufiferin" their 
 corn to stand to the beginning of winter, thereby hindering the whole pariah from 
 eatmg the herbage of the common field till the frosts have spoiled the most of 
 it For these reasons," etc. etc 
 
 ' A. Young, Nortliern Torn, iv. 190, 
 
 " View of the. Agriculture of Oxfordshire, y. 100, ^^^A lb. p. 239 
 
England in 1760: Agriculture. 41 
 
 him. The alternate and convertible husbandry, mentioned above, 
 was introduced ; the manure of the cattle enriched the arable land, 
 and " the grass crops on the land ploughed up and manured were 
 much stronger and of a better quality than those on the constant 
 pasture." ^ Under the old system the manure was spread on the 
 common pasture, while in the enclosures it was used for the benefit 
 of land broken up for tillage. The great enclosures of the sixteenth 
 century took place in Suflolk, Essex, Kent, and Northamptonshire, 
 which were in consequence the most wealthy counties.^ They were 
 frequent also in Oxford, Berks, Warwickshire, Bedfordshire, Bucks, 
 and Leicestershire, and with similar results. In Arthur Young's 
 time Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, and Kent were the best cultivated 
 parts of England. 
 
 Taking a general view of the state of agriculture in 1750, we I 
 find that imgrovements were confined to a few parts of thejcountry. \ ' 
 The first enclosure BiU (1710) was to legalise the enclosure of a 
 parish in Hampshire. I have looked through twelve of these 
 Bills of the reign of George i., and I find that they applied to 
 parishes in Derbyshire, Lancashire, Yorkshire, Staffordshire, Somer- 
 setshire, Gloucestershire, Wilts, Warwickshire, and Norfolk.^ But 
 though enclosures were thus widely distributed, ce'^tain counties 
 continued to bear a much higher reputation than others, and in 
 some improvements were confined to one or two parishes, and not 
 spread over a wide district. f The best cultivated counties were 
 thosc which had long .b.een enclosed^ Kent, which was spoken of 
 by William Stafford in 1581 as a county where much of the land 
 was enclosed, is described by Arthur Young as having " long been 
 reckoned the best cultivated in England." . . . " It must astonish 
 strangers," he says, " to East Kent and Thanet, to fijid such num- 
 bers of common farmers that have more drilled crops than broad- 
 cast ones, and to see them so familiar with drill-ploughs and horse- 
 hoes. The drill culture carried on in so complete a manner is the 
 great peculiarity of this country. . . . Hops are extremely well 
 cultivated."* In another passage he says that Kent and Hertford- 
 
 ' Naase's Agricultural Oommv/nity of the Middle Ages, p. 85. 
 
 2 Of. Tusser, William Stafford, and HoHnshed, quoted by Nasse. 
 
 3 Seven of them were for the enclosure of common fields and waste, five for 
 waste alone. 
 
 * Eokitern Tour, iii. 108-9. The italics are Arthur Young's. 
 
42 The Industrial Revolution. 
 
 shire " have the reputation of a very accurate cultivation." ^ The 
 Marquis of Eockingham brought a Hertfordshire farmer to teach 
 Ms tenants in the West Biding to hoe turnips. ^ The husbandry 
 both of that district and of the East Eiding was very backward. 
 The courses of crops and the general management of the arable land 
 were very faulty ; very few of the farmers hoed turnips, and those 
 who did executed the work in so slovenly a way that neither the 
 crop nor the land was the least the better for it ; beans were never 
 hoed at all.^ The husbandry of Northumberland, on the other hand, 
 was much superior to that of Durham and Yorkshire. Turnips were 
 hoed, manure was better managed, and potatoes were cultivated on 
 a large scale.* Essex, held up by Tusser in the reign of Elizabeth*? 
 as an example of the advantages of enclosures,^ and described by 
 Young in 1807 as having "for ages been an enclosed country," is 
 mentioned as early as 1694 as a county where " some have their 
 fallow after turnips, which feed their sheep in winter,"® — the first 
 mention of turnips as a field crop. 
 
 But the greatest progress in the first half of the eighteenth cen- 
 tury seems to have taken place in Norfolk. Every one has heard 
 of Townshend growing turnips at Eaynham, after his quarrel with 
 Walpole; and Young, writing in 1812, after speaking of the period 
 1700-1760 as one of stagnation, owing to low prices, ("it is abso- 
 lutely vain to expect improvements in agriculture unless prices are 
 more disposed to rise than to remain long without variations that 
 give encouragement to the farmer "), admits that the improvements 
 made in Norfolk during that time were an exception. In his 
 Eastern Tour (1770), he had spoken of the husbandry " which has 
 rendered the name of this county so famous in the farming world ;"' 
 
 and given seven reasonsfor the. improvements,.. These were: (1.) 
 
 Enclosing wi&iout assistance of Parliament. Parliamentary enclosure 
 
 1 Northern Tour, i. 292. 
 
 2 lb., 283. Other novelties introduced by him were improved drains, laying 
 down of pastures level, instead of ridge and furrow, and improved machines arid 
 manunng. He kept upwards of 2000 acres in his own hands, on which he experi- 
 mented, but found great difficiUty in inducing " the good common farmers " to 
 imitate his husbandry. 
 
 3 Northern Tom, i. 215-221, * Ih. iii. gi. 
 
 5 " All these doth enclosures bring, But only a truth to express. 
 
 Experience teaoheth no less ; Example, if doubt ye do make, 
 
 I speak not to boast of the thing. By Suffolk and Essex go take." 
 See Houghton's Collections in Husbandry and Trade, quoted in Encyc Brit 
 sub " Agriculture." 7 Eastern Tour, ii. 150. 
 
Englandin 1760: Agriculture. 43 
 
 " through the knavery of commissioners and attorneys," was very 
 expensive. " Undoubtedly many of the finest loams on the richest 
 marls would at this day have been sheep-walks had there been any 
 right of commonage on them;"^ (2.) Marling, for there was plenty 
 of marl under the sand everywhere ; (3.) An excellent rotation of 
 crops — the famous Norfolk four years' course of turnips, barley, 
 clover (t)r clover and rye-grass), and wheat ; (4.) The culture of tur- 
 nips well hand-hoed ; (5.) The culture of clover and rye-grass ; 
 (6.) The granting of long leases ;^ (7.) The division of the county 
 chiefly into large farms. " Great farms," he says, " have been the 
 soul of the Norfolk culture,"^ though in the eastern part of the 
 county there were little occupiers of £100 a year.* 
 
 Throughout the whole of the South of England, however, there 
 had been a certain amount of progress. Hoeing turnips, according 
 to Young, was common in many parts of the south of the kingdom,^ 
 although the extensive use of turnips, — i.e. all their uses, for fatten- 
 ing cattle as well as feediug lean sheep — " is known but little of, 
 except in Norfolk, Suffolk, and Essex." ^ Clover husbandry, on the 
 other hand, was " universal from the North of England to the fur- 
 ther end of Glamorganshire." Clover, the " great clover," had been 
 introduced into England by Sir Eichard Weston about 1645, as had 
 probably been turnips also. Potatoes at the beginning of the cen- 
 tury were only garden crops. Hemp and flax were f rec[uently grown, 
 as were also hops, which had been introduced in the beginning of 
 the sixteenth century. 
 
 If we turn from the cultivation of the soil to the management 
 and breeding of live stock, we shall find that no great'progreis'ha& 
 been made in this branch during the years 1700-1760. Davenant 
 in 1700 estimated the net carcase of black cattle at 370 lb., and of 
 a sheep at 28 lb. A century later Eden calculated that "bullocks 
 now killed in London weigh, at an average, 800 lb., sheep 80 lb., 
 
 1 Eastern Tmr, ii. 152. 
 
 2 " It is a custom growing pretty common," he says, "in several parts of the 
 kingdom to grant no leases. Had the Norfolk landlords conducted themselves on 
 such narrow principles, their estates, which are raised five, six, and tenfold, 
 would yet have been sheep walks." — lb. ii. 160, 161. ^ ■^• 
 
 * lb. Caird, however, asserts that "the present pre-eminence' of the 
 county in improved husbandry is due alone to the celebrated Coke of Norfolk, 
 the late Earl of 'Leicester."— English Agriculture in 1850, p. 163. 
 
 * Northern Tour, i. 282. 
 
 " Southern Tow, pp. 280, 281. 
 
44 The Industrial Revolution. 
 
 and lambs about 50 lb. each;"i and Young in 1786 put the weight 
 of bullocks and sheep at 840 lb. and 100 lb. respectively. But 
 this improvement seems to have come about after 1760. It was 
 I not until 1760-85 that Bakewell perfected the new breed of sheep 
 —the Leicesters— and improved the breed of long-horned cattle, and 
 that the brothers Colling obtained the short-horn, or Durham cattle, 
 from the breed in the valley of the Tees.^ Some improvements in 
 the breed of sheep, however, had already been made. " The wool 
 of Warwickshire, Northamptonshire, Lincolnshire, and Eutland, 
 with some parts of Huntingdon, Bedford, Buckinghamshire, Cam- 
 bridgeshire, and Norfolk has been accounted the longest and 
 finest combing wool. But of late years " (this was written in 1739) 
 " there have been improvements made in the breed of sheep by 
 changing of rams and sowing of turnips and grass seeds, and now 
 there is some large fine combing wool to be found in most counties 
 in England, which is fine, long, and soft, fit to make aU sorts of 
 fine stuff and hose of."^ Still improvements in feeding sheep were 
 by no means universally adopted for half a century later.* Agri- 
 cultural implements, too, were still very primitive, wooden ploughs 
 being commonly in use,^ while the small, narrow-wheeled waggon 
 of the North held 40 or 50 bushels with difficulty. 
 
 Arthur Young constantly attributes much of the bad agricu l- 
 ture to the low rentals prevalent. " Of so little encouragement to 
 them," he writes of the farmers of Cleveland, " is the lowness of 
 their rents, that many large tracts of land that yielded good crops 
 of corn within thirty years are now overrun with whins, brakes, 
 
 1 Eden's Staie of the Poor (1797), i. S.Sd. Tooke thought that Eden's 
 estimate was rather too high. — High and Low Prices (1823), p. 184. 
 
 2 Ency. Brit. — "Agriculture;" Northern Tour, ii. 127; Eastern Tour,i. 111. 
 
 3 Pamphlet by a Woollen Manufacturer of Northampton, in Smith's Memoirs 
 of Wool, ii. 320. The woollen manufacturers complained that enclosures lessened 
 the number of sheep, but Young denies this.— Eastern Tour, ii. 5. 
 
 * An old Norfolk shepherd, who was drawn for tlie Militia in 1811 (when he 
 was probably about eighteen years old), described how the sheep lived when he was 
 aboy:— "As forthe sheep, they hadn't such food provided for them as they 
 have now. la winter there was little to eat, except what God Almighty sent for 
 them, and when the snow was thick on the ground, they ate the ling, or died 
 ofif. Sheep were not of much account then. I have known lambs sold at Is. 6d. 
 apiece." — Clifford's Agricultural Lockout, p. 266. 
 
 6 " The plough in many parts of England differs but little from the description 
 we have of the Roman plough. Agricultural machinery has of all others received 
 the least improvement." —Eden, i. 442. n. 
 
England in 1 760 : Agriculture. 45 
 
 and other trumpery. . . If I be demanded how such ill courses are 
 to be stopped, I answer, Raise their rents. First with moderation, 
 and if that does not bring forth industry, double them.''^ At the 
 same time Young strongly advocated long leases. But it must be 
 remembered that besides tenant-farmers there were still a large 
 number of freeholders and still more copyholders either for life or 
 by inheritance. 
 
 R)n the whole, though the evidence on some points is somewhat 
 contradictory, the progress of agriculture between 1700 and 1760 
 may be said to have been slow^ Writing in 1770 Arthur Young I 
 ascribes to the last ten years " more experiments, more discoveries, 
 and more general good sense displayed in the walk of agriculture 
 than in an hundred preceding ones." Though drill-husbandry was 
 practised by Jethro Tull, " a gentleman of Berkshire," as early as 
 1701, and his book was published in 1731 , "he seems to have had 
 few followers in England for more than thirty years," ^ and Young 
 in 1770 speaks of "the new husbandry" as having sunk with 
 Tull, and " not again put in motion till within a few years." ^ On 
 the other hand, we have as early as 1687 Petty's notice of "the 
 draining of fens, watering of dry grounds, and improving of forests 
 and commons." Macpherson in the year 1729 speaks of the great 
 sums lately expended in the enclosing and improving of lands ;* 
 and Laurence in 1727 asserts that "it is an undoubted truth that 
 the Art of Husbandry is of late years greatly improved, and 
 accordingly many estates have already admitted their utmost 
 improvement, but," he adds, " much the 'greater number still 
 remains of such as are so far from being brought to that perfection 
 that they have felt few or none of the effects of modern arts and 
 experiments."^ 
 
 Still, in spite of the ignorance and stupidity of the farmers and 
 their use of wretched implements, the average produce_of wheat 
 was large. In ITTOjt was twenty:^SB_bushels to tEe acre, when 
 
 1 NoHhem Tour, ii. 80-83. 
 
 2 For TuU see Emydopcedia Britcmnica — "Agriculture," Eev. Mr. Smith's 
 Word in Season, and Day's Lecture before the Royal Agricultural Society. 
 
 3 Rural Economy (1770), p. 315. 
 
 * Annals of Commerce, iii. 147. According to Defoe agriculture had much 
 improved in the north. Davenant, in 1698, speaks of the great improvement 
 since 1666, Works (Whitworth's edition, 1771), i. 359. See also Rogers, Notes 
 to Adam Smith, ii. 81. 
 
 5 Duty of a Steward, p. 2. 
 
46 The Industrial Revolution. 
 
 in France it was only eighteen.^ At the beginning of the century 
 some of onr colonies imported wheat from the mother country. 
 The average export of grain from 1697 to 1765 was nearly 500,000 
 quarters, while the imports came to a very small figure. The 
 exports were sent to Eussia, Holland, and America. 
 
 IV. 
 ENGLAND IN 17 6 0. 
 
 / MANUFACTURES AND TRADE. 
 
 Great importance of the "Woollen Manufacture — Its introduction into England — 
 Its chief centres : 1. In the eastern counties. 2. In Wilts, Gloucester, and 
 Somerset. .3. In Yorkshire — The Iron, Cotton, Hardware, and Hosiery- 
 Trades — Tendency to concentration — State of the mechanical arts — Imper- 
 fect division of labour — Means of communication — Organisation of industry 
 — Simple system of exchange — Growth of Foreign Trade and its eflfects. 
 
 Among the manufactures of the time the woollen business was 
 by far the most important. "All our measures," wrote Bishop 
 Berkeley in 1737, "should tend towards the immediate encourage- 
 ment of our woollen manufactures, which must be looked upon as 
 the basis of our wealth." In 1701 our woollen exports were worth 
 £2,000,000, or " above a fourth part of the whole export trade."^ 
 In 1770 they were worth £4,000,000, or between a third and a 
 fourth of the whole.^ The territorial distribution of the manufac- 
 ture was much the same as now. This industry had probkbly 
 existed in England from an early date. It is mentioned in a law 
 of 1224.* In 1331 John Kennedy brought the art of weaving 
 woollen cloth from Elanders into England, and received the pro- 
 tection of the king, who at the same time invited over fuUers and 
 
 1 Travels in Frame, i. 354. The average yield in England now is 28 bushels, 
 but of course we raise part of our present crops from a non-natural soil. 
 
 2 Baines's History of the Cotton Manufacture (1835), p. 112. 
 
 3 Maopherson's Annals of Commerce (1805), iii. 506. That book, together 
 with the Gazetteer of the same author, has been largely drawn from in this account 
 of the woollen industry. 
 
 « 9 H. III. c. 27. Coke's comment is— "True it is that broad cloths were 
 made, though in small number, at this time and long before it." See Smith 
 Mem^oirs of Wool (1747), i. 17. ' 
 
England in 1 760 : Manufactures and Trade. 47 
 
 dyers. There is extant a petition of the worsted- wea'vers and 
 merchants of Norwich to Edward iii. in 1348. The coarse cloths 
 of Kendal and the fine cloths of Somerset, Dorset, Bristol, and 
 Gloucester are mentioned in the statutes of the same century. In 
 1391 we hear of Guildford cloths, and in 1467 of the woollen 
 manufacture in Devonshire — at Lifton, Tavistock, and Eowburgh. 
 In 1402 the manufacture was settled to a great extent in and near 
 London, but it gradually shifted, owing to the high price of labour 
 and provisions, to Surrey, Kent, Essex, Berkshire, and Oxfordshire, 
 and afterwards stiU further, into the counties of Dorset, Wilts, 
 Somerset, Gloucester, and Worcester, and even as far as Yorkshire, 
 
 There were three chief districts in which the woollen trade 
 was carried on about 1760. One of these owed its manufacture to 
 the wars in the Netherlands. In consequence of Alva's persecu- 
 tions (1567-8) many Flemings settled in Norwich (which had been 
 desolate since Ket's rebellion in 1549), Colchester, Sandwich, 
 Canterbury, Maidstone, an d^outhampton. The two former towns 
 seem to have benefited loost from the skill of these settlers so far 
 as the woollen manufacture was concerned. It was at this time, 
 according to Macpherson, that Norwich "learned the making of 
 those fine and slight stuffs which have ever since gone by its name," 
 such as crapes, bombazines, and camblets ; while the baize-makers 
 settled at Colchester and its neighbourhood. The stuffs thus 
 introduced into England were known as the " new drapery," a^d 
 included baize, serges, and other slight woollen goods as distin- 
 guished from the " old drapery," a term applied to broad cloth, 
 kersies, etc. 
 
 l^he chief seats of the West of England manufacture were 
 Bradford in Wilts, the centre of the manufacture of superfine 
 cloth ; Devizes, famous for its serges ; Warminster and Erome, 
 with their fine cloth ; Trowbridge ; Stroud, the centre of the dyed- 
 cloth manufactures ; and Taunton, which in Defoe's time possessed 
 1100 looms.^ The district reached from Cirencester in the north 
 to Sherborne in the south, and from Witney in the east to 
 Bristol in the west, being about fifty miles in length where longest, 
 and twenty in breadth where narrowest, — " a rich enclosed coun- 
 try," as Defoe says, "full of rivers and towns, and infinitely 
 
 1 Defoe's Tmr (7th edition, 1769), ii. 19. 
 
48 The Industrial Revolution. 
 
 populous, insomixch that some of the market towns are equal to 
 cities in bigness, and superior to many of them in numbers of 
 people." It was a "prodigy of a trade," and the "fine Spanish 
 medley cloths " which this district produced were worn by " all the 
 persons of fashion in England." ^ It was no doubt the presence of 
 streams and the Cotswold wool which formed the attractions of the 
 district. A branch of the industry extended into Devon, where 
 the merchants of Exeter bought in a rough state the serges made 
 in the country round, to dye and finish them for home consumption 
 or export. 
 
 The third chief seat of the manufacture was the West Riding 
 of Yorkshire, where the worsted trade centred round Halifax, 
 which, according to Camden, began to manufacture about 1537 ; 
 and where Leeds and its neighbourhood manufactured a coarse 
 cloth of English wool. In 1574 the manufacturers of the West 
 Riding made 56,000 pieces of broad cloth and 72,000 of narrow. 
 It will be seen from this short survey that, however greatly the 
 production of these different districts may have changed in pro- 
 portion since 1760, the several branches of the trade are even now 
 distributed very much as they were then, the West Riding being 
 the headquarters of the worsted and coarse cloth trade, while 
 Norwich still keeps the crape industry, and the West manufac- 
 tures fine cloth. 
 
 TThe increased demand for English wool consequent upon the 
 extension of this industry led to large enclosures of land, especially 
 in Northamptonshire, Rutlandshire, Leicestershire, and Warwick- 
 shire, which counties supplied most of the combing wools used 
 for worsted stuffs and stockings ; but parts of Huntingdon, Bed- 
 ford, Bucks, Cambridgeshire, Romney Marsh, and Norfolk com- 
 peted with them, and by 1739 most counties produced the fine 
 combing wooLJ Defoe mentions the sale of wool from Lincolnshire, 
 " where the'longest staple is found, the sheep of those parts being 
 of the largest breed ;"^ and in Arthur Young's time Lincolnshire and 
 Leicestershire wools were stUl used at Norwich.* The Cotswold 
 and Isle of Wight sheep yielded clothing or short wools, " but 
 they were inferior to the best Spanish wools," and could not 
 " enter into the composition without spoiling and degrading in 
 
 1 Defoe's Tow, ii. 26, 37, 38. 2 Ibid. i. 94. 
 
 ^ Uaatem Tour, ii. 74, 75. 
 
England in 1 760 : Mamifactures and Trade. 49 
 
 some degree the fabric of the cloth." ^ Consequently in the West 
 of England, occupied as it was with the production of the finest 
 cloths, Spanish wool was largely used, though shortly before 
 Young's time it was discovered that "Norfolk sheep yielded a 
 wool about their necks equal to the best from Spain." ^ 
 
 Next in importance was the iron trade, which was largely 
 carried on, though by this time a decaying industry, in the Weald of 
 Sussex, where in 1740 there were ten furnaces, producing annually 
 1400 tons. The trade had reached its chief extent in the seventeenth 
 century, but in 1724 was still the principal manufacturing interest 
 of the county. The balustrades which surround St. Paul's were 
 cast at Lamberhurst, and their weight, including the seven gates, 
 is above 200 tons. They cost £11,000. Gloucestershire, Shrop- 
 shire, and Yorkshire had each six furnaces. In the latter county, 
 which boasted an annual produce of 1400* tons, the most famous 
 works were at Eotherham. There were also great ironworks at 
 Newcastle.* 
 
 In 1755 an ironmaster named Anthony Bacon had got a leaseV 
 for ninety-nine years of a district eight miles in length, by five in 
 breadth, at Merthyr-Tydvil, upon which he erected iron and coal 
 works.^ In 1709 the Coalbrookdale works in Shropshire were 
 founded,and in 1 760 Carron iron was first manufactured in Scotland.*' 
 Altogether, there were about 1737 fifty-nine furnaces in eighteen 
 different counties, producing 17,350 tons annually. It has~BeMi 
 confuted that we imported 20,000 tons.'^ In 1881 we exported 
 3,820,315 tons of iron and steel, valued at £27,590,908, land im- 
 ported to the value of £3,705,332. 
 
 ["The cotton trade was still so insignificant as to be mentioned 
 only once, and that incidentally, by Adam Smithy It was confinedl 
 to Lancashire, where its headquarters were Manchester and Bolton. ' 
 In 1760 not more than 40,000 persons were engaged in it, and the 
 annual value of the manufactures was estimated at £600,000. 
 
 > Smith, Memoirs of Wool, ii. 542, 543, 1st edition, London, 1747. Adam 
 Smith, Wealth of Nations, book iv. eh. viii. (ii. 235). 
 
 2 EaMem Tour, loo. cit. 
 
 3 Scriveuor's History of the Iron Trade (1841), p. 57. 
 * Northern Tour, iii. 9-11. 
 
 5 Scrivenor's History of the Iron Trade, p. 121. 
 ' Smilea's Industrial Biography, pp. 82, 136. 
 ' Sorivenor, pp. 57, 71. 
 
 D 
 
JO - The Industrial Revolution. 
 
 ^The exports, however, were steadily g^^^'^^ti'^.^^l^oLtj 
 ^amounted to £23,253, in 1751 to £45,986, in 1764 to £200,3o4. 
 Eurke about this time spoke of "that infinite variety of adimrable 
 manufactures that grow and extend eveij year among the spirited, 
 inventive, and enterprising traders of Manchester. But even m 
 1764 our exports of cotton were still only one-twentieth of the 
 value of the wool exports. 
 
 The hardware trade then as now was located chiefly in Sheffield 
 and Birmingham, the latter town employing over 50,000 people 
 in that industry in 1727.^ The business, however, was not so 
 much concentrated as now, and there were small workshops scat- 
 tered about the kingdom. "Polished steel," for instance, was 
 manufactured at Woodstock, locks in South Staffordshire, pins at 
 Warrington, Bristol, and Gloucester, where they were " the staple 
 ofthecity."^ ._ 
 
 The hosiery trade, too, wa's as yet only in process of concentra- 
 tion. By 1800 the manufacture of silk hosiery had centred in 
 Derby, that of woollen hosiery in Leicester, though Nottingham 
 had not yet absorbed the cotton hosiery. But at the beginning of 
 the century there were still many looms round London, and in 
 other parts of the South of England. In 1750 London had 1000 
 frames, Surrey 350, Nottingham 1500, Leicester 1000, Derby 200, 
 other places in the Midlands, 7300 ; other English and Scotch 
 towns, 1850 ; Ireland, 800 ; Total, 14,000.^ Most of the silk was 
 woven in Spitalfields, but first spun in the North at Stockport, 
 Knutsford, Congleton, and Derby.* In 1770 there was a silk-mill 
 at Sheffield on the model of Derby, and a manufactory of waste 
 silk at Kendal.^ Coventry had already, in Defoe's time, attracted 
 the ribbon business.® In 1721 the silk manufacture was said to 
 be worth £700,000 a year more than at the Eevolution.^ 
 
 Linen was an ancient manufacture in England, and had been 
 introduced iuto Dundee at the beginning of the seventeenth cen- 
 tury. In 1746 the British Linen Company was incorporated to 
 
 1 Anderson, On, Oommerce, iii. 144. 
 
 2 Southern Tour, p. 141 (2d edition, 1769). 
 
 3 Felkin's History offht Hosiery and Lace Manufactures (1867), p. 76. 
 
 * Defoe's Tour, ii. 397 ; iii. 73. The Derby mill was unique of its kind. 
 
 ^ Northern Tour, i. 124; iii. 135. 
 
 " Defoe's Tour, ii. 421. 
 
 ' British Merchant, quoted in Smith's Memoirs of Wool. 
 
England in 1 760 : Manufactures and Trade. 5 1 
 
 iipply Africa and the American plantations with linen made at 
 ome,^ and Adam Smith considered it a growing manufacture. It 
 '■as, of course, the chief manufacture of Ireland, where it had been 
 irther developed by French Protestants, who settled there at the 
 Qd of the seventeenth century. 
 
 The mechanical arts were still in a very backward state, 
 n spite of the fact that the woollen trade was the staple industry 
 f the country, the division of labour in it was in Adam Smith's 
 ime "nearly the same as it was a century before, and the ma- 
 hinery employed not very different." According to the same 
 iithor there had been only three inventions of importance since 
 Idward iv.'s reign : the exchange of the rock and spindle for the- 
 pinning- wheel ; the use of machines for facilitating the proper 
 rrangement of the warp and woof before being put into the loom ; 
 ad the employment of fulling mills for thickening cloth instead 
 f treading it in water. In this enumeration, however, he forgot 
 D mention the fly-shuttle, invented in 1738 by Kay, a native of 
 lury, in Lancashire, the first 6f the great inventions which revolu- 
 ^onised the woollen industry. Its utility consisted in its enabling 
 weaver to do his work in half the time, and making it possible 
 )r one man instead of two to weave the widest cloth.^ 
 
 " The machines used in the cotton manufacture," says Baines, 
 were, up to the year 1760, nearly as simple as those of India; 
 lough the loom was more strongly and perfectly constructed, and 
 irds for combing the cotton had been adapted from the woollen 
 lanufacture. None but the strong cottons, such as fustians and 
 unities, were ass yet made in England, and for these the demand 
 LUst always have been limited."^ In 1738 John Wyatt invented 
 rinning by rollers, but the discovery never proved profitable. In 
 reO the manufacturers of Lancashire began to use the fly-shuttle. 
 aHeo printing was already largely developed.* 
 
 The reason why division of labour was carried out to so small an 
 [tent, and invention so rare and so little regarded, is given by 
 
 ^ Anderson, iii. 252. 
 
 ^ Fox Bourne's Bomance of Trade, p. 183. 
 
 ' Baines's History of the Cotton Manufactwre, p. 115. 
 
 * In 1719 "all tlie mean people, tjie maid servants, and indifferently poor 
 rsons, who would otherwise clothe themselves, and were usually clothed, in 
 in woman's stuffs made at Norwich and London, are now clothed in calico or 
 inted linen." — Pamphlet in Smith's Memoirs, ii. 195. 
 
5 2 The Industrial Revolution. 
 
 Adam Smith himself. Division of labour, as he points out, is 
 limited by the extent of the market, and, owing chiefly to bad 
 means of communication, the market for English manufactures 
 was still a very narrow one. Yet England, however slow the develop- 
 ment of her manufactures, advanced nevertheless more rapidly in 
 this respect than other nations. One great secret of her progress 
 lay in the facilities for water-carriage afforded by her rivers, for all 
 communication by land was stiU in the most neglected condition. 
 A second cause was the absence of internal customs barriers, such 
 as existed in France, and in Prussia until Stein's time. The home 
 trade of England was absolutely free. 
 
 Arthur Young gives abundant evidence of the execrable state 
 of the roads. It took a'Week or more for a coach to go from London 
 to Edinburgh. On "that infernal" road between Preston and 
 Wigan the ruts were four feet deep, and he saw three carts break 
 down in a mile of road. ,- At Warrington the turnpike was "most 
 infamously bad," and apparently " made with a view to immediate 
 destruction." " Very shabby," " execrable," " vUe," " most execrably 
 vile," are Young's ordinary comments on the highways. But the 
 water routes for traffic largely made up for the deficiencies of the 
 land routes. 
 
 Attempts to improve water communication began with deepen- 
 ing the river beds. In 1635 there was a project for rendering the 
 Avon navigable from its junction with the Severn at Tewkesbury 
 through Gloucestershire, Worcestershire, and Warwickshire, but it 
 wais abandoned owing to the civil war. From 1660 to 1755 various 
 Acts were passed for deepening the beds of rivers. In 1720 there 
 was an Act for making the Mersey and Irwell navigable between 
 Liverpool and Manchester. About the same time the navigation 
 of the Aire and Calder was opened out. In 1755 the first canal 
 was made, eleven miles in length, near Liverpool. Three years 
 later the Duke of Bridgewater had another constructed from his 
 coal mines at Worsley to Manchester, seven miles distant. Between 
 1761andl766a still longer one of twenty-nine miles was completed 
 from Manchester through Chester to the Mersey above LiverpooL 
 From this time onwards the canal system spread with great rapidity. 
 
 When we turn to investigate the industrial organisation of the 
 time, we find that the c^ss of capitalist employers was as yet but 
 in its infancy. A large part of our goods were still produced 
 
England in 1760: Manufactures and Trade. 53 
 
 on the domestic system. Manufactures were little concentrated in 
 towns, and only partially separated from agriculture. The " manu- 
 facturer " was, literally, the man who worted with his own hands 
 in his own cottage. Nearly the whole cloth trade of the West 
 Eiding, for instance, was organised on this system at the beginning 
 of the century. 
 
 An important feature in the industrial organisation of the time 
 was the existence of a number of small master-manu^cturers, who 
 were entirely independent, having capital and land of their own, for 
 they combined the culture of small freehold pasture-farms with 
 their handicraft. Defoe has left an interesting picture of their life. 
 The land near Halifax, he says, was " divided into small Enclosures 
 from two Acres to six or seven each, seldom more, every three or 
 four Pieces of Land had an House belonging to them ; . . . hardly 
 an House standing out of a Speaking-distance from another ; . . . 
 we could see at' every House a Tenter, and on almost every 
 Tenter a piece of Cloth or Kersie or Shalloon. ... At every con- 
 siderable house was a manufactory. . . . Every clothier keeps one 
 horse, at least, to carry his Manufactures to the Market ; and every 
 one, generally, keeps a Cow or two or more for his Family. By 
 this means the small Pieces of enclosed Land about each house are 
 occupied, for they scarce sow Corn enough to feed their Poultry. . . . 
 The houses are full of lusty Fellows, some at the Dye-vat, 
 some at the looms, others dressing the Cloths ; the women 'and 
 children carding or spinning; being aU employed from the 
 youngest to the oldest. . . . Not a Beggar to be seen nor an idle 
 person." ^ 
 
 This system, however, was no longer universal in Arthur 
 Toung's time. That writer found at Shefi&eld a sil k-m Ul employing 
 152 hands, including women and children; at Darlington "one 
 master-manufacturer employed above fifty looms;" at Boynton 
 there were 150 hands in one factory.^ So, too, in the West 
 Df England cloth-trade the germs of the capitalist system were 
 idsible. The rich merchant gave out work to labourers in the sur- 
 rounding villages, who were his employes, and were not inde- 
 pendent. In the Nottingham hosiery trade there were, in 1750, 
 afty manufacturers, known as "putters out," who employed 1200 
 
 1 Defoe's Tour, iii. 144-6. 
 
 2 Northern Tom, i. 124; ii. 6, 427. See Smith's Memoirs, ii. 313. 
 
54 The Industrial Revolution. 
 
 frames ; iu Leicestershire 1800 frames were so employed.^ In the 
 hand-made nail business of, Staffordshire and Worcestershire, the 
 merchant had warehouses in different parts of the district, and 
 gave out nail-rod iron to the nail-master, sufficient for a week's 
 work for him and his family.^ In Lancashire we can trace, step 
 by step, the growth of the capitalist employer. At first we see, as 
 in Yorkshire, the weaver furnishing himself with warp and weft, 
 which he worked up in his own house and brought himself to 
 market. By degrees he found it difficult to get yarn from the 
 spinners;^ so the merchants at Manchester gave him out linen 
 warp and raw cotton, and the weaver became dependent on them.^ 
 Finally, the merchant would get together thirty or forty looms in 
 a town. This was the nearest approach to the capitalist system 
 before the great mechanical inventions. 
 
 Coming to the system of exchange, we find it based on several 
 different principles, which existed side by side, but which were all, 
 as we should think, very simple and primitive. Each trade had its 
 centre in a provincial town. Leeds, for instance, had its market 
 twice a week, first on the bridge over the Aire, afterwards in the 
 High Street, where, at a later time, two haUs were built. Every 
 clothier had his stall, to which he would bring his cloth (seldom 
 more than one piece at a time, owing to the frecjuency of the 
 markets). At six or seven o'clock a bell rang, and the market 
 began ; the merchants and factors came in and made their bargains 
 with the clothiers, and in little more than an hour the whole 
 business was over. By nine the benches were cleared and the haU 
 empty .^ There was a similar hall at Halifax for the worsted trade. 
 But a large portion of the inland traffic was carried on at fairs, 
 which were still almost as important as in the Middle Ages. The 
 most famous of all was the great fair of Sturbridge,® which lasted 
 from the middle of August to the middle of September. Hither 
 came representatives of all the great trades. The merchants of 
 
 >■ Felkin's History of Hosiery, etc., p. 83. 
 
 2 Tiuimins's Resources, Products, etc., of Birmingliam (1866), pp. 110, 111. 
 
 8 Baiues, p. 115. lire's Cotton Manufacture (1836), i. 192, 193. The weaver 
 would walk three or four miles in a morning, and call on many spinners, before 
 ho could get work enough for the day. — Compare Young's Northern Tour iii 
 189. 
 
 * Baines, p. 104 n. 
 
Englandin 1760: Manufactures and Trade. 55 
 
 Lancashire brought their goods on a thousand pack-horses ; the 
 Eastern Counties sent their worsteds, and Birmingham its hard- 
 ware. An immense quantity of wool was sold, orders being taken 
 by the wholesale dealers of London. In fact, a large part of the 
 home trade found its way to this market.^ There were also the 
 four great annual fairs, which retained the ancient title of " marts," 
 at Lynn, Boston, Gainsborough, and Beverley.^ 
 
 The link between these fairs and the chief industrial centres 
 was furnished by travellmg merchants. Some would go from 
 Leeds with droves of pack-horses to all the fairs and market- 
 towns throughout England.* In the market-towns they sold to the 
 shops; elsewhere they would deal directly with the consumer, 
 like the Manchester merchants, who sent their pack-horses the 
 round of the farm-houses, buying wool or other commodities in 
 exchange for their finished goods. Sometimes the London mer- 
 chants would come to the manufacturers, paying their guineas 
 down at once, and taking away the purchases themselves. So too 
 in the Birmingham lock trade, chapmen would go round with pack- 
 horses to buy from manufacturers ; in the brass trade likewise the 
 manufacturer stayed at home, and the merchant came round with 
 cash in his saddle-bags, and put the brasswork which he pur- 
 chased into them, though in some cases he would order it to be sent 
 by carrier.* 
 
 Eeady cash was essential, for banking was very little developed. 
 The Bank of England existed, but before 1759 issued no notes of 
 less value than £20. By a law of 1709 no other bank of more than 
 six partners was allowed; and in 1750, according to Burke, there 
 were not more than "twelve bankers' shops out oiE London."^ The 
 Clearing-House was not established till 1775. 
 
 Hampered as the inland trade was by imperfect communica- 
 tions, extraordinary efforts were made to promote exchange. It is 
 striking to find waste silk from London made into sUk-yarn at 
 Kendal and sent back again,® or cattle brought from Scotland to 
 Norfolk to be fed.^ Many districts, however, still remained com- 
 pletely excluded, so that foreign products never reached them at 
 
 1 Defoe's Twir, i. 91-96. = /j^. iji. ig^ 17. a /j;,^. iij. 126. 
 
 * Timmins, p. 241. 
 
 * Leiter on a Regicide Peace, Burke's Works (Bohn's edition), v. 197. 
 ' Northern Tour, iii. 135. _ 
 
 '■ Defoe's Tour, i. 61 ; 40,000 were fed in Norfolk every year. 
 
56 The Industrial Revolution. 
 
 all. Even at tlie beginniiig of this century the Yorkshire yeoman, 
 as described by Southey,^ was ignorant of sugar, potatoes, and 
 cotton ; the Cumberland dalesman, as he appears in Wordsworth's 
 Guide to the, Lakes^ lived entirely on the produce of his farm. It 
 was this domestic system which the great socialist writers Sismondi 
 and Lassalle had in their minds when they inveighed against the 
 modern organisation of industry. Those who lived under it, they 
 pointed out, though poor, were on the whole prosperous ; over-pro- 
 duction was absolutely impossible.^ Yet at the time of which I 
 am speaking, many of the evils which modern Socialists lament 
 were already visible, especially in those industries which produced 
 for the foreign market. Already there were complaints of the 
 competition of men who pushed themselves into the market to 
 take advantage of high prices ; already we hear of fluctuations of 
 trade and irregularity of employment.* The old simple conditions 
 of production and exchange were on the eve of disappearance 
 before the all-corroding force of foreign trade. 
 
 The home trade was still indeed much greater in proportion 
 than now ; but the exports had grown from about £7,000,000 at 
 the beginning of the century^ to £14,500,000 in 1760. During 
 that interval great changes had taken place in the channels of 
 foreign commerce. In 1700 Holland was our great market, taking 
 more than one-third of all our exports, but inl760 the proportion 
 was reduced to about one-seventh. Portugal, which in 1703 took 
 
 1 The Doctor, c. iv. ^ p^ose Works, ii. 262, 263. 
 
 ' " Le paysan qm. fait avec ses enfanta tout I'ouvrage de son petit heritage, qui 
 ne paie de fermage 4 personne au dessus de lui, ni de salaire % personne au 
 dessous, qui rfegle sa production sur sa cousommation, qui mange son propre bl^, 
 boit sou propre vin, se revgt de sou chanvre et de ses laines, se souoie peu de 
 
 connaitre lea prix du maroh^, car il a peu k vendre et peu k acheter." Sismondi 
 
 &onomie Politique, Essai iii. But see Young's Northern Tour, iii. 189. 
 
 ^ In 1719 it is first asserted that- "the grand cause of the weavers wanting 
 work is the covetousness of both masters and journeymen in taking so many 
 prentices for the sake of the money they have with them, not considering 
 whether they shall have employment for them or not." In 1737 we find a 
 writer lamenting that the factors "set up people to act as master-clothiers on 
 their stock, during any little glut of business," to the great disadvantage of those 
 who "employ the poor in good and bad times alike." . . . "And hence more 
 people are admitted into trade than the trade can possibly maintain ; which 
 opens a new door to the tumults and riots so lately felt. "—Smith's Memoirs 
 ii. 186, 313. ' 
 
 ' The British Merchant calculated that the export trade was one-sixth of the 
 home-trade, or £7,000,000.— Smith's Memoirs, ii. 112. Burke possessed a MS. of 
 
England in 1 760 : Mamffactures and Trade. 5 7 
 
 ODe-seventh, now took only about one-twelfth. The trade with 
 France was quite insignificant. On the other hand, the Colonies 
 were now our chief markets, and a third of our exports went there. 
 In 1770 America took three-fourths of all the manufactures of 
 Manchester.^ In 1767 the exports to Jamaica were nearly as great 
 as they had been to all the English plantations together in 1704.^ 
 The shipping trade had doubled,* and the ships themselves were 
 larger. In 1732 ships of 750 tons were considered remarkable; ia 
 1770 there were many in Liverpool of 900 tons; but in this as in 
 other branches of business progress was still slow, partial, local, 
 thus presenting a^striking contrast to the rapid and general advance 
 of the next half-century. 
 
 V, 
 ENGLAND IN 1760. 
 
 THE DECA Y OF THE YEOMANRY.'' 
 
 The historical method not always conservative — Changes commonly attributed 
 to natural law are sometimes shown by it to be due to human injustice — The 
 decay of the Yeomanry a case in point — The position of the Yeomanry in the 
 seventeenth century — Their want of political initiative — Effect of the Revo- 
 lution upon them — The aristocracy and the moneyed class absorb the land 
 — Pressure put upon small owners to sell — The custom of settlement and 
 primogeniture — The effect of enclosures upon small properties. 
 
 It is a reflection that must have occurred to every one that 
 the popular philosophy of the day, while in the region of specula- 
 tion it has undermined ancient beliefs, has exerted in the practical 
 world a distinctly conservative influence. The conception of slow 
 development, according to definite laws, undoubtedly tends to 
 strengthen the position of those who offer resistance to radical 
 changes. It may, however, well be doubted whether the theory of 
 evolution is really such a support as it seems to be to those who 
 
 1 Nortliem Tour, iii. 194. ^ Burlce's Works, i. 278. 
 
 ' The capacity of British shipping in 1762 was nearly 560,000 tons. — lb. i. 
 201. 
 
 * The greater part of this chapter ia taken from an essay in Toynbee's own 
 handwriting. — Ed. 
 
58 The Industrial RevohUion. 
 
 would uphold the existing framework of society. It is certainly- 
 remarkable that the most recent legislation has been at once 
 revolutionary in its character and justified by appeals to historical 
 experience. I do not forget that the most distinguished exponent 
 of the doctrine of evolution as applied to politics has developed a 
 theory of government opposed to recent legislative reforms, but 
 that theory is an a jpriori one. Those, on the other hand, who 
 have applied the historical method to political economy and the 
 science of society, have shown an unmistakeable disposition to lay 
 bare the injustice to which the humbler classes of the community 
 have been exposed, and to defend methods and institutions adopted 
 for their protection which have never received scientific defence 
 before. 
 
 The fact is, that the more we examine the actual course 
 of affairs, the more we are amazed at the unnecessary suffering 
 that has been indicted upon the people. N"o generalities about 
 natural law or inevitable development can blind us to the fact, 
 that the progress in which we believe has been won at the expense 
 of much injustice and wrong, which was not inevitable. Perhaps 
 this is most conspicuous in our land system, and we shall find with 
 regard to it, as with regard to some other matters, that the more 
 we accept the method of historical inquiry, the more revolutionary 
 shall we tend to become in practice. For while the modem his- 
 torical school of economists appear to be only exploring the monu- 
 ments of the past, they are really shaking the foundations of many 
 of our institutions in the present. The historical method is often 
 deemed conservative, because it traces the gradual and statelygrowth 
 of our venerable institutions ; but it may exercise a precisely opposite 
 
 ^influence by showing the grosg. injustice which was blindly per- 
 petrated during this growth. The historical method is supposed 
 to prove that economic changes have been the inevitable outcome 
 of natural laws. It just as often proves them to have been brought 
 about by the self-seeking action of dominant classes. ^ 
 
 It is a singular thing that no historian has attempted an 
 
 ^adequate explanation of the disappearance^ the small freeholders, 
 who, down to the close of the seventeenth century, formed with 
 their families one-sixth of the population of England, and whose 
 stubborn determination enabled Cromwell and Fairfax to bring 
 
England in 1760: The Decay of the Yeomanry. 59 
 
 remarkable, as economists have so emphatically dwelt upon the 
 extraordinary difference between the distribution of landed property 
 in England and in countries like Germany and France. The 
 modern reformer is content to explain the facts by the existence 
 in England of a law of primogeniture and a system of strict settle- 
 ment, but the explanation is obviously a superficial one. To show 
 why in England the small landed proprietors have vanished, whilst 
 in Germany and France they have increased and thriven, it is 
 necessary to carry our inquiries far back into the history of law, 
 politics, and commerce. The result of a closer examination of the 
 question is a little startling, for we find that the present distribu- 
 tion of landed property in England is in the main due to the exist- 
 ence of the system of political government which has made us a 
 free people. And on the other hand, the distribution of landed 
 property in France and Germany, which writer after writer points 
 to as the great bulwark against revolution, is in the main due to a 
 form of government that destroyed political liberty and placed the 
 people in subjection to the throne. 
 
 Evidence in support of this conclusion is not difficult to 
 adduce. The first fact which arouses our interest is that at^the 
 conclusion of the jeventeenth century J.t_was estimated, by Gregory 
 King that there were 180,000 freeholders in England,^ and that, 
 less than a hundred years later, the pamphleteers^of t£e time, and 
 even careful writers like Arthur Young, speak of the^jmall free- 
 holders as practically gone. The bare statement of this contrast is 
 in itself most impressive. A person ignorant of our history during 
 the intervening period might surmise that a great exterminatory war 
 had taken place, or a violent social revolution, which had caused a 
 transfer of the property of one class to another. Bat though the 
 surmise in this particular form would be incorrect, we are never- 
 theless justified in saying that a revoluti on of incal culable im pjoitru. 
 ance had ^taken, place, — a revolution, though so silent, of as great 
 importance as the political revolution of 1831. "The able and 
 substantial freeholders," described by Whitelock, " the freeholders 
 and freeholders' sons, weU armed within with the satisfaction of 
 their own good consciences, and without by iron arms, who stood 
 firmly and charged desperately," — this devoted class, who had 
 
 • Macaulay, following Davenant, thinliff this too high, and puts them at 
 160,000. — History of E^iglaiul, c. iii. 
 
6o The Industrial Revolution. 
 
 broken the power of the king and the squires in the Civil "Wars, 
 were themselves, within a hundred years from that time, being 
 broken, dispersed, and driven off the land. Numerous and prosper- 
 ous in the fifteenth century, they had suffered something by the 
 enclosures of the sixteenth ; but though complaints are from time 
 to time made in the seventeenth of the laying together of farms, 
 there is no evidence to show that their number underwent any 
 great diminution during that time. In the picture of country life 
 which we find in the literature of the first years of the eighteenth 
 century, the small freeholder is still a prominent figure. Sir Eoger 
 de Coverley, in riding to Quarter Sessions, points to the two yeo- 
 men who are riding in front of him, and Defoe, in his admirable 
 Tour through England, first published a few years later, describes 
 with satisfaction the number and prosperity of the Grey-coats of 
 Kent (as they were called from their home-spun garments), whose 
 political power forced the gentlemen to treat them with circum- 
 spection and deference.^ " Of the freeholders of England," says 
 Chamberlayne, in the State of Great Britain^ first published towards 
 the close of the seventeenth century, " there are more in number 
 and richer than in any country of the like extent in Europe. £40 
 or £50 a year is very ordinary, £100 or £200 in some counties is 
 not rare ; sometimes in Kent, and in the Weald of Sussex, £500 or 
 £600 per annum, and £3000 or £4000 stock." The evidence is 
 conclusive that up to the Eevolution of 1688 the freeholders were 
 in most parts of the country an important feature in social life. 
 
 If, however, we ask whether they had possessed, as a class, any 
 political initiative, we must answer in the negative. In the lists of 
 the Eastern Counties' Association, formed in the Civil War (the 
 eastern counties were the districts, perhaps, where the freeholders 
 were strongest), we find no name which has not appended to it the 
 title of gentleman or esquire. The small landed proprietor, 
 though courageous and independent in personal character, was 
 ignorant, and incapable himself of taking the lead. There was little 
 to stimulate his mind in his country life ; in agriculture he pursued 
 the same methods as his forefathers, was full of prejudices, and 
 difficult to move. The majority of this class had never travelled 
 beyond their native village or homestead and the neighbouring 
 
 1 Toar, i. pp. 159, 60. At eleotioa times 1400 or 1500 would troop into Maid- 
 
England in 1760: The Decay of the Yeomanry. 61 
 
 market town. In some districts those freeholders were also arti- '\ 
 sans, especially in the eastern counties, which were still the richest .. 
 part of the country, and the most subject to foreign influence. . 
 But, on the whole, if we may judge from the accounts of rather 
 later times, the yeomen, though thriving in good seasons, often 
 lived very hard lives, and remained stationary in their habits and 
 ways of thinking from generation to generation. They were capable 
 in the Civil "War, under good leadership, of proving themselves 
 the most powerful body in the kingdom ; but, after constitutional 
 government had bee6''seenred, and the great landowners were inde- . 
 pendent of their support, they sank into political insignificance. - 
 The Eevolution of 1688, which brought to a conclusion the consti- 
 tutional struggle of the seventeenth century, was accomplished * 
 without their aid, and paved the way for their extinction. A revo- 
 lution in agricultural life was the price paid for political liberty. 
 
 At first, however, the absorption of the small freeholders went 
 on slowly. The process of disappearance has been continuous from 
 about 1700 to the present day, but it is not true to say, as Karl 
 Marx does,^ that the yeomanry had disappeared by the middle of 
 the eighteenth century. It was not till the very period which we 
 are considering, that is to say a bout 1760 , that the_process_of_ j 
 extinction became rapid. There is conclusive evidence that many 
 were still to be found about' 1770. There were at that time still' 
 9000 freeholders in Kent.^ 
 
 Even as late as 1807, estates in Essex, if divided, were bought 
 by farmers at high prices, and there was some prospect of landed 
 property coming back to the conditions of a century before, " when 
 our inferior gentry resided upon their estates in the country;" and 
 about the same date there were in Oxfordshire " many proprietors 
 of a middling size, and many small proprietors, particularly in the 
 open fields,"^ They were especially strong in Cumberland, the 
 West Biding, and parts of the East Biding. In the Vale of Picker- 
 ing in 1788 nearly the whole district belonged to them, and no 
 great landowner had been able to get a footing.* But in 1788 this 
 
 1 Le Capital (French translation), p. 319. 
 
 2 Kenny's History of Primogeniture (1878), p. 52. 
 
 3 Hewlett in Young's General View of tlie Agriculture of Essex (1807), i. 40 j 
 View of the Agriculture of Oxfordshire (1809), p. 16. 
 
 * " The major part of the lands of the district are the property, and in gene- 
 ral are in the occupation, of yeomanry ; a circumstance this which it would be 
 
62 The Industrial Revolution. 
 
 was already an exceptional case, and in other writers of that period 
 we find a general lament at the disappearance of the yeomen. 
 Arthur Young " sincerely regrets the loss of that set of men who 
 are called yeomen . . . who really kept up the independence of 
 the nation," and is " loth to see their lands now in the hands of 
 monopolising lords ;"i and in 1787 he admits that they had prac- 
 tically disappeared from most parts of the country.^ And with 
 _the yeomen went the small squires, victims of the same causes.* 
 
 These causes, as I stated above, are to be sought less in_ecano- 
 mical jthan jn^social and_gglitieal Jacts. The chief of them was 
 our peculiar form of government. After the Eevolution the landed 
 gentry were practically supreme. Not only national but local 
 administration was entirely in their hands, and, as a natural 
 consequence, land, being the foundation of social and political 
 influence, was eagerly sought after. "We may contrast France and 
 Prussia, where the landowners had no political power as such, and 
 where, in consequence, small properties remained unassailed. The 
 second fact is the enormous development of the mercantile and 
 moneyed interest. The merchants could only obtain political 
 power and social position by becoming landowners. It is true that 
 Swift says that " the power which used to follow land had gone 
 over to money," and that the great Turkey merchants, like 
 Addison's Sir Andrew Freeport, occupied a good position ; but few 
 mere merchants were in Parliament,* and Dr. Johnson made the 
 significant remark that " an English merchant is a new species of 
 gentleman." ^ To make himself a gentleman, therefore, the mer- 
 chant who had accumulated his wealth in the cities, which, as we 
 
 difficult to equal iu so large a district. The township of Pickering is a singular 
 instance. It contains about 300 freeholders, principally occupying their own 
 small estates, many of which have fallen down by lineal descent from the origi- 
 nal purchasers. No great man, nor scarcely an esquire, has yet been able to get 
 a footing in the parish ; or, if anyone has, the custom of portioning younger sous 
 and daughters by a division of lands has reduced to its original atoms the estates 
 which may have been accumulated." — Marshall's Rural Economy of Yorkshire 
 (1788), i. 20. . > - 
 
 1 Inquiry into the present Price of Provisions and the Size of Farms (1773) 
 pp. 126, 139 etseq. ' 
 
 2 Travels in France (Dublin edition 1793), L 86, ii. 262. 
 2 See extracts from Hewlett, referred to above. 
 
 * TUrale, the brewer, father of Johnson's friend, was one of the exceptions. 
 He was Member for Southwark and High Sherifif of Surrey in 1733. He died 
 iu 1758. — Boswell's Life of Johnson (7th edition), ii. 106, 107. 
 
 6 Ibid. p. 108, ». 
 
England in I ybo : The Decay of the Yeomanry. 63 
 
 have seen, were growing rapidly during the first half of the 
 eighteenth century with an expanding commerce, bought land as a 
 matter of course. Hence the mercantile origin of much of our 
 nobUity. James Lowther, created Earl of Lonsdale in 1784, was 
 great-grandson of a Turkey merchant ; the ancestor of the Barings 
 was a clothier in DeTonshke; Anthony Petty, father of Sir W. 
 Petty, and the ancestor on the female side of the Petty-Fitz- 
 maurices, was a clothier at Eomsey, in Hampshire; Sir Josiah 
 Child's son became Earl of Tilney.i The landowners in the West 
 of England, " who now," in Defoe's words, " carry their heads so 
 high," made their fortunes in the clothing trade. And not only 
 did a new race of landowners thus spring up, but the old families 
 enriched themselves, and so were enabled to buy more land by 
 intermarriage with the commercial magnates. The Pitzmaurices, 
 for instance, inherited the wealth of the Pettys ; Child's daughter 
 married the Marquis of Worcester, and, by a second marriage, Lord 
 Grenville of Potheridge; Lord Conway and Walpole married 
 daughters' of John Shorter, merchant of London, " I think I 
 remember," said Sir E. Temple between 1675 and 1700, "the first 
 noble families that married into the City for money." ^ " Trade," 
 said Defoe, " is so far here from being inconsistent with a gentle- 
 man, that, in short, trade in England makes gentlemen ; for, after 
 a generation or two, the tradesmen's children, or at least their 
 grandchildren, come to be as good gentlemen, statesmen, parlia- 
 ment-men, privy-councillors, judges, bishops, and noblemen, as those 
 of the highest birth, and the most ancient families."* Contrast 
 this fusion of classes with the French society of the last century, 
 with its impoverished nobility, living often on the seignorial rights 
 and rent-charges of their alienated estates, but hardly ever inter- 
 marrying with the commercial classes ; or that of Prussia, where the 
 two classes remained entirely separate, and could not even purchase 
 one another's land. 
 
 I have established two facts: the special reason for desiring 
 land after the Eevolution as a condition of political power and 
 social prestige, and the means of buying land on the part of the 
 wealthy merchants or of the nobility and greater gentry enriched by 
 
 ^ Defoe's Complete Tradesman (ed. Chambers, 1839), p. 74. 
 
 2 Temple's Miscellanies, quoted in Leoky's History of England, i. 193, 194. 
 
 ' Defoe's Tradesman, loc. cit. 
 
64 The Industrial Revolution. 
 
 matrimonial alliances with the great commercial class. Now here 
 is a piece of evidence to show that it was the acceptedjcilicy of 
 the large landowners _ to ^buX-PHtJhe^ yeomen, .The land agent, 
 whom I have so often quoted, lays downs as a maxim for the 
 model steward, that he " should not forget to make the best inquiry 
 into the disposition of the freeholders, within or near any of his 
 lord's manors, to sell their lands, that he may use his best endea- 
 vours to purchase them at as reasonable a price as may be for his 
 lord's advantage and convenience."^ 
 
 On the other hand, as a result of the supremacy of the great 
 landowners in Parliament, their own estates were artificiallypro-^ 
 t ected. The system of strict settlements, introducedbySir Mando 
 Bridgman in 1666, though not so important as it is often made 
 out to be, prevented much land from coming into the market, 
 though it did not prevent merchants from buying when they 
 wished. The cus tom of primogenitu re checked the division of 
 estates by leading to the disuse of inheritance by gavelkind, and 
 similar customs. In Cumberland primogeniture was introduced 
 among the freeholders in the sixteenth centiu?y ; in Kent there 
 was, in 1 740, nearly as much gavelkind as before the disgaveUing 
 Acts began, but thirty years later it was being superseded by 
 primogeniture. It was during these thirty years that the process 
 of concentration in that county first assumed formidable propor- 
 tions. In Pickering, on the other hand, where the law of equal 
 division still held its own, small landowners also, as we have seen, 
 survived after their extinction in most parts of England. 
 
 A third result of landlord supremacy was the maimer in which 
 thecommon-field system was broken up. Allusion has already 
 been made to enclosures, and enclosures meant a break-up of the old 
 system of agriculture and a redistribution of the land. This is^^a 
 problem which involves delicate questions of justice. In Prussia, 
 the change was effected by impartial legislation ; in England, the 
 / work was done by the strong at the expense of the weak. The 
 change from common to individual ownership, which was economi- 
 cally advantageous, was carried out in an iniquitous manner, and 
 thereby became socially harmful. Great injury was thus done to 
 the poor and ignorant freeholders, who lost their rights in ther 
 
 •■ Laurence's Duty of a Steward (1727), p. 36, 
 
Englandin \~ibo: The Decay of the Yeomanry. 65 
 
 common lands. In Pickering, in one instance, the lessee of the 
 tithes applied for an enclosure of the waste. The small freeholders 
 did their best to oppose him, bnt, having little money to carry on 
 the suit, they were overruled, and the lessee, who had bought the 
 support of the landless " house-owners " of the parish, took the land 
 from the freeholders and shared the spoil with the cottagers.^ It 
 was always easy for the steward to harass the smaU owners till he 
 forced them to sell, like Addison's Touchy, whose income had been 
 reduced by law-suits from £80 to £30, though in this case it is 
 true he had only himself to blame.^ The enclosure of waste land, 
 too, did great damage to the small freeholders, who, without the 
 right of grazing, naturally found it so much the more difficult to 
 pay their way. ' 
 
 Though the economical causes of the disappearance of the 
 yeomen were comparatively unimportant, they served to accelerate 
 the change. Small arable farms would not pay, and Inust, in any 
 case, have been thrown together. The little farmers, according 
 to Arthur Young, worked harder and were to all intents and 
 purposes as low in the comforts of life as the day-labourers. But 
 their wretchedness was entirely owing to their occupying arable 
 instead of grass lands.^ And apart from this, undoubtedly, the 
 new class of large .farmers were superior, in some respects, to the 
 too unprogressive yeomen, — "quite a different sort of men ... in 
 point of knowledge and ideas," * with whose improved methods of 
 agriculture the yeomen found it dif&cult to compete. A f-urther 
 economic cause which tended to depress many of the yeomen was 
 the gradual destruction of domestic industries, which injured them 
 as it injures the German peasant at the present day. In Cumber- 
 land the yeomen began to disappear when the spinning-wheel was 
 sUenced.^ The decay of the home manufacture of cloth seems to 
 have considerably affected the Grey-coats of Kent. And finally, 
 as the small towns and villages decayed, owing to the consolidation, 
 of farms and of industry, the small freeholders lost their market, 
 for the badness of the roads made it dif&cult for them to send their 
 
 1 Marshall's YorhsUre, p. 54. ^ Spectator, No. 122. 
 
 3 Travels in France (Dublin ed. 1793), ii. 262. Rural Economy, Essays 3 and 4. 
 
 * View of the Agriculture of Oxfordshire, p. 269. Cf. Hewlett, i. 65: "his 
 understanding and his conversation are not at all superior to those of the com- 
 mon labourers, if even equal to them." 
 
 5 See Wordsworth's Ouide to the'Lahes, p. 268. 
 
 E 
 
66 The Industrial Revolution. 
 
 produce far. Hence the small freeholders survived longest -where 
 they owned dairy-farms, as in Cumberland and the West Eiding, 
 and where domestic industry flourished, and they had a market for 
 their products in their own neighbourhood. 
 
 When once the ranks of the yeomanry had been appreciably 
 thinned, the process of extinction went on with ever-growing 
 rapidity. The survivors became isolated. They would have no one 
 of their own station to whom they could marry their daughters, 
 and would become more aiid more willing to sell their lands, 
 however strong the passion of possession might be in some places.^ 
 The more enterprising, too, would move off to the towns to make 
 their fortunes there, just as at the present day the French peasants 
 are attracted to the more interesting and eaciting life of the town. 
 Thus Sir Eobert Peel's grandfather was originally a yeoman farming 
 his own estate, but being of an inventive turn of mind he took 
 to cotton manufacturing and printing.^ This was particularly the 
 case with the small squires, who grew comparatively poorer and 
 poorer, and found it increasingly difficult to keep pace with the rise 
 in the standard of comfort. Already, at the end of the seventeenth 
 century, the complaint had been raised that the landowners were 
 beginning to live in the county towns. Afterwards, the more 
 wealthy came up to London ; Sir Eoger de Coverley had a house 
 in Soho Square. The small country gentleman felt the contrast 
 between him and his richer neighbours more and more ; and as 
 he had none of the political power attaching to land — for the great 
 landowners had the whole administration in their hands — there was 
 every inducement for him to sell and invest his ^noney in a more 
 profitable manner. 
 
 To summarise the movement : it is probable that the yeomen^ 
 
 would in any case have partly disappeared, owing to the inevitable 
 
 , working of economic causes. _ But these alone would not have led 
 
 , to their disappearance on so large a scale. It was the political con- 
 
 I ditions of the age, the overwhelming importance of land, which 
 
 made it impossible for the yeoman to keep his grip upon the soil./ 
 
 ^ See Wordsworth's story of the freeholder and his tree, in Harriet 
 Martmeau's AutoUography, ii. 23.3. 
 ^ Baines, pp. 262, 263. 
 
VI. 
 ENGLAND IN 1760. 
 
 THE CONDITION OF THE WAGE-EARNERS. 
 
 The Agricultural Labourer — Improvement in his condition since the beginning of 
 the century — Comparison of his positionin 1750 and 1850 — Contrast between 
 North and South — Inequality of wages and its cause — The position of the 
 artisans — Great rise in their wages since 1760 — Certain disadvantages of 
 their condition now, as compared with that existing then. 
 
 The condition of the agricultural labourer had vQry much im- 
 proved since the beginning of the century. In the seventeenth 
 century his average daily vrage had been lO^d., while the average 
 price of corn had been 38s. 2d. During the first sixty years of 
 the eighteenth century his average wages were/Is., the price of 
 com 32s.^ Thus, whUe the price of corn had, thanks to a succes- 
 sion of good seasons, fallen 1 6 per. cent, wages had risen to about 
 an equal extent, and the labourer was thus doubly benefited. 
 Adam Smith attributes this advance in prosperity to " an increase 
 va. the demand for labour, arising from the great and almost uni- 
 versal prosperity of the country;"^ but at the same time he allows 
 that wealth had only advanced gradually, and with no great 
 rapidity. The real solution is to be found in the slow rate of in- 
 crease in the numbers of the people. Wealth had indeed grown 
 slowly, but its growth had nevertheless been more rapid than that 
 of population. 
 
 The^ improvement in the condition of ^th.e_ labourer was thus 
 due to an increase in real and not only in nominal wages. It 
 is true that certain articles, such as soap, salt, candles, leather, 
 fermented liquors, had, chiefly owing to the taxes laid on them, 
 become a good deal dearer, and were consumed in very small quan- 
 tities; but the enhanced prices of these things were more than 
 counterbalanced by the greater cheapness of grain, potatoes, turnips, 
 carrots, cabbages, apples, onions, linen and wooUen cloth, instru- 
 
 1 Nioholls, History of the Poor Laws (1854), ii. 54, 55, quoting from Arthur 
 Young. 
 
 '^ Wealth of Nations, Boot i. ch. xi. (vol. i. 211.) 
 
68 The Industrial Revolution. 
 
 ments made of the coarser metals, and household furnitun 
 Wheaten bread had largely superseded rye and barley bread, whi( 
 were "looked upon with a sort of horror," wheat being as ches 
 as rye and barley had been in former times.^ Every poor fami 
 drank tea once a day at least — a " pernicious commodity," a " vi 
 superfluity," in Arthur Young's eyes.^ Their consumption of me 
 was "pretty considerable;" that of cheese was "immense."* ] 
 1737 the day-labourers of England, "by their large wages ai 
 cheapness of all necessaries," enjoyed better dwellings, diet, ai 
 apparel in England, than the husbandmen or farmers did in oth 
 countries."^ The middle of the eighteenth century was indei 
 
 \' about his best time, though a decline soon set in. By 1771 1 
 condition had already been somewhat affected by the dear yea 
 I immediately preceding, when prices had risen much faster ths 
 wages, although the change had as yet, according to Young, mere 
 : cut off his superfluous expenditure.* By the end of the centu; 
 ff men had begun to look back with regret upon this epoch in t] 
 history of the agricultural labourer as one of a vanished prosperit 
 j At no time since the passing of the 43d of Elizabeth, wrote Ed( 
 j in 1796, " could the labouring classes acquire such a portion of tl 
 I necessaries and conveniences of life by a day's work, as they cou 
 before the late unparalleled advance in the price of the necessari 
 I of life."'' 
 
 Nor were high wages and cheap food their only advantag( 
 
 ; Their cottages were often rent-free, being built upon the wasl 
 
 Each cottage had its piece of ground attached,* though the pie 
 
 was often a very small one, for the Act of Elizabeth, providing th 
 
 ^ Wealth of Nations, Book. i. cli. viii. (vol. i. 82.) 
 
 2 Harte's Essays on Husbandry, pp. 176, 177, quoted by A. Young, Farme. 
 Letters (3rd edition, 1771), i. 207, 208. In tlie north, rye and barley bre 
 alone were still consumed. [Wheaten bread was certainly unknown among t 
 Norfolk labourers at the beginning of this century.] 
 
 ' Ibid., pp. 200, 297. Jiluoh of the tea was very bad, and smuggled, 
 family at Epsom made a quarter of a pound last them for a fortnight. — Ed 
 iiL 710. Still the imports had increased enormously, from 141,995 lbs. in 171 
 to 2,515,875 lbs. in 1759-1760.— Nicholls, ii. 69. 
 
 * Travels in France (Dublin edition, 1793), ii. 313. 
 
 s Chamberlayne, Staie of Great Britain (1737), p. 177. He says that "i 
 meanest mechanics and husbandmen want not silver spoons and some silver ci 
 in their houses. 
 
 " Farmer's Letters, i. 203-205 ; cf. also Hewlett, quoted in Eden's State of 
 Poor, i. 384-385. ' Eden, i. 478. 
 
 * Farmer's Letters, i. 205. 
 
England in 1 760 : The Wage-Earners. 69 
 
 every cottage should have four acres of land, was doubtless unob- 
 served, and was repealed in 1776. Their common rights, besides 
 providing fuel, enabled them to keep cows and pigs and poultry on 
 the waste, and sheep on the fallows and stubbles. But these rights 
 were already being steadily curtailed, and there was " an open war 
 against cottages," ^ consequent on the tendency to consolidate hold- 
 ings into large sheep-farms. It was becoming customary, too, for 
 unmarried labourers to be boarded in the farmers' houses. J 
 
 On the whole, 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. 
 At the later date wages were actually lower in Suffolk, Essex, and 
 perhaps parts of "WUts, than they were at the former ; in Berks they 
 were exactly the same ; inNorfolk,Bucks, Gloucestershire, and South 
 Wilts, there had been a very trifling rise ; with the exception of 
 Sussex and Oxfordshire, there was no county south of the Trent in 
 which they had risen more than one-fourth.^ Meanwhile rent and 
 most necessaries, except bread, had increased enormously iu cost, 
 while most of the labourer's old privileges were lost, so that his 
 real wages had actually diminished. But in the manufacturing 
 districts of the north his condition had improved. While nominal 
 wages in the south had risen on the average 14 per cent., here 
 they had risen on the average 66 per cent. In some districts the 
 rise had been as great as 200 per cent. In Arthur Young's time 
 the agricultural wages of Lancashire were 4s. 6d. — ^the lowest rate 
 in England; in 1821 they had risen to 14s. It may be roughly 
 said that the relative positions of the labourer north and south of 
 the Trent had been exactly reversed in the course of a century. 
 
 In Arthur Young's time the highest wages were to be found -in 
 Lincolnshire, the East Eiding, and, following close upon these, the 
 metropolitan and eastern counties. At first sight the high rate of 
 wages in the first two counties seems to contradict the general law 
 about their relative condition in north and south. But on in- 
 vestigation we find it to be due to exceptional circumstances. 
 Arguing on the deductive method, we should conjecture a large 
 demand for or a small supply of labour ; and, in fact, we find both 
 these influences in operation. The population had actually dimi- 
 
 Farmer's Letters, i. 301 . 
 
 Caird, English Agriculture, p. 513. 
 
 \ 
 
yo The Industrial Revolution. 
 
 nished, in Lincolnshire from 64 to 58 to the scjuare mile, in t 
 East Eiding, from 80 to 71 ; this was partly due to the enclosni 
 and the conversion of arable to pasture, partly to the increase 
 manufactures in the West Eiding. Thus the labourers had be< 
 drawn off to the latter at the same time that they were bei] 
 driven out of the agricultural districts. And for the remainh 
 labourers there was a great demand in public works, such as tur 
 pike-roads and agricultural improvements on a large scale.^ 
 
 But there were many local variations of wages which are f 
 less easy to bring under the ordinary rules of Political Econom 
 There was often the greatest inequality in the same county. 
 Lincolnshire, for instance, wages varied from 1 2s. 3d. to 7s., ai 
 even 6s.^ It was at this very time that Adam Smith, arguii 
 deductively from his primary axiom that men foUow their pecui 
 ary interest, enunciated the law that wages tend to an equality 
 the same neighbourhood and the same occupation. Why then the 
 variations ? Adam Smith himself partly supplies the answ( 
 His law pretends to exactness only " when society is left to t' 
 natural course of things."^ Now this was impossible when natui 
 tendencies were diverted by legal restrictions on the moveme 
 of labour, such as the law of settlement, which resulted in co 
 fining every labourer to his own parish. But we must not seek t 
 cause of these irregularities of wages merely in legal restrietioi 
 Apart from disturbing influences such as this, men do not alwa 
 act in accordance with their pecuniary interest ; there are oth 
 influences at work affecting their conduct. One of the strongest 
 these is attachment to locality. It was this iufluence which part 
 frustrated the recent efforts of the Labourers' Union to remove t' 
 surplus labour of the east and south to the north. Again, the 
 are apathy and ignorance, factors of immense importance in det< 
 mining the action of the uneducated majority of men. In 18 
 there were labourers in Devon who had never heard of Lancashi: 
 where they might have been earning double their own wage 
 Human beings, as Adam Smith says, are " of aU baggage the m( 
 
 ' Yotmg's Northern Tour, i. 172 ; Eden, i. 329. 
 2 Young's Eastern Tour, iv. 312-313. 
 ' Wealth of Nations, Book i. oh. x. (vol. i. 104). 
 
 4 See Heath's Peasant Ufe in the West, p. 94, and Clifford's Agricultu 
 Lockout in 1874. 
 
England in I'jbo : The Wage-Earners. 71 
 
 difficult to be transported/'^ though their comparative mobility 
 depends upon the degree of their education, the state of communi- 
 cations, and the industrial conditions of any particular time. The 
 English laboiirer to-day is far more easy to move than he was a 
 hundred years ago. In a stirring new country like America there 
 is much more mobility of labour than in England. 
 
 Turnin g from the agricultural wage-earners to those eng agedin 
 manu factures, we find their condition at this period on thewh ole" 
 much interior to what it is now. In spite of the widening gulf 
 between capitalist and labourer, the status of the artisan has dis- 
 tinctly improved since Adam Smith's time. His nominal wa(ges 
 have doubled or trebled. A carpenter then earned 2s. 6d. a day ; 
 he now earns 5s. 6d. A cotton weaver then earned 5s.^ a week, he 
 now earns 20s., and so on. But it is difficult to compare the 
 condition of the artisan as a whole at the two periods, because so 
 many entirely new classes of workmen have come into existence 
 during the past century ; for instance, the engineers, whose Union 
 now includes 50,000 men earning from 25s. to 40s. a week. And 
 if wages have on the whole very greatly increased, there were, on 
 the other hand, some obvious advantages which the artisan pos- , 
 sessed in those days, but has since lost. For the manufacturing ; 
 population still lived to a very great extent in the country. The ■ 
 artisan often had his small piece of land, which supplied him with 
 wholesome food and healthy recreation. His wages and employ- 
 ment too were more regular. He was not subject to the uncer- , 
 tainties and knew nothing of the fearful sufferings which his 
 descendants were to endure from commercial fluctuations, especially 
 before the introduction of free trade. For the whole inner life of 
 industry was, as we have seen, entirely different from what it now 
 is. ThQ ^elation between the workm en_a nd their employ eia was 
 m uch closer, so that in many industries they were not j wo classes, 
 but one. As among the agriculturists the farmer and labourer 
 lived "much the same life — for the capitalist farmers as a class 
 were not yet in existence — and ate at the same board, so in manu- j 
 facturing industries the journeyman was often on his way to 1 
 become a master. The distribution of wealth was, indeed, in a llij 
 respects more equal. Landed property, though gradually being? 
 
 1 Wmlih ofNatims, Book i. ch. viii. (vol. i. 79). 
 
 2 Baines, p. 361. 
 
72 The Industrial Revolution. 
 
 concentrated, was still in a far larger number of hands, and eve 
 the great landlords possessed nothing like their present richei 
 They had no vast mineral wealth, or rapidly developing town pre 
 perty. A great number of the trading industries, too, were still i 
 the hands of small capitalists. Great trades, like the iron trad( 
 requiring large capital, had hardly come into existence. 
 
 \^'-^y VII. 
 
 THE MEEOANTILE SYSTEM AND ADAM SMITH. 
 
 Change in the spirit of commercial policy — The mediaeval idea of the State- 
 The regulation of internal trade and industry — Kestrictions upon tl 
 movement of labour — The law of apprentices — Wages and prices fixe 
 by authority — The regulation of Foreign Trade — Chartered companies- 
 The Mercantile System and Protection — Evils of that system — The struggl 
 of interests — Injustice to Ireland and the Colonies — Characteristics of tl 
 Wmlth of Nations — Its arrangement — Adam Smith's cosmopoUtanism an 
 belief in self-interest. 
 
 The contrast between the industrial England of 1760 and th 
 industrial England of to-day is not only one of external condition! 
 Side by side with the revolution which the intervening centur 
 has effected in the methods and organisation of production, ther 
 has taken place a change no less radical in men's economic prir 
 ciples, and in the attitude of the State to individual enterpris( 
 England in 1760 was still to a great extent under the medisevE 
 system of minute and manifold industrial regulations. That sys 
 tem was indeed decaying, but it had not yet been superseded b 
 the modern principle of industrial freedom. To understand tt 
 origin of the mediaeval system we must go back to a time whe 
 the State was still conceived of as a religious institution with enc 
 that embraced the whole of human life. In an age when it we 
 deemed the duty of the State to watch over the individual citize 
 in all his relations, and provide not only for his protection froi 
 force and fraud, but for his eternal welfare, it was but natural thf 
 it should attempt to insure a legal rate of interest, fair wage 
 honest wares. Things of vital importance to man's life were' nc 
 td be left to chance or self-interest to settle. For no philosoph 
 had as yet identified God and Nature ; no optimistic theory of tl 
 
The Mercantile System. "j^ 
 
 , / 
 
 world Had reconciled public and private interest. And at the 
 same time, the smallness of the world and the community, and the 
 comparative simplicity of the social system made the attempt to 
 regulate the industrial relations of men less absurd than it would 
 appear to us in the present day. 
 
 This theory of the State, and the policy of regulation and 
 restriction which sprang from it, still largely affected English 
 industry at the time when Adam Smith wrote* There was, indeed, 
 great freedom of internal trade ; there were no provincial customs- 
 barriers as in contemporary France and Prussia. Adam Smith 
 singled out this fact as one of the main causes of English pro- 
 sperity, and to Colbert and Stein, and other admirers of the English 
 system, such freedom appeared as an ideal to be constantly striven 
 after.. But though internal trade was free for the passage of com- 
 modities, yet there still existed a network of restrictions on the 
 mobility of labour and capital. yBj the law of apprpritif^psliip ^ no 
 person could follow any trade till he had served his seven years.- 
 The operation of the law was limited, it is true, to trades already 
 established in the fifth year of Elizabeth, and obtained only in 
 market towns and cities. But wherever there was a municipal 
 corporation, the restrictions which they imposed made it generally 
 impossible for a man to work unless he was a freeman of the town, 
 and this he could as a rule become only by serving his apprentice- 
 ship. Moreover, the corporations supervised the prices and q.uali;^ 
 ties of wares. In the haUs, where the smaller manufacturers sold 
 their goods, all articles exposed for sale were in spect ed. The 
 mediaeval idea still obtained that the State should guarantee the 
 genuineness of wares ; it was not left to the consumer to discover 
 their quality. And in the Middle Ages, no doubt, when men used 
 the same things from year to year, a proper supervision did secure 
 good work. But with the expansion of trade it ceased to be 
 effective. Sir Josiah Child already recognised that changes ■ of 
 fashion must prove fatal to it, and that a nation which intended 
 to have the trade of the world must make articles of every quality.^ , 
 Yet the belief in the necessity of regulation was slow in dying out, 
 and fresh Acts to secure it were passed as late as George ii.'s reign. 
 
 It is not clear how far the restrictions on the mobility of capital 
 
 1 5 Eliz., c. 4. 
 
 2 On Trade, p. 131 (ed. 1692). 
 
74 The Industrial Revolution. 
 
 and labour were operative. No doubt tbey succeeded to a larj 
 
 extent; but when Adam Smith wrote his bitter criticism of tl 
 
 corporations,^ he was probably thinking of the particular mstan 
 
 of Glasgow, where Watt was not allowed to set up trade. _ The 
 
 were, however, even at that time, many free towns, like Binningha 
 
 and Manchester, which flourished greatly from the fact of the 
 
 freedom. And even in the chartered towns, if Eden is to 1 
 
 trusted, the restrictions were far less stringent than we shou 
 
 gather from Adam Smith.^ " I am persuaded," he says, " that 
 
 shoemaker, who had not served an apprenticeship, might exercii 
 
 his industry at Bristol or Liverpool, with as little hazard of beii 
 
 molested by the corporation of either place, as of being disturbt 
 
 by the borough-reve of Manchester or the head-constable i 
 
 Birmingham." Then after quoting and criticising Adam Smith, 1 
 
 adds : " I confess, I very much doubt whether there is a single co 
 
 poration in England, the exercise of whose rights does at presei 
 
 operate in this manner. ... In this instance, as in many othei 
 
 the insensible progress of society has reduced chartered rights to 
 
 state of inactivity." ^ We may probably conclude that noi 
 
 freemen were often unmolested, but that, when trade was bad, the 
 
 were liable to be expelled. 
 
 . ^ Another relic of Medisevalism was the regulation of wages 1: 
 
 -""l Justices _of__the_Peace, a practice enjoined by the Act of Elizabel 
 
 I already referred to. Adam Smith speaks of it as part of 
 
 ; general system of oppression of the poor by the rich. Whatevi 
 
 j may have been the case in some instances this was not general] 
 
 : true. The country gentry were, on the whole, anxious to do ju 
 
 ! tice to the working classes. Comb ina tions of labourers were fo 
 
 j bidden by law, because it was thought to be the wrong way i 
 
 I obtaining the object 'in view, not from any desire to keep dow 
 
 \ wages. The Justices often ordained a rise in wages, and tl 
 
 ' workmen themselves were Strongly in favour of this method i 
 
 ^xing them. The employers on their part also often approved < 
 
 it. In fact we have an exactly siinilar system at the present ds 
 
 1 Wealth of Nations, Book i. oh. x., pt. ii. (vol. i. 125). 
 
 2 The maintenance of restrictions in the chartered towns was largely due 
 the fact that the dissenters, who, perhaps, comprised the richest of the commerci 
 classes, were legally altogether, and in practice to a considerable degrt 
 excluded from office in the chartered towns. 
 
 8 State of the Poor, i. 436, 437 
 
The Mercantile System. 75 
 
 in boards of arbitration. The Justice was an arbitrator, appointed 
 by law ; and it is a mistaken assumption that sucb authoritative 
 •regulation may not have been good in its day. 
 
 The principle of regulation was applied much more thoroughly 
 to our external than to our internal trade. The former was entirely 
 carried on by great chartered companies, whether they were on a 
 joint-stock footing, like the East India Company, or were " regu- 
 lated " like the Turkey Company, in which eveiy man traded on ' 
 his own capital.^ Here, again, Adam Smith carried too far his 
 revolt against the restrictive system, which led him to denounce 
 corporate trading as vicious in principle. " The directors of such 
 companies," he says, " being the managers rather of other people's 
 money than of their own, it cannot well be expected that they 
 should watch over it with the same anxious vigilance with which 
 the partners in a private copartnery frequently watch over their 
 own. . . . Negligence and profusion must always prevail, more or 
 less, in the management of the affairs of such a company."^ 
 This is an instance of pure a priori reasoning, but Smith's 
 main argument is derived from the history of Joint-Stock Com- 
 panies. He sought to show that, as a matter of fact, unless 
 they had had a monopj)ly, they had failed ; that is, he proceeded 
 inductively7^hd wound up with an empirical law : " it seems 
 contrary/ to all experience that a Joint-Stock Company should be 
 able to carry on successfully any branch of foreign trade, when 
 private adventurers can come into any sort of open and fair 
 competition with them." ^ But he was too honest not to admit 
 exceptions to his rule, as in the instance of banking, which he 
 explained by the fact that it could be reduced to routine. 
 
 Smith's empirical law is, as we all now know, far from 1 
 being universally true, though it was a reasonable induction ' 
 enough at the time when it was made. Since then a large 
 number of Joint-Stock companies have succeeded, as for instance 
 in the iron trade. Nor is it difficult to see the reason of 
 this change. The habit of combination is stronger than it was, 
 and we have discovered how to interest paid servants by giving 
 them a share in the results of the enterprises they direct. 
 Experience has shown also that a big company can buy the best 
 
 1 Wealth of Nations, Book v. oh. i., pt. iii. sec. i. (vol. ii. 317, et seq.). 
 
 2 im. vol. ii. 326, 329. ^ Ibid. p. 331. 
 
i 
 
 76 TAe Industrial Revolution. 
 
 brains. In the recent depression of trade the ironworks c 
 Dowlais, which are managed on the Joint-Stock system, alon 
 remained successful amid many surrounding failures, and tha 
 because they had the ablest man in the district as manager. 
 
 In Adam Smith's time, however, the existence of Joint-Stoa 
 Companies was due not to any notion of their economical superi 
 ority, but to the tendency to place restrictions upon individua 
 enterprise, based upon that belief in the antagonism of public an 
 private interests which was characteristic of the time. The sam 
 idea of opposition obtained equally in international relations. Th 
 prosperity of one country was thought to be incompatible witl 
 that of another. If one profited by trade, it seemed to do so a 
 the expense of its neighbours. This theory was the foundatioi 
 of the mercantile system. It had its origin in the spirit 
 Nationalism — the idea of self-sustained and complete national Uf 
 — which came in with the Eenaissance and the Eeformation. 
 
 But how came this Nationalism_to_be connected with a beUe 
 in the special importance_of _gpld_and silver, which is general!; 
 regarded_as_tlifi_essence of the mercantile system ? The object 
 that system was national greatness, but national greatness depend 
 on national riches generally, not on one particular kind of riche 
 only, such as coin. The explanation must be sought in the fac 
 that, owing to the simultaneous development of trade and th 
 money system, gold and silver became peculiarly essential to th 
 machinery of commerce. With the growth of standing armies 
 moreover. State finance acquired a new importance, and the objec 
 of State finance was to secure a ready supply of the preciou 
 metals. Thus the theory sprang up that gold, and silver were th 
 most solid and durable parts of the moveable wealth of a natioi 
 and that, as they had more value in use than any other commc 
 dities, every state should do all in its power to acquire a great stor 
 of them. At first the Government tried to attain this object b; 
 accumulating a hoard; but this policy soon proved too wastefu 
 and difficult. It then turned its attention to increasing the quae 
 tity of bullion in the hands of the people, for it came to see tha 
 if there was plenty of bullion in the country it could always dra: 
 upon it in case of need. The export of_gold and silver was accord 
 ingly forbidden ; but if hoarding had proveH' impracticable, this ne^ 
 method of securing the desired end was soon found to be useless a 
 
The Mercantile System. 77 
 
 the prohibition could be easily evaded. In the last resort, therefore, 
 it was sought to insure a continuous influx of the precious metals 
 through the ordinary channels of trade. If we bought less than 
 we sold, it was argued, the balance of trade must be paid in coin. 
 To accomplish this end every encouragement was given to the 
 importation of raw materials and the necessaries of life, but the 
 purchase of foreign manufactures was, for the most part, prohibited, 
 and individuals were entreated not to buy imported luxuries. The 
 result was retaliation abroad, and a deadlock in the commercial 
 machine. Wars of tariff were common; for instance, we pro- 
 hibited the importation of gold-lace from Tlanders, and the 
 Flemings in ire^rn eiccTaded^^r^wooL The system, however, re- 
 sisted the teaching of experience, despite the fact that in abolishing 
 the prohibition of the export of gold and silver, the Government 
 acknowledged the true principle of free trade put forward by the 
 East Indian Company. The latter contended that the law for- 
 bidding the export of bullion was not only useless, since it was 
 easily stultified by smuggling, but even, if enforced, was hurtful, 
 since the Orientals would only sell their valuable goods for silver. 
 The success of this contention marks the trans ition from^the Mer- 
 cantile System proper to modern Protection. The advocates of] 
 that systein~Ea3~shifted' their ground, and"instead of seeking merely | 
 to prohibit the export of the precious metals, they established a 
 general protection of native industries. 
 
 Their measures were not aU alike bad. The Navigation Acts, 
 for instance, were defended by Adam Smith, and Mill has indorsed 
 his defence, on the ground that national defence is more important 
 than national opulgpce.^ 
 
 The most famous of these Acts was the law of 1651,^ by 
 which no goods of the growth or manufacture of Asia, Africa, ' 
 or America were to be imported into England, Ireland, or 
 the Plantations, except in ships belonging to English subjects, 
 and manned by a crew three-fourths of whom were English; 
 while no goods of any country in Europe were to be imported 
 except in English ships, or ships belonging to the country from 
 
 1 Wmlthof Nati<yivs,'^i. iv. ch. ii. (vol. ii. 38) ; Mill's Principles (first edition), 
 Bk. V. oh. X. (vol. ii. 485). 
 
 2 There had been earlier Navigation Acta, of more or less stringency, from 
 the time of Henry vil. onwards. 
 
78 The Industrial Revolution. 
 
 which the goods came. The argument used hy the promoters 
 of the law was that by excluding the Dutch from the carrying 
 trade to this country we shouiaTEfow it into the hands of English 
 shipowners, and there would be an increase of English ships. It 
 was admitted, indeed, that this would be giving a monopoly to 
 English shipowners and EngHsh sailors, and that therefore freights 
 would be dearer, and a check given to the growth of commerce. It 
 was further admitted that owing to their higher charges English 
 ships might be driven out of neutral ports ; but the contention was, 
 that we should secure to ourselves the whole of the carrying trade 
 between America and the West Indies and England, and that this 
 would amply compensate for our expulsion from other branches of 
 commerce. 
 
 / These anticipations were on the whole fulfilled. The price 
 of freights was raised, because English ships cost more to build 
 and man than Dutch ships, and thus the total amount of our 
 trade was diminished.^ We were driven out of neutral ports, and 
 lost the Eussian and the Baltic trades, because the English ship- 
 owners, to whom we had given a monopoly, raised their charge.^ 
 But on the other hand, we monopolised the trade to ports coming 
 within the scope of the Act, the main object of which was " the 
 preservation of our plantation trade entire." * Our shipping 
 received a great stimulus, and our maritime supremacy grew with 
 it. At the time when the Navigation Act was passed our colonial 
 trade was insignificant; New York and Jersey were Dutch; Georgia, 
 the Carolinas, Pennsylvania, Nova Scotia were not yet" planted; 
 Virginia, "Maryland, New England were in their infancy.* At 
 the end of the century the Barbadoes alone employed 400 vessels ; 
 while with the growth of the colonies the English power at sea 
 had increased, until it rivalled the Dutch. In the next century 
 the continuous development of the American and East Indian 
 trades gave us a position of unquestionable maritime superiority.^ 
 There is another argument in favour of Protection, at any 
 
 y> rate in jte early days.'"T£s stimulus helped to overcome the apathy 
 
 1 
 
 Anderson, ii. 443-4 ; Wealth of Nations, Bk. iv. oh. vii. (vol. ii. 179) ; Child 
 On Trade, p. 93 (ed. 1692) ; Britamiia Languens (1680), 66 ; Eichardson (1750), 
 
 2 Child, p. 98 (ed. 1692). » Anderson, ii. 416. 
 
 * Wealth of Nations, loo. cit. ^ Payne's History of the Colonies, 78. 
 
The Mercantile System. 79 
 
 and dulness of a purely agricultural population, and draw a part 
 of the people into trade.^ But here, as everywliere, Protection in- 
 volves this great disadvantage, that, once given, it is difficult to 
 withdraw, and thus in the end more harm is done than good. 
 English industries would not have a dv anced so rapidly without 
 Pr otection, bu t the" 'system, once established, led to perpetual 
 wrangling joiL the part o f rivallndustrres, and sacrificed India and 
 the colonies to our great manufacturers'. And our national dislike 
 to Protection deepens into repugnance when we examine the details 
 of the system. Looking at its results during the period from 1688 
 to 1776, when it was in full force, we are forced to acknowledge 
 that Adam Smith's invectives against the merchants, violent as 
 they were, were not stronger than the facts demanded. 
 
 But the maintenance of Protection cannot be entirely set down 
 to the merchants. Though the trading classes acquired much 
 influence at the Eevolution, the landed gentry were still supreme 
 in Parliament ; and the question arises, why they should have lent 
 themselves to a policy which in many cases, as in the prohibition 
 of the export of wool, was distinctly opposed to the interests of 
 agriculture. Adam Smith's explanation is very simple. The 
 country gentleman, who was naturally "least subject of all 
 people to the wretched spirit of monopoly," was imposed upon by 
 the " clamours and sophistry of merchants and manufacturers," and 
 " the sneaking arts of underling tradesmen," who persuaded him into 
 a simple but honest conviction that their interest and not his was 
 the interest of the public.^ Now this is true, but it is not the 
 whole truth. The landowners, no doubt, thought it their duty to 
 protect trade, and, not understanding its details, they implicitly 
 followed the teaching of the merchants. But, besides this, there 
 was the close connection, already referred to, between them and 
 the commercial classes. Their younger sons often went into trade ; 
 they themselves, in many cases, married merchants' daughters. 
 Nor did they give their support gratuitously ; they wanted Pro- 
 tection for themselves, and if they acquiesced in the prohibition of 
 the wool export, they persuaded the merchants to allow them in 
 return a bounty of 5s. a quarter on the export of corn. 
 
 1 Mill's Principles of Political Economy, i. cK 8, § 2, p. 141, 
 
 '■' Wealth ofNatims, Bk. i. ch. x ; Bk. iv. ch. hi. (vol. i. 134 ; ii. 34, 68). 
 
8o The Industrial Revolution. \ 
 
 One of the worst features of the system was the struggle of rival 
 '' interests at home. A great instance of this was the war between 
 the woollen and cotton trades, in which the former, supported by 
 the landed interest,^ for a long time had the upper hand, so that an 
 excise duty was placed on printed calicoes, and in 1721 they were 
 forbidden altogether. It was nqj; till 1774 that they were allowed 
 again, and the excise duty was not repealed till 1831. To take 
 another instance : it was proposed in Parliament in 1750 to allow 
 the importation of pig and bar iron from the colonies. The tanners 
 at once petitioned againsf it, on the ground that if American iron 
 was imported, less iron would be smelted in England, fewer trees 
 would be cut dqWn, and therefore their own industry would suffer ; ' 
 and the owners of woqdland tracts supported the tanners, lest the 
 value of their timber should be affected.^ These are typical 
 examples of the way in which, under a protective system, politics 
 are complicated and degraded by the' intermixture of commercial 
 interests. And thejreer a government is, and the more exposed to 
 pressure on the part^oTTS" subjects, the worse will be the result 
 As an American observer has lately said. Protection may bg weU. 
 enoiigh under a despotism, but in a republic it can never be 
 successful. 
 
 We find still stronger illustration of the evils of Protection in 
 our policy towards Ireland and the Colonies. After the Gromwellian 
 settlement, there had been an export of Irish cattle into England; 
 " but for the pacifying of our landed gentlemen,"* after the Eestor- 
 ation the import of Irish Live-stock, meat, and dairy produce 
 was prohibited from 1660 to 1685. As cattle-farming then became 
 unprofitable, the Irish turned their lands into sheep-walks, and 
 not only exported wool, but started woollen manufactures at home. 
 Immediately a law was passed (1699) confining the export of 
 Irish wool to the English market ; and this was followed by the 
 imposition ot4)rohibitive duties on l^eir woollen manufactures. 
 The English manufacturers argued that as Ireland was protected 
 by England, and its prosperity w^s' due to English capital, the 
 
 . 1 In the JVtte Eepresentation of the Manufacture of the Combing and Spinning 
 of Wool (Bib. Bodl. : n.d.), the author remarks g^at the importation of In- 
 dian yarn " will hinder the consumption of great quAjties of wool, by which the 
 gentlemen's tenants, whose lands are used in the groSK of wool, wiU be necessi- 
 tated to sell their wool for a low price." "E 
 
 ' Scrivener, pp. 73-4. 3 Anderson,^!, ii. p. 507. 
 
 ^ 
 
The Mercantile System. 8i 
 
 fish ought to recoBcile themselves to restrictions on their trade, 
 1 the interests of Englishmen. Besides, the joint interests of 
 Dth kingdoms would be best considered, if England and Ireland 
 jspectively monopolised the woollen and linen industries, and the 
 wo nations thus became dependent on one another. If we turn 
 ) the colonies, we find them regarded simply as markets and farms 
 f the mother country. The same argument was used : that they 
 wed everything to England, and therefore it was no tyranny to 
 xploit them in her interests. They were, therefore, not allowed 
 export or import in any but British vessels; they might not 
 xport such commodities as Englishmen wanted to any part of 
 iurope other than Great Britain ; while those of their raw materials 
 a which our landowners feared competition were excluded from the 
 English markets. All imports into the colonies from other parts 
 if Europe, except Great Britain, were forbidden, in order that our 
 nanufacturers might monopolise the American market. Moreover, 
 ivery attempt was made to prevent them from starting any manu- 
 actuxes at home. At the end of the seventeenth century some 
 Americans had set on foot a woollen industry; in 1719 it was 
 iuppressed; all iron manufactures — even nail-making — were for- 
 ridden ; a flourishing hat manufacture had sprung up, but at the 
 Detition of English hatters, these competitors were not allowed to 
 jxport to England, or even from one colony to another. Adam 
 Smith might wpl'l say, that " to found a great empire, for the sole 
 purpose of raising up a people of customers, may at first sight 
 ippear a project fit only for a nation of shopkeepers." ^ Nothing 
 jontributed more than this commercial system to the Declaration 
 ■A Independence, and it is significant that the same year which 
 saw its promulgation saw also the publication of the Wealth of 
 Nations. 
 
 Many people on first reading the Wealth of Nations are dis- 
 a,ppointed. They come to it, expecting lucid arguments, the clear 
 exposition of universal laws ; they find much tedious and confused 
 reasoning and a mass of facts of only temporary interest. But 
 these very defects contributed to its immediate success. It was 
 because Adam Smith examined in detail the actual conditions of 
 the age, and wrote a handbook for the statesman, and not merely, 
 as Turgot did, a systematised treatise for the philosopher, that he 
 1 Wealth of Nations, Bk. iv. ch. vu. pt. iii. (vol. ii. p. 196.) 
 F 
 
82 The Industrial Revolution. 
 
 appealed so strongly to the practical men of his time, who, 
 with Pitt, praised his " extensive knowledge of detail," as well as 
 "the depth of his philosophical research." It was the combina- 
 tion of the two which gave him his power. He was the first great 
 writer on the subject; with him political economy passed from 
 the exchange and the market-place to the professor's study ; but 
 he was only groping his way, and we cannot expect to meet with 
 neat arrangement and scientific precision of treatment in his book. 
 His language is tentative, he sometimes makes distinctions which 
 he forgets elsewhere, as was inevitable before the language of 
 economics had been fixed by endless verbal discussions. He had 
 none of Eicardo's power of abstract reasoning. His gift lay in the 
 extent and quickness of his observation, and in his wonderful 
 felicity of illustration. We study him, because in him, as in Plato, 
 we come into contact with a great original mind, which teaches us 
 how to think and work. Original people always are confused 
 because they are feeling their way. -' 
 
 If we look fSr the fundamental ideas of Adam Smith, those 
 which distinguish him most clearly from earlier writers, we are first 
 struck by his cosmopolitanism. He was the precursor of Cobden 
 in his belief that commerce is not of one nation, but that all the 
 nations of the world should be considered as one great community. 
 We may see how widely he had departed from the old national 
 system of economy, by contrasting the mere title.Df his book, Tlw 
 Wealth of Nations, with that of Mun's treatise, England's Treasure 
 in Foreign Trade. This cosmopolitanism necessitated a detailed 
 refutation of the mercantile system. He had to prove that gold 
 and silver were not more important than other forms of wealth : 
 and that if we wanted to buy them, we could always do so, if we 
 had other consumable goods to offer in exchange. But it might 
 be objected : " What if a nation refuses to take your other goods, and 
 wants your gold? " Adam Smith replied : " In that case, gold wiU 
 leave your country and' go abroad ; as a consequence, prices wiU fall 
 at home, foreigners will be attract||Mry the low prices to buy in your 
 markets, and thus the gold winMffSra." 1 can give you an actual 
 example from recent history tePfrove the truth of his deduction. 
 During the potato famine of 1847, we had to import enormous 
 quantities of grain from America, and as a consequence had to send 
 there £16,000,000 worth of bullion. Immediately prices rose in 
 
The Mercantile System. 83 
 
 America and fell in England, English merchants discontinued 
 buying in America, while American merchants bought largely in 
 England, so that in the following year all the gold came back again. 
 
 Equally prominent in Adam Smith is his individualism, his 
 complete and unhesitating trust in individual self-interest. He 
 was the first to appeal to self-interest as a great bond of society. 
 As a keen observer, he could point to certain facts, which seemed 
 to bear out his creed. If we once grant the principle of the 
 div ision of labour, then it follows that one man can live only by 
 finding out what other men want ; it is on this fact, for instance, 
 that the food supply of London depends. This is the basis of the 
 doctrine of laisser faire. It implies competition, which would result, 
 so Adam Smith believed, in men's wants being supplied at a 
 minimum of cost. In upholding competition he was radically 
 opposed to the older writers, who thought it a hateful thing ; biit 
 his conclusion was quite true. Again it implies the best possible 
 distribution of industry ; for under a system of free competition, 
 every man will carry on his trade in the locality most suitable for it. 
 
 But the principle of laisser faire breaks down in certain points 
 not recognised by Adam Smith. It fails, for instance, in assuming 
 that it is the interest of the producer to supply the wants of the / 
 consumer in the best possible manner/Ehat it is the interest of thef 
 producer to manufacture honest wares. It is quite true that this 
 is his interest, where the trade is an old-established one and has a 
 reputation to maintain, or where the consumer is intelligent enough 
 to discover whether a commodity is genuine or not. But these 
 conditions exist only to a small extent in modern commerce. Thg 
 trade of the present day is principally carried on with borrowed 
 capital ; and it may be a clever man's interest to sell as large a 
 quantity of goods ^as pos sible inTfew years and then throw up his 
 business. Thus the interests of produc^^nd consumer conflict, and 
 it has been found necessary to pass AduRefatioh Acts, which recog- 
 nise the non-identity oj^ interest^ of splefand buyer. It was argued, 
 : indeed, in Parlialnent, when these acts were proposed, that con- 
 * sumers ought to take care of themselves, but the consumers are 
 1 far too ignorant to do so, especially the poor who are the great 
 ] consumers of the articles protected against adulteration. Adam 
 Smith, moreover, could not foresee that internal free trade might 
 , result 'in natural monopolies. A conspicuous feature of our times 
 
84 The Industrial Revolution. 
 
 is the concentration of certain industries in the hands of a few great 
 capitalis^tSj_especially in America, where suph^rings actually dictate 
 the prices of the market. Eighty-five per cent, of the Pennsylvanian 
 si coal-mines, for instance, are in the hands of six or seven companies 
 ^ who act in combination. The easiest remedy for such^ monopolies 
 would be international free-teade; with international competition 
 few could be maintained. Finally, in the distribution of wealth 
 there must necessarily be a permanent antagonism of interests. 
 Adam Smith himself saw this, when he said that the rate of wages 
 depended on contfacts between two parties whose interests were 
 not identical. This being granted, we see that in distribution the 
 " harmony " of the individual and the public good is a figment. 
 At the present day each class of workmen cares only for the wages 
 of its own members. Hence the complete breakdown of the laisser 
 faire system in the question of wages. We have been driven to 
 attempt the establishment of Boards of Conciliation aU over the ■ 
 country, thus virtually surrendering the principle. Nor is it true i 
 that self-interest tends to supply all our wants ; some of our best 
 institutions, such as hospitals, owe their existence to altruistic ! 
 sentiment.^ These antagonisms were to come out more strongly 
 than ever after Adam Smith's time. There were dark patches even 
 in his age, but we now approach a darker period, — a period as 
 disastrous and as terrible as any through which a nation ever 
 passed ; disastrous and terrible, because, side by side with a great 
 increase of wealth was seen an enormous increase of pauperism ; 
 and production on a vast scale, the result of free competition, led \ 
 to a rapid alienation of classes and to the degradation of a large 
 body of producers. 
 
 1 On the whole subject see H. Spencer's Essays on Specialised Administration 
 and the Social Organism, and Professor Huxley's Essay on Administrative 
 Nihilism. 
 
VIII. 
 THE CHIEF FEATUKES OF THE EEVOLUTIOK 
 
 Growth of Economic Science — Competition — Its uses and abuses — The symptoms 
 of the Industrial Revolution — Rapid growth of population — Its relative 
 density in North and South — The agrarian revolution — Enclosures — Con- 
 solidation of farms and agricultural improvementsV-The revolution in manu- 
 factures — The factory system— ^Expansion of trade-^Kise in rents4-Change 
 in the relative position of classes. ^ 
 
 The essen ce jof the Industrial JteYolutigii is the substitution of 
 competition for the mediseval regulations which had previ ously 
 controlled' the production and distribution of wealth^T Un tliis 
 account it is not only one of the most important facts of English 
 history, but Europe owes to it the growth of two great systems of 
 thought — Economic Science, and its antithesis. Socialism. The 
 development of Economic Science in England has four chief 
 landmarks, each connected with the name of one of the four great 
 English economists. The first is the publication of Adam Smith's 
 Wealth of Nations in 1776, in which he investigated the causes 
 of wealth and aimed at the substitution of industrial freedom 
 for a system of restriction. The production of wealth, not 
 the welfare of man, was what Adam Smith had primarily before 
 his mind's eye ; in his own words, " the great object of the Political* 
 Economy of every country is to increase the riches and power of 
 that country."^ His great book appeared on the eve of the 
 Industrial Eevolution. A second stage in the growth of the 
 science is marked by Malthus's Ussay o n Pojoulation, published in 
 1798, which may be considered the product of that revolution,, 
 then already in full swing. Adam Smith had concentrated aU his 
 attention on a large production; Malthus directed his inquiries, 
 not to the causes of wealth but to the causes of poverty, and 
 found them in his theory of population. A third stage is marked 
 by Eicardo's Princijples of Political Economy and Taxation, which 
 appeared in 1817, and in which Eicardo sought to ascertain the 
 laws of the-disMBution of wealth. Adam Smith had shown how 
 wealth could be produced under a systfe^^ of industrial freedom, 
 1 Vol. i. Bk. ii. ch. v. p. 377. 
 
86 The Industrial Revolution. 
 
 Eioardo showed how wealth is distributed under such a system, a 
 problem which could not have occurred to any one before his 
 time. The fourth stage is marked by John Stuart 'M.^aPrincijples 
 
 ^ of Political Economy, published in 1848. Mill himself asserted 
 thaP' the chief merit of his treatise" was the distinction drawn 
 between the laws of production and those of distribution, and 
 the problem he tried to solve was, how wealth ought to he distri- 
 buted. A great advance was made by Mill's attempt to show 
 what was and what was not inevitable under a system of free 
 competition. In it we see the influence which the rival system of 
 Socialism was already beginning to exercise upon the economists. 
 The whole spirit of Mill's book is quite different from that of any 
 economic works which had up to his time been written in England. 
 Though a re-statement of Eicardo's system, it contained the admis- 
 sion that the distribution of wealth is the result of "particular 
 ^cial arrangements," and it recognised that competition alone is ' 
 not a satisfactory basis of society. 
 
 Competition, heralded by Adam Smith, and taken for granted 
 by Eicardo and Mill, is still the dominant idea of our time ; though 
 since the publication of the Origin of Species, we hear more of it 
 under the name of the " struggle for existence." I wish here to 
 notice the fallacies involved in the current arguments on this sub- 
 ject. In the first place it is assumed that all competition is a 
 competition for existence. This is not true. There is a great 
 
 "difference between a struggle for mere existence and a struggle 
 for a particular kind of existence. For instance, twelve men are 
 struggling for employment in a trade where there is only room for 
 eight ; four are driven out of that trade, but they are not trampled 
 out of existence. A good deal of competition merely decides what 
 kind of work a man is to do ; ^ though of course when a man can 
 only do one kind of work, it may easily become a struggle for 
 bare life. It is next assumed that this struggle for existence is 
 a law of nature, and that therefore all human interference with it 
 is wrong. To that I answer that the whole meaning of civilisation 
 is interference with this brute struggle. We intend to modify 
 the violence of the fight, and to prevent the weak being trampled 
 under foot. 
 
 Competition, no doubt, has its uses. Without competition no 
 
 ' Inability to see this fact is the source of the Protectionist fallaey. 
 
Its Chief Features. 87 
 
 progress would be possible, for progress comes chiefly from without ; 
 it is external pressure which forces men to exert themselves. 
 Socialists, however, maintain that this advantage is gained at the 
 expense of an enormous waste of human life and labour, which 
 might be avoided by regulation. But here we must distinguish 
 between competition in production and competition in distribution, 
 a difference recognised in modern legislation, which has widened 
 the sphere of contract in the one direction, while it has narrowed 
 it in the other. For the struggle of men to outvie one another in 
 production is beneficial to the community; their struggle over 
 the division of the joint produce is not. The stronger side wUl' 
 dictate its own terms ; and as a matter of fact, in the early days of 
 competition the capitalists used all their power to oppress the 
 labourers, and drove down wages to starvation point. This kind 
 of competition has to be checked ; there is no historical inststnce 
 of its having lasted long without being modified either by com- 
 bination or legislation, or both. In England both remedies are 
 in operation, the former through Trades-Unions, the latter through 
 factory legislation. In the past other remedies were applied.- It 
 is this desire to prevent the evUs of competition that affords the 
 true explanation of the fixing of wages by Justices of the Peace, 
 which seemed to Eicardo a remnant of the old system of tyranny 
 in the interests of the strong. Competition, we have now learnt, 
 is neither good nor evil in itself ; it is a force which has to be 
 studied and controlled; it may be compared to a stream whose 
 strength and direction have to be observed, that embankments may 
 be thrown up within which it may do its work harmlessly and 
 beneficially. But at the period we are considering it came to be 
 believed in as a gospel, and, the idea of necessity being superadded, 
 economic laws deduced from the assumption of universal un- 
 restricted competition were converted into practical precepts, from 
 which it was regd;rded as little short of immoral to depart. 
 
 tXjoming to the facts of the Industrial Eevolution, the first thing 
 that strikes us is the far greater rapidity which marks the growth 
 ofpo^ulation^ Before 1751 the largest decennial increase, so far 
 as we can calculate from our imperfect materials, was 3 per cent. 
 For each of the next three decennial periods the increase was 6 per 
 cent.; then between 1781 and 1791 it was 9 per cent.; between 
 1791 and 1801, 11 per cent. ; between 1801 and 1811, 14 per cent. ; 
 
88 The Industrial Revolution. 
 
 j between 1811 and 1821, 18 per cent.i This is the highest figure 
 ever reached in England, for since 1815a vast emigration has been 
 always tending to moderate it; between 1815 and 1880 over eight 
 millions (including Irish) have left our shores. But for this our 
 normal rate of increase would be 16 or 18 instead of 12 per cent, 
 in every decade.^ 
 \ Next we notice the r elative and p ositive decline in the agricul- 
 Vtural population. In 1811 it constituted 35 per cent, of the whole 
 population of Great Britain; in 1821, 33 per cent. ; in 1831, 28 
 per cent.* And at the same time its actual numbers have de- 
 creased. In 1831 there were 1,243,057 adult males employed in 
 agriculture in Great Britain; in 1841 there were 1,207,989. In 
 1851 the whole number of. persons engaged in agriculture in 
 England was 2,084,153; in 1861 it was 2,010,454, and in 1871 
 it was 1,657,138.* Contemporaneously with this change, ^the 
 centre of density of population has shifted from the Midlands to 
 the North; there are at the present day 458 persons to the square 
 mile in the counties north of the Trent, as against 312 south of 
 the Trent. And we have lastly to remark the change in the rela- 
 tive population of England and Ireland. Of the total population 
 of the three kingdoms, Ireland had in 1821 32 per ^ cent., in 1881 
 only 14'6 per cent. 
 
 An agrarian revolution plays as large part in the great indus- 
 trial change of the end of the eighteenth century as does the 
 revolution in manufacturing industries, to which attention is more 
 usually directed. Our next inquiry must therefore be : What were 
 the agricultural changes which led to this noticeable decrease in 
 the rural population ? jThe three most effective causes were : the 
 xdistruction of the common-field system of cultivation ; the enclo- 
 vsure, on a large scale, of common and waste lands; and the con- 
 ^solidation of small farms into largej We have already seen that 
 I wiiile between 1710 and 1760 some 300,000 acres were enclosed, 
 
 1 " In the cotton trade," said Sir E. Peel in 1806, " machinery has given 
 birth to a new population ; it has promoted the comAts of the population to such 
 a degree that early marriages have been jssSbrted t^Hd a great increase of num- 
 bers has been occasioned by it, and I may say thaHBbey have given rise to an 
 additional race of men." — Pari. Report, p.. 440. . '/^^ 
 
 2 See Jevons on The. Goal Queatmn, p. 170; Census Keturns for 1881, 
 pp. iii, xi. 
 
 ' Porter's Progreaa of the Nation (2d edition, '1847), p. 52. 
 
 * lb. pp. 61, 65. Kolb'a Condition of Nations, translated by Mrs. Brewer, p. 73, 
 
Its Chief Feahires. 89 
 
 between 1760 and 1843 nearly 7,000,000 underwent the sam4 
 process. Closely connected with the enclosure system was the 
 substitution of large for small farms. In the first half of the 
 century Laurence, though approving of consolidation from an 
 economic point of view, had thought that the odium attaching 
 to an evicting landlord would operate as a strong check upon it.^ 
 But these scruples had now disappeared. Eden in 1796 notices 
 how constantly the change was effected, often accompanied by 
 the conversion of arable to pasture ; and relates how in a certain 
 Dorsetshire village he found two farms where twenty years ago 
 there had been thirty.^ The process went on uninterruptedly 
 into the present century. Cobbett, writing in 1826, says: "In 
 the parish of Burghclere one single farmer holds, under Lord 
 Carnarvon, as one farm, the lands that those now living re- 
 member to have formed fourteen farms, bringing up in a respect- 
 able way fourteen families."^ The consolidation of farms reduced 
 the number of farmers, while the enclosures drove the labourers 
 off thfe land, as it became impossible for them to exist with- 
 out their rights of pasturage for sheep and geese on common 
 lands. 
 
 [Severely, however, as these changes bore upon the rural popu- 
 lation, they wrought, without doubt, d istinct improv ement from an 
 agricultural_point of^view. They meant the substitutiqn^of_ scieji- 
 tific Jor unscientific culttire^ " It has been found," says Laurence, 
 " by long experience, thaTcommon or open fields are great hin- 
 drances to the public good, and to the honest improvement which 
 every one might make of his own." Enclosures brought an_exten; 
 sion of arable cultivation and the' tillage of inferior soils ; and in 
 smarfanns of 40 to 100 acres, where 'the land was exhausted by 
 repeated corn crops, the farm buildings of clay and mud walls and 
 three-fourths of the estate often saturated with water,* consolidation 
 into farms of 100 to 500 acres meant rotation of crops, leases of 
 nineteen years, and good farm buildings. The period was one of ■ 
 greatagricultural advance ; the breed of cattle was improved, rota- 1 
 tion of crops was generally introduced, the steam-plough was V 
 
 1 Duty of a Steward, pp. 3, 4. 
 
 2 State of the Poor, ii. pp. 147'-8. Cf. also p. C21. 
 
 3 jiy,^a.l Sides, ed. 1830, p. 579. 
 
 * Kebbel's Agriadiural Labourer, pp. 207-8. 
 
90 The Industrial Revolution. 
 
 invented, agricultural societies were instituted.^ In one respect 
 alone the change was injurious. In consequence of the high prices 
 of corn which prevailed during the French war, some of the finest 
 permanent pastures were broken up. StiU, in spite of this, it was 
 said in 1813 that during the previous ten years agricultuM pro- 
 duce had increased by one-fourth, and this was an increase Txpoifa 
 great increase in the preceding generation.^ 
 
 \ rpassing to manufactures, we find here the all-prominent fact to 
 be the substitution of the factory for the domestic system, the 
 cohsequence of the mechanical discoveries of the time. | Pour great 
 inventions altered the character of the cotton manufacture; the 
 spinning-jenny, patented by Hargreaves in 1770 ; the water-frame, 
 invented by Arkwright the year before ; Crompton's mule intro- 
 duced in 1779, and the self-acting mule, first invented by Kelly 
 in 1792, but not brought into use till Eoberts improved it in 
 1825.^ None of these by themselves would have revolutionised 
 the industry. But in 1769 — the year in which Napoleon and 
 Wellington were born — James Watt took out his patent for the 
 steam-engine. Sixteen years later it was applied to the cotton 
 manufacture. In 1785 Boulton and Watt made an engine for a 
 cotton-mill at Papplewick in Notts, and in the same year Ark-. 
 Wright's patent expired. These two facts taken together mark the 
 introduction of the factory system. But the most famous inven- 
 tion of all, and the most fatal to domestic industry, the power- 
 loom, though also patented by Cartwright in 1785, did not come 
 into use for several years,* and till the power-loom was introduced 
 the workman was hardly injured. At first, in fact, machinery 
 raised the wages of spinners and weavers owing to the great 
 prosperity it brought to the trade. In fifteen years the cotton 
 trade trebled itself; from 1788 to 1803 has been called "its golden 
 age;" for, before the power-loom but after the introduction of 
 the mule and other mechanical improvements by which for the 
 first time yarn sufficiently fine for muslin and a variety of other 
 fabrics was spun, the demand became such that "old barns, cart- 
 
 1 The North and West of England iu 1777 ; the Highland Society in 1784 ; 
 the Board of Agriculture in 1793. 
 
 2 Committee on the Corn Trade (1813). See Porter, p. 149. 
 8 Baines, 'passim. 
 
 * In 1813 there were only 240(Tin use : iu 1820 there were 14,150 ; and iU 
 1833, over 100,000. Baines, pp. 235-7. 
 
Its Chief Features. 91 
 
 houses, out-buildings of all descriptions were repaired, windows 
 broke through the old blank walls, and all fitted up for loom-shops; 
 new weavers' cottages with loom-shops arose in every direction, 
 every family bringing home weekly from 40 to 120 shillings 
 per week." ^ At a later date, the condition, of the workman was 
 very different. Meanwhile, the iron industry had been equally 
 revolutionised by the invention of smelting by pit-coal brought 
 into use between 1740 and 1750, and by the application in 1788 
 of the steam-engine to blast furnaces. In the eight years which J 
 followed this latter date, the amount of iron manufactured nearM 
 doubled itself.^ 
 
 lA further growth of the factor y syste m took place indepen- 
 dent of machinery, and owed its origin to the expansion of trade, ^ 
 an expansion which was itself due to the great advance made 
 at this time in the means of communication. The canal system' 
 was being rapidly developed throughout the countr^J In 1777 
 the Grand Trunk canal, 96 milgs in length, connecting the Trent 
 and Mersey, was finished ; Hull and Liverpool were connected by 
 one canal while another connected them both with Bristol ; and in 
 1792, the Grand Junction canal, 90 miles in length, made a water- 
 way from London through Oxford to the chief midland towns.^ 
 Some years afterwards, the rsads were greatly improved under 
 Telford and Macadam; bCTween 1818 and 1829 more than a thou- 
 sand additional miles of turnpike road were constructed ; * and 
 the next year, 1830, saw the opening of the first railroad. These 
 improved means of communication caused an extraordinary in- 
 crease in commerce, and to secure a sufficient supply of goods it 
 became the interest of the merchants to collect weavers around 
 them in great numbers, to get looms together in a workshop, and 
 to give out the warp themselves to the workpeople. To these latter 
 this system meant a change from independence to dependence ; 
 at t&e beginning of the century the report of a committee asserts 
 that the essential difference between the domestic and the factory \ 
 system is, that in the latter the work is done " by persons who/ 
 have no property in the goods they manufacture." Another direct! 
 consequence of this expansion of trade was the regular recurrence! 
 
 1 Radcliffe, quoted by Baines, pp. 338-339. ^ Scrivenor, pp. 83, 87, 93. 
 
 3 MaoGulIoch's, Commercial Dictionary, ^p. 233, 234. 
 * Porter, p. 29'3. 
 
2 The Industrial Revolution. 
 
 i periods of over-production and of depression, a phenomeaon 
 uite unknown under the old system, and due to this new form 
 f production on a large scale for a distant market. 
 
 These altered conditions in the production of wealth necessarily 
 ivolved an equal reTOlutiQiLii!,_ils..digtiibu±ion. I n agricul ture 
 le proriiinent fact is an enormous ..rise in rents. Up to 1795, 
 lOugh they had risen in some places, in others they had been 
 ;ationary since the Eevolution.^ But between 1790 and 1833, 
 3Cording to Porter, they at least doubled.^ In Scotland, the 
 mtal of land, which in 1795 had amounted to £2,000,000, had 
 sen in 1815 to £5,278,685.^ A farm in Essex, which before 
 793 had been rented at 10s. an acre, was let in 1812 at 
 Os., though, six years after, this had fallen again to 35s. In 
 lerks and Wilts, farms which in 1790 were let at 14s., were let in 
 810 at 70s., and in 1820 at 50s. Miich of this rise, doubtless, was 
 ue to money invested in improvements — the first Lord Leicester 
 ; said to have expended £400,000 on his property * — but it was 
 ir more Jargely the effect of the enclosure, systenij of the consoKda- 
 on of farms, a,nd of the high price of corn during the French war. 
 VTiatever may have been its causes, however, it represented a great 
 Dcial revolution, a change in the balance of political power and in 
 le relative position of classes.. The farmers shared in the pros- 
 erity of the landlords ; for many of them held their farms under 
 eneiicial leases, and made large profits by them. In consequence,. 
 Iieir character completely changed ; they ceased to work and live 
 dth their labourers, and became a distinct class. The high 
 rices of the war time thoroughly demoralised them, for their 
 realth then increased so fast, that they were at a loss what to do 
 dth it. Cobbett has described the change in their habits, the 
 ew food and furniture, the luxury and drinking, which were the 
 onsequences of more money coming into their hands than they 
 new how to spend.^ Meanwhile, the effect of all these agrarian 
 hanges upon the condition of the labourer was an exactly opposite 
 nd most disastrous one. He felt all the burden of high prices, while 
 
 1 Eden, ii. 292. 2 Porter, pp. 151, '165. 
 
 3 Encyclopmdia Britannica, sub " Agriculture." 
 
 * The stock- jobbers, e.g. Eicardo, bought up estates, and property very much 
 hanged hands. The new landlords were probably more capable of developing 
 tie resources of their properties. 
 
 6 Cobbett's Bural Hides, Reigate, October 20, 1825, p. 241 (ed. 1830). 
 !f. Martiueau's History 0/ England from 1800 to 1815 (1878), p. 18. 
 
Its Chief Features. 93 
 
 his wages were steadily falling, and he had lost his common-rights: 
 It is from this period, viz., the beginning of the present centuryy 
 th at th e alienation between farmer and labourer may be dated.'^ ' 
 (Exactly analogous phenomena appeared in the manufacturing 
 world. The new class of great capitalist employers made enormous 
 fortunes, they took little or no part personally in the work of their 
 factories, their hundreds of workmen were individually unknown to 
 them ; and as a consequence, the old relations between inasters and 
 men disappeared, and a "cash nexus " was substituted for the human 
 tie. The workmen on their side resorted to combination, and 
 Trades-Unions began a fight which looked as if it were between 
 mortal enemies rather than joint producers. The misery which 
 came upon large sections of the working people at this epoch 
 was often, though not always, due to a fall in wages, for, as I said 
 above, in some industries they rose. But they suffered likewise 
 from the conditions of labour under the factory system, from the 
 rise of prices, especially from the high price of bread before the 
 repeal of the corn-laws, and from those sudden fluctuations of 
 trade, which, ever since production has been on a large scale, have 
 exposed them to recurrent periods of bitter distress. The effects 
 of the Industrial Eevolution prove that free competitio n may 
 pr oduce wealth without producing wellbeing. "W e all know the 
 hor rors that ensued in England before it was restrained"by.legisla^ 
 ti qn and comblo ation.^ \ 
 
 —-"^ > ^ 
 
 IX. '"""^ 
 
 THE GEOWTH OE PAUPEEISM. 
 
 Political Economy and the instinct of benevolence — The History of the Poor 
 Laws— rPauperism in the sixteenth century — The Poor Law of 1601 and 
 its modifications — Slow growth of pauperism during the seventsenth and 
 eighteenth centuries — Its rapid increase at the end of the latter— -The 
 - causes of this development of pauperism : consolidation of farms, enclosures, 
 rise of prices, introduction of maohjtiery — Remedies which might have been 
 applied — Vicious principle of the old Poor Law. 
 
 ■ Malthus tells US that his book was 'suggested by Godwin's 
 Inquiry, but it was really prompted by the rapid growth of pau- 
 
 1 Report of Committee on labourers' wages (1824), p. 57. 
 
 2 This period and its sufferings are further treated of in the address entitled 
 Industry and Democracy. — Ed. 
 
94 The Industrial Revolution. 
 
 perism which Malthus saw around him, and the book proved the 
 main influence which determined the reform of the English Poor 
 Laws. The problem of pauperism came upon men in its most 
 terrible form between 1795 and 1834. The following statistics 
 will illustrate its growth : — 
 
 Tear. 
 
 Population. 
 
 Poor-rate. 
 
 Per head 
 of Population, 
 
 1760 
 
 7,000,000 
 
 £1,250,000 
 
 or 3s. 7d. 
 
 1784 
 
 8,000,000 
 
 2,000,000 
 
 or 5s. Od. 
 
 1803 
 
 9,216,000 
 
 4,077,000 
 
 or 8i3. lid. 
 
 1818 
 
 11,876,000 
 
 7,870,000 
 
 or 13s. 3d. 
 
 This was the highest rate ever reached. But reaUy to understand 
 the nature of the problem we must examine the previous history 
 of pauperism, its causes in different periods, and the main influences 
 wMch determined its increase. 
 
 Prejudices have arisen against Political Economy because it 
 seemed to tell men to follow their self-interest and to repress 
 their instincts of benevolence. Individual self-interest makes no 
 provision for the poor, and to do so other motives and ideas must 
 take its place ; hence the idea that Political Economy taught that 
 no such provision should be made. Some of the old economists 
 did actually say that people should be allowed to die in the street. 
 Yet Malthus, with aU his hatred of the Poor Law, thought that 
 " the evil was now so deeply seated, and relief given by the 
 Poor Laws so widely extended, that no man of humanity could 
 venture to propose their immediate abolition."^ The assumed 
 cruelty of political economy arises from a mistaken conception of its 
 province, and from that confusion of ideas to which I have before 
 alluded, which turned economic laws into practical precepts, and 
 refused to aUow for the action of other motives by their side. 
 What we now see to be required is not the repression of the in- 
 stincts of benevolence, but their organisation. To make benevo- 
 lence scientific is the great problem of the present age. Men 
 formerly thought that the simple direct action of the beinevolent 
 instincts by means of self-denying gifts was enough to remedy the 
 misery they deplored ; now we see that not only thought but his- 
 torical study is also necessary. Both to understand the nature of 
 pauperism and to discover its effectual remedies, we must investi- 
 ' Eisay on Population, 7tli edition, p. 429. 
 
The Growth of Pattperism. 95 
 
 gate its earlier history. But in doing this we should take to heart 
 two warnings : first, not to interpret mediaeval statutes by modern 
 ideas ; and secondly, not to assume that the causes of pauperism 
 have always been the same. 
 
 The_history of the Poor Laws divides itself into three ep^ochs : 
 from 1349 toT6l)Trfr^^ 1601 to 1782, "lEa~ from lT82 to 1834. 
 Now, what was the nature of pauperism in mediaeval society, and 
 what were then the means of relieving it ? Certain characteristics 
 are permanent in all society, and thus in mediaeval life as else- 
 where there was a class of impotent poor, who were neither able to 
 support themselves nor had relatives to support them. This was 
 the only form of pauperism in the early beginnings of mediaeval 
 society, and it was provided for as follows. The community was 
 then broken up into groups — the manor, the guild, the family, the 
 Church with its hospitals, and each group was responsible for the 
 maintenance of all its members; by these means all classes of 
 poor were relieved. In the towns the craft and religious guilds 
 provided for their own members ; large estates in land were 
 given to the guilds, which " down to the Eeformation formed 
 an organised administration of relief;" ("the religious guilds 
 were organised for the relief of distress as well as for conjoint 
 and mutual prayer -"Y — while outside the guilds there were the 
 churches, the hospitals, and the monasteries. The " settled poor " 
 in towns were relieved by the guilds, in the country by the 
 lords of the manor and the beneficed clergy. " Every manor had 
 its constitution,"^ says Professor Stubbs, and, referring to manu- 
 mission, he adds, "the native lost the privilege of maintenance 
 which he could claim of his lord."^ Among what were called 
 " the vagrant poor " there were the professional beggars, who were 
 scarcely then considered what we should now call paupers, and " the 
 valiant labourers " wandering only in search of work. "Who then 
 were the paupers ? In the towns there were the craftsmen, who 
 could not procure admission into a guild. In the country there 
 was the small class of landless labourers nominally free. It is a 
 great law of social development that the movement from slavery 
 to freedom is also a movement from security to insecurity of main- 
 tenance. There is a close connection between the growth of freedom 
 
 ' Stubbs's Constitutional History, vol. iii. p. 600. 
 » lUd. p. 599. 5 Ihid. p. 604. 
 
96 The Industrial Revolution. 
 
 and the growth of pauperism ; it is scarcely too much to say that 
 the latter is the price we pay for the former. The first Statute, 
 which is in any sense a Poor Law, was enacted at a time when the 
 emancipation of the serfs was proceeding rapidly. This is the 
 Statute of Labourers, made in 1349 ; it has nothing to do with the 
 maintenance of the poor ; its object was to repress their vagrancy.^ 
 
 This statute has been variously interpreted. According to some,^ 
 it was simply an attempt of the landowners to force the labourers to 
 take the old wages of the times before the Plague. Others object, with 
 Brentano, to this interpretation, and believe that it was not an in- 
 stance of class legislation, but merely expressed the mediaeval idea 
 that prices should be determined by what was thought reasonable 
 and not by competition ; for this same Statute regulates the prices 
 of provisions and almost everything which was sold at the time. 
 Probably Brentano is in the main right. It is true that the land- 
 owners did legislate with the knowledge that the Statute would 
 be to their own advantage ; but the law is none the less in harmony 
 with all the ideas of the age. The Statute affected the labourer 
 in two directions : it fixed his wages, and it prevented him from 
 migrating. It was followed by the Statute of 1388, which is some- 
 times called the beginning of the English Poor Law. We here find 
 the first distinction between the impotent and the able-bodied poor. 
 This law decreed that if their neighbours would not provide for the 
 poor, they were to seek maintenance elsewhere in the hundred ; no 
 one is considered responsible for them ; it is assumed that the 
 people of the parish will support them. Here too we catch the first 
 glimpse of a law of settlement, in the provision that no labourer 
 or pauper shall wander out of bis hundred unless he carry a letter- 
 patent with him. 
 
 No exact date can be assigned to the growth of able-bodied 
 pauperism. It was the result of gradual social changes, and of the 
 inability to understand them. Mediaeval legislators could not grasp 
 the necessity for the mobility of labour, nor could they see that 
 compulsory provision for the poor was essential, though the Statute 
 of 1388 shows that the bond between lord and dependant was 
 snapped, and security for their maintenance in this way already at 
 
 1 Nicholls's History of the. Poor Law, i. 36. 
 
 ^ eg. Seebohm m Fortnightly Review, iL 270. See Cunningham's Growik of 
 English Industry and Commerce, -^.IQl. ^-vu/u^uj 
 
The Growth of Pauperism. 97 
 
 an end. The Church and private charity were deemed sufficient ; 
 though it is true that laws were passed to prevent the alienation of 
 funds destined for the poor.^ And with regard to the mobility of 
 labour, we must remember that the vagrancy of the times did not 
 imply the distress of the labourers, but their prosperity. The 
 scarcity of labour allowed of high wages, and the vagrant labourer 
 of the time seems never to have been satisfied, but always wander- 
 ing in search of still higher wages. The stability of mediaeval 
 society depended on the fixity of aU its parts, as that of modern 
 society is founded on their mobility. The Statutes afford evidence ' 
 that high wages and the destruction of old ties did in fact lead to 
 disorder, robbery, and violence ; and by and by we find the condi- 
 tion of the labourer reversed ; in the next period he is a vagrant, 
 because he cannot find work. 
 
 In the sixteenth century pauperism was becoming a really 
 serious matter. If we ask. What were its causes then, and what 
 the remedies proposed, we shall find that at the beginning of 
 the century a great agrarian revolution was going on, during 
 which pauperism largely increased. Parms were consolidated, and 
 arable converted into pasture f in consequence, where two hundred 
 men had lived there were now only two or three herdsmen. There 
 was no employment for the dispossessed farmers, who became simple 
 vagabonds, " valiant beggars," until later they were absorbed into 
 the towns by the increase of trade. A main cause of the agrarian 
 -changes was the dissolution of monasteries, though it was one that 
 acted only indirectly, by the monastic properties passing into the 
 hands of new men who did not hesitate to evict without scruple. 
 About the same time the prices of provisions rose through the influx ■ 
 of the precious metals and the debasement of the coinage. And 
 while the prices of corn in 1541-82 rose 240 per cent, as compared 
 with the past one hundred and forty years, wages rose only 1 60 
 per cent.^ In this fact we discover a second great cause of the 
 pauperism of the time ; just as at the end of the eighteenth cen- 
 tury we find wages the last to rise, and the labouring man the 
 
 1 A law of 15 Bichard xi. (e. 15) enacts that if " a parish church is appro- 
 priated," the "dioeesau shall ordain a convenient sum of money to be distributed 
 yearly of the fruits and profits of the same to the poor parishioners, in aid of 
 their living and sustenance, for ever." 
 
 2 More's Utopia (Arber's Reprints), p. 41. 
 
 s Kogers's History of Agriculture and Prices, vol. iv. pp. 718-9. 
 
 G 
 
98 The Indtts trial Revolution. 
 
 greatest sufferer from increased prices. As regards the growth of 
 pauperism in towns, the main cause may be found in the confisca- 
 tion of the estates of the guilds by the Protector Somerset.^ 
 These guilds had been practically friendly societies, and depended 
 for their funds upon their landed properties. 
 
 And how did statesmen then deal with these phenomena? 
 The legislation of the age about " vagabonds " is written in blood. 
 The only remedy suggested was to punish the vagrant by cru el 
 torTufes^^by wEIpping and branding. Even death was resorted to 
 after a second 6x third offence; and though these penalties proved 
 very ineffectual, the system was not abandoned till the law of 43 
 Elizabeth recognised that punishment had failed as a remedy. 
 The other class of paupers, the impotent poor, had been directed by 
 a Statute of Eichard ir. to beg within a certain limited area ; in the 
 reigns of Edward vi. and Elizabeth the necessity of c ompulsory 
 provision for this class of poor slowly dawned upon men's minds. 
 At first the churchwardens were ordered to summon meetings for 
 the purpose of collecting alms, and overseers were appointed 
 who "shall gently ask and demand" of every man and woman 
 what they of their charity wiU give weekly towards the relief of 
 the poor. Mayors, head-officers, and church-wardens were to col- 
 lect money in boxes " every Sunday and holyday." The parsons, 
 vicar and curate, were to reason with those who would not give, and 
 if they were not successful, the obstinate person was to be sent to 
 the bishop, who was to "induce and persuade him;" or by the provi- 
 sions of a later law, he was to be assessed at Quarter Sessions (1562). 
 Such was the first recognition of the principle of compulsory 
 support, of the fact that there are men in the community whom 
 no one wiU relieve. There appears upon the scene for the first 
 time the isolated individual, a figure unknown to mediaeval society, 
 but who constitutes so striking a phenomenon in the modern world. 
 And hence springs up a new relation between the State and the 
 individual. Since the latter is no longer a member of a compact 
 group, the State itself has to enter into direct connection with him , 
 Thus, by the growth at once of freedom and of poverty, the whole 
 status of the working classes had been changed, and the problem 
 of modern legislation came to be this : to discover how we can 
 
 1 Stubbs, iii. p. 600. 
 
The Growth of Pauperism. 99 
 
 lave a working class of free men, who shall yet find it easy to 
 obtain sustenance ; in other words, how to combine political and 
 naterial freedom. 
 
 All the principles of our modern Poor Laws are found in the 
 lext Statute we have to notice, the great law of the 43d year of 
 Elizabeth, which drew the sharp distinction, ever since preserved, 
 Detween the able-bodied and the impotent poor. The latter were 
 ;o be relieved by a compulsory rate collected by the overseers, the 
 "ormer were to be set to work upon materials provided out of the 
 ■ates ; children and orphans were to be apprenticed. From this 
 late 1601, there were no fundamental changes in- the law till the 
 md of the eighteenth century. The law of settlement, however, 
 ?/hich sprang directly out of the Act of Elizabeth, was added ; it 
 vas the first attempt to prevent the migration of labourers by other 
 neans than punishment. It began with the Statute of 1662, which 
 illowed a pauper to obtain relief only from that parish where he 
 lad his settlement, and defined settlement as forty days' residence 
 vithout interruption; but after this Statute there were constant 
 ihanges in the law, leading to endless complications; and more 
 itigation took place on this question of settlement than on any 
 )ther point of the Poor Law. It was not till 1795 that the hard- 
 ihip of former enactments was mitigated by an Act under which 
 10 new settler could be removed untU he became actually charge- 
 ible to the parish.^ 
 
 Two other modifications of the Act of Elizabeth require to be 
 loticed. In 1691 the administration of relief was partially taken 
 lilt of the hands of the overseers and given to the Justices of the 
 'eace, the alleged reason being that the overseers had abused their 
 )Ower. Henceforth they were not allowed to relieve except by 
 irder of a Justice of the Peace, and this provision was construed 
 ato a power conferred upon the Justices to give relief indepen- 
 [ently of any application on the part of the overseers, and led, in 
 act, to Justices ordering relief at their own discretion. The other 
 mportant change in the Poor Law was the introduction of the 
 roridiouse test in 1722. It is clear that pauperism had grown 
 ince the reign of Charles 11. There are many pamphlets of the 
 
 1 ^ee Adam Smitli's sketch of the Law of Settlement in his chapter on 
 Vages ; and on the Poor Laws generally, Fowle's History of the Poor Law, in the 
 "mglish Oitvaen Series. 
 
lOO The Indristrial Revolution. 
 
 period full of suggestions as to a remedy, but the only successful 
 idea was this of the workhouse test. Parishes were now empowered 
 to unite and build a workhouse, and refuse relief to all who would 
 not enter it; but the clauses for building workhouses remained 
 inoperative, as very few parishes would adopt them. 
 
 The question remains to be asked : Why was pauperism still 
 sl owly in creasing in the course of the seventeenth and eighteenth 
 centuriegjn spite of a rise in wages, and, during the first half of 
 the eighteenth century, a low price of corn? Enclosures and the 
 consolidation of farms, though as yet these hact been on a com- 
 paratively small scale, were partly responsible for it, as they were 
 in an earlier century. Already, in 1727, it was said that some 
 owners were much too eager to evict farmers and cottagers, and 
 were punished by an increase of rates consequent on the evicted 
 tenants sinking into pauperism.^ By Eden's time the practice 
 of eviction had become general, and the connection between evic- 
 tion and pauperism is an indisputable fact, though it has been 
 overlooked by most writers. Eden's evidence again shows that 
 pauperism was greatest where enclosures h ad,_ta.kp.Ti pla.p.p At 
 Winslow, f 6FiiisIaHce,~encl6sed in 1744 and 1766, "the rise of the 
 rates was chiefly ascribed to the enclosure of the common fields, 
 which, it was said, had lessened the number of farms, and from the 
 conversion of arable into pasture had much reduced the demand 
 for labourers." Again, at Kilworth-Beauchamp in Leicestershire, 
 " the fields being now in pasturage, the farmers had little occasion 
 for labourers, and the poor being thereby thrown out of employ- 
 ment had, of course, to be supported by the parish."* Here too 
 the evil was aggravated by the fate of the ejected farmers, who 
 sank into the condition of labourers, and swelled the numbers of 
 the unemployed. " Living in a state of servile dependence on the 
 large farmers, and having no prospect to which their hopes could 
 reasonably- look forward, their industry was checked, economy was 
 deprived of its greatest stimulation, and their only thought was to 
 enjoy the present moment." Again, at Blandford, where the same 
 consolidation of farms had been going on, Eden remarks that "its 
 effects, it is said, oblige small industrious farmers to turn labourers 
 
 1 Laurence, pp. 3, 4. 
 
 2 Staie of the Poor, ii. 30, 384. See also pamphlet by James Massie (1758) 
 quoted ibid. i. 329. 
 
The Growth of Pauperism. loi 
 
 or servants, who, seeing no opening towards advancement, become 
 regardless of futurity, spend their little wages as they receive them 
 without reserving a pension for their old age ; and, if incapacitated 
 from working by a sickness which lasts a very short time, inevit- 
 ably fall upon the parish."^ 
 
 Besides the enclosure of the common-fields, and the consolida- i 
 tion of farms, the enclosure of the commons and wastes likewise \ 
 contributed to the growth of pauperism. Arthur Young and Eden I 
 thought that commons were a cause of idleness; the labourers 
 wasted their time in gathering sticks or grubbing furze ; their pigs 
 and cows involved perpetual disputes with their neighbours, and 
 were a constant temptation to trespass.^ !N"o doubt this was true 
 where the common was large enough to support the poor without 
 other occupation. But on the other hand, where the labourer was 
 regularly employed, a small common was a great extra resource to 
 him. Arthur Young himself mentions a case at Snettisham in 
 Norfolk, where, when the waste was enclosed, the common rights 
 bad been preserved, and as a result of this, combined with the 
 increased labour due to the enclosure, the poor-rates fell from 
 Is. 6d. to Is. or 9d., while population grew from five to six hun- 
 dred. He goes on to say that enclosures had generally been carried 
 out with an utter disregard for the rights of the poor. According 
 bo Thornton, the formation of parks contributed to the general 
 result, but I know of no evidence on this head. 
 
 A further cause of pauperism, when we come to the end of the I 
 century, was the great rise in prices as compared with that intf 
 wages. In 1782 the price of corn was 53s. 9jd., which was con- 
 siderably higher than the average of the preceding fifty years ; but 
 in 1795 it had risen to 81s. 6d., and in the next year it was even 
 more. The corn average from 1795 to 1805 was 81s. 2Jd., and 
 From 1805 to 1815 97s. 6d. In 1800 and 1801 it reached the 
 maximum of 127s. and 128s. 6d., which brought us nearer to a 
 [amine than we had been since the fourteenth century. Many 
 ither articles had risen too. The taxes necessitated by the debt 
 3ontracted during the American war raised the prices of soap, 
 
 1 Stale oftlie Poor, ii. 550, 147. 
 
 ^ Ihid. i. xviii. Eden himself was in favour of enclosures, thinking that 
 ;he increased demand for regular labour consequent upon them would more than 
 jompensate the labourer, but wished each labourer to have " a garden and a 
 ittle croft " reserved. 
 
I02 The Industrial Revohition. 
 
 leather, candles, etc., by one-fifth ; butter and cheese rose IJd. a 
 pound, meat Id. And meanwhile, "what advance during the last 
 ten or twelve years," asks a writer in 1788, "has been made in 
 the wages of labourers ? Very little indeed ; in their daily labour 
 nothing at all, either in husbandry or manufactures." _Only by 
 piece-work could they obtain more in nominal wages.^ Lastly, in 
 the towns there had come the introduction of machinery, the 
 final establishment of the cash-nexus, and the beginning of great 
 fluctuations in trade. In the old days the employer maintained 
 his men when out of work, now he repudiated the responsibility ; 
 and the decline in the position of the artisan could be attributed 
 by contemporary writers to "the iniquitous oppressive practices 
 of those who have the direction of them."^ 
 
 Such seem to have been the causes of the growth of .pauperism 
 and of the degradation of the labourer ; the single effective rem edj 
 attempted was_the\TOrkhouse test, and this was abandoned in 1782. 
 But might not landlords and farmers have done something more to 
 check the downward course ? Were there no possible remedies ? 
 One cannot help thinking the problem might have been solved by 
 common justice in the matter of enclosures. Those who were most 
 in ^vour of enclosing for the sake of agricultural improvements, 
 like Eden and Young, yet held that, in place of his common field 
 and pasture rights, the labourer should have had an acre, or 
 two acres, or half an acre, as the case might be, attached to his 
 cottage. By such compensation much misery would have been 
 prevented. A more difBcult question is, whether anything could 
 have been done directly to relieve the stress^ of high prices? 
 Burke contended that nothing could be done, that there was 
 no necessary connection between wages and prices ; and he would 
 have left the evil to natural remedies.^ And, as a matter of 
 fact, in the Nortli where there was no artificial interference with 
 
 1 Hewlett, quoted in Eden, i. 380 et seq. 
 
 ^ Hewlett, toe. cit. 
 
 3 " It is not true that the rate of wages has not increased with the nominal 
 price of provisions. I allow it has not fluctuated with that price, nor ought it ; 
 and the squires of Norfolk had dined, when they gave it as their opinion, that 
 it might or it ought to rise with the market of provisions. The rate of wages 
 has in truth no direct relation to that price. Labour is a commodity like any 
 other, and rises or falls according to the demand. This is in the nature of 
 things; however, the nature of things has provided for their necessities. 
 Wages have been twice raised in my time ; and they bear a full proportion or 
 
The Growth of Pauperism. 103 
 
 wages, the development of mining and manufactures saved the 
 labourer. 
 
 In the Midlands and South, where this needful stimulus was 
 absent, the case was different; some increase in the labourer's 
 means of subsistence was absolutely necessary here, in order that 
 he might exist. It would have been dangerous to let things alone ; 
 and the true way to meet the difficulty would have been for the 
 farmers to have raised wages — a course of action which they have 
 at times adopted. But an absence alike of intelligence and 
 generosity, and the vicious working of the Poor Laws in the - 
 midland and southern counties, prevented this. The farmers 
 refused to recognise the claims alike of humanity and self- 
 interest, so the justices and country gentlemen took the matter 
 into their own hands, while the labourers threw themselves upon 
 the Poor Law, and demanded that the parish should do what the 
 farmers refused to do, and should supplement insufficient wages by 
 an allowance. This was the principle which radically vitiated the 
 old Poor Law. The farmers supported the system ; they wished 
 every man to have an allowance according to his family, and 
 declared that "high wages and free labour would overwhelm 
 them." A change had also come over the minds of the landowners 
 as to their relation to the people. In addition to unthinking and \^ 
 ignorant benevolence, we can trace the growth of a sentiment 
 which admitted an unconditional right on the part of the poor to an 
 indefinite share in the national wealth; but the right was granted 
 in such a way as to keep them in dependence and diminish their 
 self-respect. Though it was increased by the panic of the French 
 revolution, this idea of bribing the people into passiveness was not 
 absolutely new; it had prompted Gilbert's Act in 1782, which 
 abolished the workhouse test, and provided work for those who 
 were willing near their hotaes. It was this Tory Socialism,^ this 
 principle of protection of the poor by the rich, which gave birth to 
 the frequent use of the term " labouring poor," so common in the 
 
 even a greater than formerly to the medium of provision during the last bad 
 cycle of twenty yeaxs..'"— Thoughts and Details on Scarcity, Burke's Works, vol. v. 
 p. 85. 
 
 1 There has always been more practical Socialism in England than elsewhere 
 owing to our ruling landed aristocracy. The Factory Act of 1847 was carried 
 by the Conservatives in the teeth of the Radical manufacturers. [See, Are 
 Radicals Socialists ? — Ed.] 
 
1 04 The Industrial Revolution. 
 
 Statutes and in Adam Smith, an expression which Burke attacked 
 as a detestable canting phrase.^ 
 
 Th e war w ith ISTapoleon gave a new im pu lse to this pauperising^ 
 policy. Pitt and the Country gentlemen wantefsffong armies to 
 fight the French and reversed the old policy as regards checks 
 upon population. Hitherto they had exercised control over the 
 numbers of the labourers by refusing to build cottages; in 1771, 
 " an open war against cottages " had been carried on, and landlords 
 often pulled down cottages, says Arthur Young, " that they may 
 never become the nests, as they are called, of beggar brats." ^ But 
 now by giving extra allowance to large families, they put a 
 premium on early marriages, and labourers were paid according to 
 the number of their children. Further extension of the allowance 
 system came from actual panic at home. Farmers and landowners 
 were intimidated by the labourers : the landowners had themselves 
 according to Malthus at once inflamed the minds of their labourers 
 and preached to them submission.^ Rick-burning was frequent ; 
 at Swallowfield, in Wiltshire, the justices, " under the influence of 
 the panic struck by the fires, so far yielded to the importunity of 
 the farmers as to adopt the allowance-system during the winter 
 months." In 1795 some Berkshire justices "and other discreet 
 persons " issued a proclamation, which came to be considered as a 
 guide to all the magistrates of the South of England.* They 
 declared it to be their unanimous opinion that the state of the 
 poor required further assistance than had been generally given 
 them; and with this view they held it inexpedient to regulate 
 wages according to the statutes of Elizabeth and James; they 
 would earnestly recommend farmers and others to increase the pay 
 of their labourers in proportion to the present price of provisions ; 
 but if the farmers refused, they would make an allowance to every 
 
 1 Burke's Works, vol. v. p. 84. 
 
 2 Farmer' i Letters, -vol. i. p. 302. 
 
 ^ " During the late dearth half of the geutlemea and clergymen in the kingdom 
 richly deserved to have been prosecuted for sedition. After inflaming the minds 
 of the common people against the farmers and corn-dealers by the manner in 
 which they talked of them or preached about them, it was a feeble antidote to 
 the poison which they had infused, coldly to observe that however the poor 
 
 might be oppressed or cheated it was their duty to keep the peace." Malthus, 
 
 Principle 0/ Population, 7th ed. p. 438, note. 
 
 * This was the famous " Speenhamland Act of Parliament," so called because 
 the Magistrates met at Speenhamland, near Kewbury. 
 
The Growth of Pauperism. 105 
 
 poor family in proportion to its numbers. They stated what they 
 thought necessary for a man and his wife and children, which was 
 to be produced " either by his own and his family's labour or an 
 allowance from the poor-rates." ^ These were the beginnings of the 
 allowance system, which under its many forms ended in thoroughly 
 demoralising the people ; it had not been long in operation before 
 we hear the labourers described as lazy, mutinous, and imperious 
 to the overseers. When grants in aid of wages were deemed 
 insufficient, the men would go to a magistrate to complain, the 
 magistrate would appeal to the humanity of the overseer, the men 
 would add threats, and the overseer would give in. In the parish 
 of Bancliffe " a man was employed to look after the paupers, but 
 they threatened to drown him, and he was obliged to withdraw." 
 The whole character of the people was lowered by the admission 
 that they had a right to relief independent of work. 
 
 /^..^.l^'l^ Ai^Ol-^ .dd^-f -f^'-^^^ ' \ 
 
 .iX^ 
 
 ^-Lo 
 
 ft 
 
 X. 
 MALTHUS AND THE LAW OF POPULATION. 
 
 Malthua and Godwin — Malthus's two propositions — The Law of Diminishing 
 Returns certainly true — The Law of Population not universally true — 
 Henry George on Malthus — The causes of the growth of population in 
 rural districts and in towns in the Eighteenth Century — Malthus's 
 reniedies : Abolition of the Poor Law, Moral Kestraints — Actual remedies 
 since his time : Reform of the Poor Law, Emigration, Importation of Pood, 
 Moral Restraint in the middle and artisan Classes — Artificial cheeks on 
 population considered — The problem not a purely economic one. 
 
 It was during this state of things, with population rapidly 
 increasing, that Malthus wrote. Yet he was not thinking directly 
 of the Poor Law, but of Godwin, who, under the influence of Eous- 
 seau, had in his Inquirer ascribed aU human ills to human govern- 
 ment and institutions, and drawn bright pictures of what might be 
 in a reformed society. Malthus denied their possibility. Under 
 no system, he contended, could such happiness be insured ; human 
 
 ' NichoU's History oftU Poor Law, vol. ii. p. 137. 
 
io6 The Industrial Revolution. 
 
 misery was not the result of human injustice and of bad institu- 
 tions, but of an inexorable law of nature, viz., that population tends 
 to outstrip the means of subsistence. This law would in a few 
 generations counteract the effects of the best institutions that 
 human wisdom could conceive. It is remarkable that though in 
 his first edition he gave a conclusive answer to Godwin, Malthus 
 afterwards made an admission which deducted a good deal from 
 the force of his argument. To the " positive check " of misery and 
 vice, he added the " preventive check " of moral restraint, namely, 
 abstinence from marriage.^ To this Godwin made the obvious 
 reply that such a qualification virtually conceded the perfectibility 
 of society. But Malthus still thought his argument conclusive as 
 against Godwin's Communism.^ If private property was abolished, 
 he said, all inducements to moral restraint would be taken away. 
 His prophecy has, however, since his time, been refuted by the 
 experience of the communistic societies in America, which proves 
 that the absence of private property is not incompatible with moral 
 restraint.^ 
 
 Is Malthus's law really true ? We see that it rests on two 
 premisses. The first is, that the potential rate of increase of the 
 human race is such that population, if unchecked, would double 
 itself in twenty-five years ; and Malthus assumes that this rate is 
 constant in every race and at all times. His second premiss is 
 the law of diminishing returns, i.e. that after a certain stage of 
 cultivation a given piece of land will, despite any agricultural im- 
 provements, yield a less proportionate return to human labour; 
 and this law is true. Malthus did not deny that food might, for 
 a time, increase faster than population; but land could not be 
 increased, and if the area which supplied a people were restricted, 
 the total quantity of food which it produced per head must be at 
 
 1 "Throughout the whole of the present work I have so far dififered in prin- 
 ciple from the former as to suppose the action of another check to population, 
 which does not come under the head of either vice or misery ; and in the latter 
 part I have endeavoured to soften some of the harsher conclusions of the first 
 essay." — Preface to 2d edition, p. vii. Cf. Bagehot's Economic Studies, p. 137 : 
 " In its first form the Essay on Population was conclusive as an argument, but it 
 was based on untrue facts ; in its second form it was baaed on true facts, but it 
 was inconclusive as an argument." 
 
 ' Essay on Population (7th edition), pp. 271-80. 
 
 ' See Nordhoff's Communistic Societies of the t/nited States ; and Essay on 
 Population, p. 286. 
 
Malthus and the Law of Population. 107 
 
 length diminished, though this result might be long deferred. 
 Malthus himself regarded both his conclusions as equally self- 
 evident. " The first of these propositions," he says, " I considered 
 as proved the moment the American increase was related ; and the 
 second proposition as soon as it was enunciated." Why then did 
 he write so long a book ? " The chief object of my work," he goes 
 on to say, " was to inquire what effects these laws, which I con- 
 sidered as established in the first six pages, had produced, and 
 were likely to produce, on society; — a subject not very readily 
 exhausted."^ The greater part of his essay is an historical 
 examination of the growth of population and the checks on it 
 which have obtained in different ages and countries; and he 
 applies his conclusion to the administration of the Poor Laws in 
 England. 
 
 Now there are grave doubts as to the universal truth of his first 
 premiss. Some of his earlier opponents, as Doubleday, laid down 
 the proposition that fecundity varies inversely to nutriment.^ 
 Thus baldly stated their assertion is not true ; but it is an observed 
 fact, as Adam Smith noticed long ago, that the luxurious classes 
 have few children, while a " half-starved Highland woman " may 
 have a family of twenty.^ Mr. Herbert Spencer again has asserted 
 that fecundity varies inversely to nervous organisation, and this 
 statement has been accepted by Carey and Bagehot.* But it is not 
 so much the increase of brain power as the worry and exhaustion 
 of modern life which tends to bring about this result. Some 
 statistics quoted by Mr. Amasa Walker tend to prove this. He 
 has shown that in Massachusetts, while there are about 980,000 
 persons of native birth as against only 260,000 immigrants, the 
 number of births in the two classes is almost exactly the same, the 
 number of marriages double as many in the latter, as in the former, 
 and longevity less and mortality greater among the Americans. 
 Mr. Cliffe-Leslie attributes this fact to a decline in fecundity on the 
 part of American citizens. The whole question, however, is veiled 
 in great obscurity, and is rather for physiologists and biologists 
 to decide; but there do seem to be causes at work which pre- 
 
 1 Essay on Population, 491, note. 
 
 2 Doubleday's True Law of Population (1S42), p. 5. 
 
 * Wealth of Nations, bk. i. ch. viii. 
 
 * Bagehot's Economic Studies, 141 et seg. 
 
io8 The Industrial Revolution. 
 
 elude us from assuming with Malthus that the rate of increase is 
 invariable.^ 
 
 Another American writer, Mr. Henry George,^ has recently- 
 argued that Malthus was wrong and Godwin right, that poverty is 
 due to human injustice, to an unequal distribution of wealth, the 
 result of private property in land, and not to Malthus's law of the 
 increase of population or to the law of diminishing returns, both 
 of which he altogether rejects. With regard to the latter he urges 
 with truth that in certain communities, for instance California, 
 where the law of diminishing returns evidently does not come into 
 operation, the same phenomenon of pauperism appears. Now 
 against Mr. George it can be proved by facts that there are cases 
 where his contention is not true. It is noticeable that he makes 
 no reference to France, Norway, and Switzerland, — all countries of 
 peasant proprietors, and where consequently the land is not mono- 
 polised by a few. But it is certain that in all these countries, at 
 any rate in the present state of agricultural knowledge and skill, 
 the law of diminishing returns does obtain ; and it is useless to 
 argue that in these cases it is the injustice of man, and not the 
 niggardliness of nature, that is the cause of poverty, and neces- 
 sitates baneful checks on population. Still I admit that Mr. 
 George's argument is partially true, — a large portion of pauperism 
 and misery is really attributable to bad government and injustice ; 
 but this does not touch the main issue, or disprove the law of 
 ) diminishing returns. 
 
 To return to Malthus's first proposition. The phrase that 
 " population tends to outstrip the means of subsistence " is vague 
 and ambiguous. It may mean that population, if unchecked, would 
 outstrip the means of subsistence; or it may mean that population 
 does increase faster than the means of subsistence. It is quite 
 clear that, in its second sense, it is not true of England at the 
 present day. The average quantity of food consumed per head is 
 yearly greater; and capital increases more than twice as fast as' 
 population.* But the earlier writers on population invariably use 
 
 ' Sdewx of Wealth, 462-4. 
 
 2 Progress and Poverty, book ii. oh. i. These lectures were given before the 
 book had acquired general notoriety. — Ed. 
 
 8 Since 1860 the population of the United Kingdom has increased from 
 29,070,932 to 35,003,789, or 20 per cent. ; while its wealth has grown in the 
 Hame time from £5,200,000,000 to £8,420,000,000, or 62 per cent. See Mul- 
 
Malthus and the Law of Population. 109 
 
 the phrase in the latter sense, and apply it to the England of 
 their time. At the present day it can only be true in this latter 
 sense of a very few countries. It has been said to be true in the 
 case of India, but even there the assertion can only apply to 
 certain districts. Mr. George, however, is not content to refute 
 Malthus's proposition in this sense ; he denies it altogether, denies 
 the statement in the sense that population, if unchecked, would 
 outstrip the means of subsistence, and lays down as a general law 
 that there need be no fear of over-population if wealth were justly 
 distributed. The experience of countries like Norway and Switzer- 
 land, however, where over-population does exist, although the 
 distribution of wealth is tolerably even, shows that this doctrine 
 is not universally true. Another criticism of Mr. George's, how- 
 ever, is certainly good, as far as it goes. Malthus's proposition 
 was supposed to be strengthened by Darwin's theory, and Darwin 
 himself says that it was the study of Malthus's book which 
 suggested it to him ;^ but Mr. George rightly objects to the 
 analogy between man and animals and plants. It is true that 
 animals, in their struggle for existence, have a strictly limited 
 amount of subsistence, but man can, by his ingenuity and energy, 
 enormously increase his supply.^ The objection is valid, though it 
 can hardly be said to touch the main issue. 
 
 I have spoken of the rapid growth of population in the period we 
 are studying. We have to consider how Malthus accounted for it, 
 and how far his explanation is satisfactory, as well as what practical 
 conclusions he came to. In the rural districts he thought the exces- 
 sive increase was the consequence of the bad administration of the 
 Poor Laws, and of the premium which they put on early marriages. 
 This was true, but not the whole truth ; there are other points to 
 be taken into account. In the old "days the younger labourers 
 boarded in the farm-houses, and were of course single men; no 
 man could marry till there was a cottage vacant, and it was the 
 
 hall in Contemporary Beview, Dec. 1881. The consumption of tea per head 
 has increased from 2-66 lbs. to 4-66 lbs., of sugar from 34-61 lbs. to 62-33, of 
 rice from 5-94 lbs. to 14-31, and many other articles in like proportion. 
 
 1 Origin of Species (Pop. Ed.), 50. 
 
 2 " While all through the vegetable and animal kingdoms the limit of sub- 
 sistence is independent of the thing subsisted, mth man the limit of subsistence is, 
 within the final limits of earth, air, water, and sunshine, dependent upon man 
 himBell."— Progress and Poverty, book ii. o. iii. p. 117. Cf. Unto this Last 
 (.3d edition), p. 157-8. 
 
no The Industrial Revolution. 
 
 policy of the landlords in the " close villages " to destroy cottages, 
 in order to lessen the rates.^ But now the farmers had risen in 
 social position and refused to board the labourers in their houses. 
 I The ejected labourers, encouraged by the allowance system, 
 ' married recklessly,^ and though some emigrated into the towns, a 
 great evil arose. The rural population kept increasing while the 
 cottage accommodation as steadily diminished, and terrible over- 
 crowding was the result. Owing to the recklessness and demoralisa- 
 tion of the labourer the lack of cottages no longer operated as any 
 check on population.^ The change in the social habits of the farmers 
 had thus a considerable effect on the increase of rural population 
 and tended to aggravate the effects of the allowance system. 
 
 In the towns the greatest stimulus came from the extension of 
 trade due to the introduction of machinery. The artisan's horizon 
 became indistinct ; there was no visible limit to subsistence. In a 
 country like Norway, with a stationary society built up of small 
 local units, the labourer knows exactly what openings for em- 
 ployment there are in his community; and it is well known 
 that the Norwegian peasant hesitates about marriage till he is 
 sure of a position which will enable him to support a family.* 
 But in a great town, among " the unavoidable variations of manu- 
 facturing labour,"^ all these definite limits were removed. The 
 artisan could always hope that the growth of industry would afford 
 employment for any number of children — an expectation which the 
 enormously rapid growth of the woollen and cotton manufactures 
 justified to a large extent. And the great demand for children's 
 labour in towns increased a man's income in proportion to the number 
 of his family, just as the allowance system did in the country.^ 
 
 1 Eden, i. 361. — "I know several parishes, in -whioli the gi-eatest difficulty 
 the poor labour under is the impossibility of procuring habitations." 
 
 2 Commission on Labourers^ Wages (1824), p. 60. The number of cottages 
 in rural districts went on decreasing as late as 1860, but the Union ChargeabiUty 
 Act is now said to have " completely cured the practice of clearing away 
 cottages." — Evidence of Right Hon. Solater-Booth before Agricultural Commis- 
 sion of 1881. Qu. 9090. 
 
 ' Its action has not ceased, however, altogether. See Heath, English 
 Peasantry, p. 36, for an instance as late as 1872. 
 
 ■• Essay on Population, p. 129, 7th ed. s lUd. p. 315. 
 
 " Children were migrated wholesale into the towns from the country districts. 
 So in Switzerland the introduction of manufactures into some of the smaller 
 cantons, at the end of the last century, gave a great stimulus to early 
 marriages. — Ihid. p. 174. 
 
Malthus and the Law of Poptdation. 1 1 1 
 
 What remedies did Malthus propose ? The first was the aboli- 
 tion of the Poor Law ; and he was not singular in this opinion. 
 Many eminent writers of the time believed it to be intrinsically 
 bad. He suggested that at a given date it should be announced 
 that no child born after the lapse of a year should be entitled to 
 relief ; the improvident were to be left to " the punishment of 
 nature" and " the uncertain support of private charity."^ Others 
 saw that such treatment would be too hard ; that a Poor Law 
 of some sort was necessary, and that the problem was how to 
 secure to the respectable poor the means of support without 
 demoralising them. His second remedy was moral restraint, — 
 abstention from marriage till a man" had means to support a 
 family, accompanied by perfectly moral conduct during the period 
 of celibacy.^ 
 
 Let us now see what have been the actual remedies. The chief 
 is the reform of the Poor Laws in 1834, perhaps the most beneficent 
 Act of Parliament which has been passed since the Eeform Bill. 
 Its principles were (a) the application of the workhouse test and 
 the gradual abolition of out-door relief to able-bodied labourers ; 
 (6) the formation of unions of parishes to promote economy and 
 efficiency, these unions to be governed by Boards of Guardians 
 elected by the ratepayers, thus putting an end to the mischievous 
 reign of the Justices of the Peace; (c) a central Board of Poor 
 Law Commissioners, with very large powers to deal with the Boards 
 of Guardians and control their action ; (di) a new bastardy law ; (e) 
 a mitigation of the laws of settlement. The effect of the new law 
 was very remarkable. As an example, take the case of Sussex. 
 Before 1834 there were in that county over 6000 able-bodied 
 paupers; two years later there were 124.* A similar change took 
 place in almost all the rural districts, and the riots and rick-burn- 
 ing which had been so rife began to grow less frequent. Equally 
 remarkable was the effect upon the rates. In 1818 they were 
 nearly £8,000,000 in England and Wales ; in 1837 they had sunk 
 to a little over £4,000,000, and are now only £7,500,000 in spite 
 of the enormous growth of population. The number of paupers, 
 which in 1849 was 930,000, has dwindled in 1881 to 800,000, 
 though the population has meanwhile increased by more than 
 
 1 Esmy on Population, p. 430. ^ ^^''^- P- 40.3. 
 
 3 Molesworth, History of England, vol. i. p. 319. 
 
1 1 2 The Industrial Revolution. 
 
 8,000,000. Notwithstanding this improvement the Poor Laws are 
 by no means perfect, and great reforms are still needed. 
 
 Next in importance as an actual remedy we must place emi- 
 gration. Malthus despised it. He thought that " from the natural 
 unwillinguess of people to desert their native country, and the 
 difficulty of clearing and cultivating fresh soil, it never is or can 
 be adequately adopted ;" that, even if effectual for the time, the 
 relief it afforded would only be temporary, "and the disorders 
 would return with increased virulence."^ He could not of course 
 foresee the enormous development which would be given to it by 
 steam navigation, and the close connection established thereby 
 between England and America. Since 1815 eight and a quarter 
 millions of people have emigrated from the United Kingdom ; since 
 1847 three and a half millions have gone from England and Wales 
 alone ; and this large emigration has of course materially lightened 
 the labour market. Nor could Malthus any more foresee the great 
 importation of food which would take place in later times. In his 
 day England was insulated by war and the corn_laws ; now, we 
 import one half of our food, and pay for it with our manufactures. 
 
 As to moral restraint, it is very doubtful, whether it has been 
 largely operative. According to Professor Jevons, writing fifteen 
 years ago, it has been so only to a very small extent.^ Up to 
 1860 the number of marriages was rather on the increase; but if 
 among the masses, owing to cheap food, marriages have become 
 more frequent, restraint has on the other hand certainly grown 
 among the middle classes and the best of the artisan class. 
 
 I Avish to speak of one more remedy, which Malthus~hmiself re- 
 pudiated,^ namely, that of artificial checks on the number of chil- 
 dren. It has been said that such questions should only be discussed 
 " under the decent veil of a dead language." Eeticence on them is 
 necessary to wholesomeness of mind ; but we ought nevertheless 
 to face the problem, for it is a vital one. These preventive checks 
 on births excite our strong moral repugnance. Men may call such 
 repugnance prejudice, but it is perfectly logical, because it is a 
 protest against the gratification of a strong instinct while the duties 
 attaching to it are avoided. Still our moral repugnance should not 
 
 ' ore Popviation, p. 292. 
 
 2 The Goal Question, p. 170. 
 
 3 Essay on Population, pp. 266, 286, 512. 
 
Malthus and the Law of Population. 113 
 
 prevent our considering the question. Let us examine results. 
 Wliat evidence is there as to the effects of a system of artificial 
 checks ? We know that at least one European nation, the French, 
 has to some extent adopted them. Now we find that in the purely 
 rural Department of the Eure, where the population, owing pre- 
 sumably to the widespread adoption of artificial checks, is on the 
 decline, although the district is the hest cultivated in France and 
 enjoys considerable material prosperity, the general happiness 
 promised is not found. This Department comes first in statistics 
 of crime ; one-third of these crimes are indecent outrages ; another 
 third are paltry thefts ; and infanticide also is rife.^ Though this 
 is very incomplete evidence, it shows at least that you may adopt 
 these measures without obtaining the promised results. The idea 
 that a stationary and materially prosperous population will neces- 
 sarily be free from vice is unreasonable enough in itself, and there 
 is the evidence of experience against it. Indeed, one strong 
 objection to any such system is to be found in the fact that a 
 stationary population is not a healthy condition of things in regard 
 to national life; it means the removal of a great stimulus to 
 progress. One incentive to invention, in particular, is removed in 
 France by attempts to adapt population to the existing means of 
 subsistence ; for in this respect it is certainly true that the struggle 
 for existence is essential to progress. Such practices, moreover, 
 prove injurious to the children themselves. The French peasant 
 toUs ceaselessly to leave each of his children a comfortable main- 
 tenance. It would be better for them to be brought up decently, 
 and then left to struggle for their own maintenance. Much of the 
 genius and inventive power in English towns has come from the 
 rural districts with men belonging to large families, who started in 
 life impressed with the idea that they must win their own way. 
 It is wrong to consider this question from the point of view of 
 wealth alone ; we cannot overrate the importance of family life as 
 the source of all that is best in national life. Often the necessity 
 of supporting and educating a large family is a training and 
 refining influence in the lives of the parents, and the one thing 
 that makes the ordinary man conscious of his duties, and turns 
 him into a good citizen. In the last resort we may say that such 
 1 See M BaudriUart's book on Normandy, where not only moral considera- 
 tions but enlightened self-interest is invoked against the system. 
 
 H 
 
114 The Industrial Revolution. 
 
 practices are unnecessary in England at the present day. A man 
 in the superior artisan or middle classes has only to consider 
 when he will have sufficient means to rear an average number of 
 children ; that is, he need only regulate the time of his marriage. 
 Postponement of marriage, and the willing emigration of some of 
 his children when grown up, does, in his case, meet the difficulty. 
 He need not consider whether there is room in the world for 
 more, for there is room ; and, in the interests of civilisation, it is 
 not desirable that a nation with a great history and great qualities 
 should not advance in numbers. For the labouring masses, onTtSe" 
 other hand, with whom prudential motives have no weight, the 
 only true remedy is to carry out such great measures of social 
 reform as the improvement of their dwellings, better education and 
 better amusements, and thus lift them into the position now held 
 by the artisan, where moral restraints are operative. Above'all, it 
 must be remembered that this is not a purely economic problem, 
 nor is it to be solved by mechanical contrivances. To reach the 
 true solution we must tenaciously hold to a high ideal of spiritual 
 life. What the mechanical contrivances might perchance give us 
 is not what we desire for our country. The true remedies, on 
 the other hand, imply a growth towards that purer and higher 
 condition of society for which alone we care to strive. 
 
 XT. 
 THE WAGE-FUND THEOEY. 
 
 Maltlms originated the Wage-fund Theory — Mill's statement of it — Its bearing 
 on Trades-Unions — Its application to wages at a given time — Its fal- 
 lacies — Origin of the theory — Difficulty of forming a complete theory of 
 wages — Wages in a given country depend upon the total amount of pro- 
 duce, and the division of that produce — Why wages are higher in 
 America than in England — Influence of Protection and of commercial 
 "rings" on wages — Comparison of wages in England and on the Con- 
 tinent — High wages in England mainly due to efficiency of labour 
 
 Limits to a rise in wages in any particular trade — Possible efl^ects of a 
 general rise in wages — Explanation of the fall in wages between 1790 
 and 1820. 
 
 Besides originating the theory of population which bears his 
 name, Malthus was the founder of that doctrine of wages which. 
 
The Wage-Fund Theory. 1 1 5 
 
 under the name of the wage-fund theory, was accepted for fifty 
 years in England. To ascertain what the theory is we may take 
 Mill's statement of it, as given in his review of Thornton On 
 Labour in 1869. " There is supposed to be," he saysT^' at any given : 
 instant, a sum of wealth which is unconditionally devoted to the ' 
 payment of wages of labour. This sum is not regarded as unalter- 
 able, for it is augmented by saving, and increases with the progress 
 of wealth ; but it is reasoned upon as at any given moment a pre- 
 determined amount. More than that amount it is assumed that 
 the wages-receiving class cannot possibly divide among them ; that 
 amount, and no less, they cannot possibly fail to obtain. So that '■ 
 the sum to be divided being fixed, the wages of eaph depend solely 
 on the divisor, the number of participants."^ LThis theory was i 
 implicitly believed from Malthus's time to about 1870 ; \we see - 
 it accepted, for instance, in Miss Martineau's Tales. And from 
 the theory several conclusions were deduced which, owing to their 
 practical importance, it is well to put in the forefront of our inquiry 
 as to its truth. It is these conclusions which have made the theory 
 itself and the science to which it belongs an offence to the whole 
 working class. It was said in the first place that, according to 
 the wage-fund theory, Trades-Unions could not at any given time 
 effect a general rise in wages. It was, indeed, sometimes admitted 
 that in a particular trade the workmen could obtain a rise by 
 combination, but this could only be, it was alleged, at the expense 
 of workmen in other trades. If, for instance, the men in the 
 building trade got higher wages through their Union, those in the 
 iron foundries or in some other industry must suffer to an equiva- 
 lent extent. In the next place it was argued that combinations of ■ 
 workmen could not in the long-run increase the fund out of which , 
 wages were paid. Capital might be increased by saving, and, if \ 
 this saving was more rapid than the increase in the number of j 
 labourers, wages would rise, but it was denied that Unions could f 
 have any effect in forcing such an increase of saving. And hence f 
 it followed that the only real remedy for low wages was a limita-l 
 tion of the number of the labourers. The rate of wages, it was, 
 said, depended entirely on the efficacy of checks to population. \ 
 The error lay in the premisses. The old economists, it may be J 
 1 Fortnightly Beview, May 1869 : reprinted in Dissertations and Discussions, 
 vol. iv. p. 43. 
 
1 1 6 The Industrial Revolution. 
 
 observed, very seldom examined their premisses. Tor this theory- 
 assumes — (1.) That either the capital of a particular individual 
 available for the payment of wages is fixed, or, at any rate, the 
 total capital of the community so available is fixed ; and (2.) That 
 K wages are always paid out of capital^ Now it is plainly not true 
 I that a particular employer makes up his mind to spend a fixed 
 quantity of money on labour;^ the amount spent varies with a 
 number of circumstances affecting the prospect of profit on the part 
 of the capitalist, such, for instance, as the price of labour^ Take 
 the instance of a strike of agricultural labourers in Ireland, given 
 by Mr. Trench to Nassau Senior. He was employing one hundred 
 men at lOd. a day, thus spending on wages £25 a week. The men 
 struck for higher pay — a minimum of Is. 2d., and the more capable 
 men to have more. Trench offered to give the wages asked for, but 
 greatly reduced his total expenditure, as it would not pay to 
 employ so many men at the higher rate. Thus only seventeen 
 were employed; the other eighty- three objected, and it ended in 
 all going back to work at the old rate.^ The fact is, that no indi- 
 vidual has a fixed wage-fund, which it is not in his power either 
 to diminish or increase. Just as he may reduce the total amount 
 which he spends on labour, rather than pay a rate of wages which 
 seems incompatible with an adequate profit, so he may increase 
 that total amount, in order to augment the wages of his labourers, 
 by diminishing the sum he spends upon himself or by employing 
 capital which is lying idle, if he thinks that even with the higher 
 rate of wages he can secure a sufficiently remunerative return 
 upon his investment. Thus the workman may, according to 
 circumstances, get higher or lower wages than the current rate, 
 without any alteration in the quantity of employment given. 
 When wages in Dorset and Wilts were 7s.,^ the labourers, if they 
 had had sufficient intelligence and power of combination, might 
 have forced the farmers to pay them 8s. or 9s., for the latter were 
 
 1 The employer does noc say, " I will spend, so much iu wages," or "I will 
 employ so many labourers," but " I will spend so much if labour is at, say 30s., 
 and so much if it is at 20s." On the other hand, Mr. Heath's statement as to the 
 farmers in 1872 shows that men may determine to spend a fixed sum ; that they 
 would not vary it, however, he attributes to the accidental cause of " character- 
 istic obstinacy."— See Heath's English Peasantry, p. 121 ; Peasant Life, p. 348. 
 
 ^ Senior's Journals, etc., relating to Ireland, vol. ii. p. 15. 
 
 s Caird, English AgrlctiUure in 1850, p. 519. 
 
The Wage-Fund Theory. 1 1 7 
 
 making very high profits. As a matter of fact, where the work- 
 men have been strong, and the profits made by the employers large, 
 the former have often forced the employers to give higher wages. 
 
 Neither is it true that there is in the hands of the community 
 as a whole, at any given time, a fixed quantity of capital for 
 supplying the wants of the labourers, so much food, boots, hats, 
 clothes, etc., which neither employers nor workmen can increase. 
 It used to be said that a rise in money wages would simply mean 
 that the price of all the commodities purchased by the labourers 
 would rise proportionately, owing to the increase of demand, and 
 that their real wages, i.e. the number of things they could purchase 
 with their money, would be no greater than before. But, as a 
 matter of fact, the supply can be increased as fast as the demand. 
 It is true that between two harvests the available quantity of corn 
 is fixed, but that of most other commodities can be increased at a 
 short notice. Por commodities are not stored up for consumption 
 in great masses, but are being continually produced as the demand 
 for them arises. 
 
 So far I have been speaking of the theory as applied to wages , 
 at a particular time. Now, what did it further imply of wages in 
 the long-run ? According to Eicardo's law, which has been adopted 
 by Lassalle and the Socialists, wages depend on the ratio between 
 population and capital. Capital may be gradually increased by 
 saving, and population may be gradually diminished ; but Eicardo 
 thought that the condition of the labourer was surely on the 
 decline, because population was advancing faster than capital. 
 While admitting occasionally that there had been changes in the! 
 standard of comfort, he yet disregarded these in his general theory, 
 and assumed that the standard was fixed; that an increase ofj 
 wages would lead to an increase of population, and that wages 
 would thus fall again to their old rate, or even lower. The amount 
 of corn consumed by the labourer would not diminish, but that of 
 aU other commodities would decline.^ Later economists have 
 qualified this statement of the supposed law. Mill showed thatl 
 the standard of comfort was not fixed, but might vary indefinitely.i ' 
 This being the case, the labourer might sink even lower than Eicardo 
 supposed possible, for population might increase till the labourer 
 had not only less of everything else, but was forced down to a 
 1 Ricardo (M'OuUoch's edition, 1881), pp. 54-5. 
 
1 1 8 The Industrial Revohttion 
 
 lower staple of life than corn, for instance, potatoes. And this 
 has, as a matter of fact, taken place in some countries. But, 
 on the other hand, the standard might rise, as it has risen in 
 England ; and Mill thought that it would rise yet more. At first 
 this was his only hope for the working classes.'' At a later period 
 he trusted that the labourer, by means of co-operation, might 
 become more and more self- employing, and so obtain both profits 
 and wages. 
 
 r It is interesting to inquire how this wage-fund theory grew up. 
 
 ' [ Why was it held that employers could not give higher real wages ? 
 
 Its origin is easy to understand. When Malthuswrote_ his essay 
 
 on population, there had been a series of bad harvests, and in those 
 
 days but small supplies of corn could be obtained from abroad. 
 
 Thus year after year there seemed to be a fixed quantity^f food in 
 
 1 the country and increasing numbers requiring food, (population 
 
 j was growing faster than subsistence, and increased money wages 
 
 jj could not increase the quantity of food that was to be had. " Thus 
 
 in 1800, when corn was 127s. the quarter, it was clear that the 
 
 rich could not help the poor by giving them higher wages, for this 
 
 would simply have raised the price of the fixed quantity of com. 
 
 Malthus assumed that the amount of food was practically fixed ; 
 
 therefore, unless population diminished, as years went on, wages 
 
 would fall, because worse soils would be cultivated and there would 
 
 be increased difficulty in obtaining food.^ 'But the period he had 
 
 before his eyes was quite exceptional; after the peace, good 
 
 harvests came and plenty of corn ; food grew cheaper, though 
 
 population advanced at the same rate. So that the theory in this 
 
 Tshape was true only of the twenty years from 1795 to 1815. I But, 
 
 when it had once been said that wages depended on the proportion 
 
 between population and food, it was easy to substitute capital for 
 
 I food and say that they depended on the proportion between 
 
 / population and capital, food and capital being wrongly identified.^ 
 
 1 See in the earlier editions the chapter ou the Probable Future of the 
 Labouring Classes in his Political Economy, Bk. iv. c. vii. 
 
 2 Essay on Population, vol. ii. pp. 64, 71, 76 (6th ed.). Id reality the agri- 
 onltural produce of the country was increased by one-fourth between 1803 and 
 1813. See Porter, p. 149. 
 
 3 See Malthus's letter to Godwin in Kegan Paul's Life of Oodwin, vol. i. p. 
 322 : Essay ore Population, vol, ii. pp. 93, 94 ; James Mill's Elements of Political 
 Economy, ch. il. p. 29 (1821). 
 
The Wage- Fund Theory. 1 1 9 
 
 Then when the identification was forgotten, it was supposed that 
 there is at any given moment a fixed quantity of wage-capital — 
 food, boots, hats, furniture, clothes, etc. — destined for the pay- 
 ment of wages, which neither employers nor workmen can dimi- 
 nish or increase, and thus the rate of wages came to be regarded 
 as regulated by a natural law, independent of the will of either 
 party .^ 
 
 We have already seen that this theory is false ; we have now 
 to substitute , for it some truer theory, and explain thereby the 
 actual phenomena of the labour market, such, for instance, as the 
 fact that wages at Chicago or New York are twice as high as they 
 are in England, while the prices of the necessaries of life are lower. 
 Though modern economists have pointed out the fallacies of the 
 old wage-fund theory, no economist has yet succeeded in giving us 
 a complete theory of wages in its place. I believe indeed that 
 so complicated a set of conditions as are involved cannot be 
 explained by any one formula, and that the attempt to do so 
 leads to fallacies. Yet I am also aware that the public seem to 
 feel themselves aggrieved that economists will not now provide 
 them with another convenient set phrase in place of the wage-fund 
 theory, and are inclined to doubt the validity of their explanations 
 in consequence. Now, wages in a given country depend on. two 
 things : the total, amount of produce in the country, and the 
 manner in which that produce is divided. To work out the former 
 problem we must investigate all the causes which affect the whole 
 amount of wealth produced, the natural resources of the country, 
 its political institutions, the skill, intelligence, and inventive 
 genius of its inhabitants. The division of the produce, on the 
 other hand, is determined mainly by the proportion between the 
 number of labourers seeking employment and the quantity of 
 capital seeking investment; or, to put the case in a somewhat 
 diflFerent way, instead of saying that wages are paid out of stored- 
 up capital, we now say that they are the labourer's share of the 
 produce.^ "What the labourer's share wiU be depends first on the 
 quantity of produce he can turn out, and secondly, on the nature. 
 
 1 Mill's PoUtkal Economy (1st edition), vol. i. p. 475. 
 
 2 This solution was first given by Mr. Cliffe-Leslie in an Article on "Political 
 Economy and Emigration" in Eraser's Magazine, May 1868; but its full 
 bearing was first sliown by Mr. Walker in his books on the Wage Question. 
 
1 20 The Industrial Revolution. 
 
 of the bargain which he is able to make with his employer. We 
 are now in a position to explain the question put above, why wages 
 in America are double what they are in England. An American 
 ironmaster, if asked to give a reason for the high wages he pays, 
 would say, that the land determines the rate of wages in America, 
 |iecause under the Free Homestead Law, any man can get a piece 
 of land" for a nominal sum, and no puddler will work for less than 
 he can get by working on this land.'- Now, in the Western States 
 the soil is very fertile, and though the average yield is lower than 
 in Wiltshire, the return in proportion to the labour expended is 
 greater. Moreover, labour being scarce, the workman has to be 
 humoured ; he is in a favourable position in making his bargain 
 with the employer, and obtains a large share x)f the produce. Thus 
 agricultural wages are very high, and this explains also the cause 
 of high wages in the American iron-trade and other American 
 industries. In consequence of these high wages the manufacturer 
 is obliged to make large use of machinery, and much of our English 
 machinery, e.g. that of the Leicester boot and shoe trade, has been 
 invented in America. Now, better machinery makes labour 
 more efficient and the produce per head of the labourers greater. 
 Further, according to the testimony of capitalists, the workmen 
 work harder in America than in England, because they work with 
 hope ; they have before them the prospect of rising in the world 
 by their accumulations. Thus it is that the produce of American 
 manufactures is great, and allows of the labourer obtaining a large 
 share. High wages in America are therefore explained by the 
 quantity of produce the labourer turns out being great and by the 
 action of competition being in his favour. 
 
 There are, however, other causes influencing the rate of wages 
 in America which are less favourable to the workmen. Protection, 
 for instance, diminishes real wages by enhancing the cost of many 
 articles in common use, such as cutlery. It is owing to Protection 
 also that capitalists are able to obtain exceptionally high profits at 
 the expense of the workmen. By combining and forming rings 
 , they can govern the market, and not only control prices but dictate 
 
 1 Tradea-Union Commission (1867), Qu. 3770 (Report II. p. 3). A. S. Hewitt, 
 ironmaster, said " the rate of -wages is regulated substantially in our country (U. S.) 
 by the profits -which a man can get out of the soil which has cost him little or 
 nothing except the labour -which he himself and his family have put upon it." 
 
The Wage-Ftind Theory. 121 
 
 .' the rate of wages. Six or seven years ago, the whole output of 
 Pennsylvanian anthracite was in the hands of a few companies. 
 Hence it was that, in the Labour War of 1877, the workmen 
 declared that, while they did not mind wages being fixed by com- 
 petition, they would not endure their being fixed by rings, and that 
 such rings would produce a revolution. And the monopoly of 
 these companies was only broken through by a great migration of 
 workmen to the West. The experience of America in this instance 
 is of interest in showing how, as industry advances, trade tends to 
 get concentrated into fewer hands; hence the danger of mono- 
 polies. It has even been asserted that Free Trade must lead 
 to great natural monopolies. This may be true of a country 
 like America which has internal but not external free trade, 
 but only of such a country; for foreign competition would pre- 
 vent a knot of capitalists from ever obtaining full control of the 
 market. 
 
 I have shown why wages are higher in America than in Eng- 
 land. We may go on to inquire why they are higher in England 
 than in any other part of Europe.' The great reason is that the 
 total amount of wealth produced in this country is larger, and that 
 from a variety of causes, material and moral. The chief material 
 causes are our Unrivalled stores of coal and iron, and perhaps, above 
 all, our geographical position. On the moral side, our political 
 institutions, being favourable to liberty, have developed individual 
 energy and industry in a degree unknown in any other country. On 
 the other hand, it has been said that the exclusion of the labourer 
 from the land in England must have tended to lower wages. And 
 no doubt the adoption of a system of large farms has driven the 
 labourers into the towns, and made the competition for employ- 
 ment there very keen. But, to set against this, the efficiency of 
 English manufacturing labour is largely due to this very fact, that 
 it is not able to shift on to the land. While in America the whole 
 staff of a cotton factory may be changed in three years, in England 
 the artisan " sticks to his trade," and brings up his children to it ; 
 and thus castes are formed with inherited aptitudes, which render 
 labour more efficient, and its produce greater. I believe the higher 
 wages obtained in England, in comparison with the Continent, are 
 mainly due to greater efficiency of labour, — that this is the chief 
 cause why the total produce is greater. But if we go further, and 
 
1 2 2 The Industrial Revolution. 
 
 ask what determines the division of the produce, the answer must 
 be: mainly competition. To return to the comparison with 
 America, the reason why the English labourer gets lower wages 
 than the American is the great competition for employment in the 
 over-stocked labour-market of this country. 
 
 I must notice an objection to the theory of wages as stated 
 above. "Wages, I have explained, are the labourers' share of the 
 produce, and are paid out of it. But, it may be said, while oiu- 
 new Law Courts, or an ironclad, are being built — operations which 
 take a long time before there is any completed result- — how can it 
 be correctly held that the labourer is paid out of the produce ? It 
 is of course perfectly true that he is maintained during such 
 labours only by the produce of others ; and that unless some great 
 capitalist had either accumulated capital, or borrowed it, the 
 labourer could not be paid. But this has nothing to do with the 
 rate of wages. That is determined by the amount of the pro- 
 duce and is independent of the method of payment. What the 
 capitalist does is merely to pay in advance the labourer's share, as 
 a matter of convenience. 
 
 We will next inquire what are the limits to a rise of wages 
 in any particular trade? The answer depends on two things. 
 First, Is the capitalist getting more than the ordinary rate of 
 profits ? If he is not, he will resist a rise on the ground that he 
 " cannot afford" to pay more wages. This is what an arbitrator, for 
 instance, might say if he examined the books, and he would mean 
 by it that, if the employer had to raise his wages, he would have to 
 be content with lower profits than he could make in other trades. 
 As a matter of fact, however, capitalists often do make exception- 
 ally high profits, and it is in such cases that Trades-Unions have 
 been very successful in forcing them to share these exceptional 
 profits with their men. Secondly, though the employer be getting 
 only ordinary profits, his workmen may still be strong enough to 
 force him to give higher wages, but he will only do so permanently 
 if he can compensate himself by raising the price of his commodity. 
 Thus the second limit to a rise in wages in a particular trade is the 
 amount which the consumer can be forced to pay for its products. 
 Workmen have often made mistakes by not taking this into 
 account, and have checked the demand for the articles which they 
 produced, and so brought about a loss both to their masters and 
 
The Wage- Fund Theory. 123 
 
 themselves.^ In a particular trade then the limit to a rise in wages 
 is reached when any further rise will drive the employer out of 
 the trade, or when the increased price of the commodity will check 
 the demand. When dealing with the general trade of a country, 
 however, we can neglect prices altogether, since there can be no 
 such thing as a general rise in prices while the value of the 
 prec i ou s mat a J s is stationary. Could, then, the whole body of 
 the workmen throughout the kingdom, by good organisation, com- 
 pel employers to accept lower profits? If there was a general 
 strike, would it be the interest of the employers to give way ? It 
 is impossible to answer such a question beforehand. It would be 
 a sheer trial of strength between the two parties, the outcome of 
 which cannot be predicted, for nothing of the kind has ever 
 actually taken place. And though there is now a nearer approxi- 
 mation than ever before to the supposed conditions, there has as 
 yet been nothing lUie a general organisation of workmen. 
 
 Assuming, however, that the workmen succeeded in such a 
 strike, we can then ask what would be the effect of a general rise 
 of wages in the long-run ? One of several results might ensue. 
 The remuneration of employers having declined, their numbers 
 might diminish, and the demand for labour would then diminish 
 also and wages fall. Or again the decline in the rate of interest 
 might check the accumulation of capital, thus again diminishing 
 the demand for labour. Or, on the other hand, the rise in wages 
 might be permanent, the remuneration of employers still proving 
 sufficient, and the accumulation of capital remaining unchecked. 
 Or lastly, higher wages might lead to gTeater efficiency of labour, 
 and in this case profits would not fall. It is impossible to decide 
 on db priori grounds which of these results would actually take 
 place. 
 
 Eeturning to our period, we may apply these principles to 
 explain the fall in wages between 1790 and 1820. During this 
 period, while rent was doubled, interest also was nearly doubled (this 
 by the way disproves Mr. George's theory on that point),^ and yet 
 wages fell. We may take Mr. Porter's estimate. " In some few 
 
 ' M.g., in the horse-nail trade wages advanced 50 per cent, between 1850 
 and 1864, but since then " horse-nail workmen during some time have not had 
 half- work, their wages also deoliuing." — Timmins, p. 116. 
 
 ^ Progress and Poverty, book iii. ch. vii. p. 197. 
 
124 The Industrial Revolution. 
 
 cases there had been an advance of wages, but this occurred only to 
 skilled artisans, and even with them the rise was wholly incom- 
 mensurate with the increased cost of all the necessaries of life. 
 The mere labourer ... did not participate in this partial com- 
 pensation for high prices, but was ... at the same or nearly the 
 same wages as had been given before the war." In 1790 the 
 weekly wage of skilled artisans and farm labourers respectively 
 would buy 82 and 169 pints of corn; in 1800 they would buy 53 
 and 83.^ /^According to Mr. Barton, a contemporary writer, wages 
 between n60 and 1820, "estimated in money, had risen 100 per 
 cent. ; estimated in dommodities, they had fallen 33 per cent." ^ 
 What were the causes of this fall? Let us first take the case of 
 the artisans and manufacturing labourers. One cause in their case 
 was a series of bad harvest^) To explain how this would affect 
 wages m manufactures we must fall back on the deductive method, 
 and assume certain conditions from which to draw bur conclusions. 
 Let us suppose two villages side by side, one agricultural, the other 
 manufacturing, in the former of which the land is owned by land- 
 owners, and tilled by labour employed by farmers. Suppose tlie 
 manufacturing village to be fed by its neighbours in exchange for 
 cutlery. Then, if there is a bad harvest in the agricultural village, 
 every labourer in the manufacturing village will have to spend 
 more on corn. The owners of land will gain enormously; the 
 farmers will be enriched in so far as they can retain the increased 
 prices for themselves, which they wiU do, if holding on leases. 
 But every one else will be poorer, for there has been a loss of 
 wealth. In order to get his corn, the labourer will have to give 
 more of his share of the produce ; and hence the demand for all 
 other goods, which are produced for the labourers' consumption, 
 will diminish. Nothing affects the labourer so much as good or bad 
 harvests, and it is because of its tendency to neutralise the conse- 
 quences of deficient crops at home, that the labourer has gained so 
 much by Tree Trade. When we have a bad harvest here, we get 
 plenty of corn from America, and the labourer pays nearly the 
 
 1 Progress of the Nation, 1847, p. 478. 
 
 2 Inquiry into the Depreciation of Agricultural Labour, by J. Barton (1820), 
 p. 11. At Bury, in Suffolk, a labourer in 1801 remembered when wages were 
 5s. ; in order to buy aa much iu 1801 as their 5s, would have bought at the 
 earlier date, they should have been ^1, 6s. 5d. ; they actually were 9s. plus 6s. 
 from the rates, or altogether 15s. 
 
The Wage-Ftmd Theory. 125 
 
 same price for his loaf, and has as much money as before left to 
 spend on other commodities. Still, even at the present day, some 
 depression of trade is generally associated with bad harvests. And 
 though Free Trade lessens the force of their incidence on a par- 
 ticular locality, it widens the area affected by them — a bad harvest 
 in Brazil may prejudice trade in England. 
 
 f The next point to be taken into consideration is the huge taxa-i 
 tion which fell upon the workmen at this time ; even as late as| '^ 
 1834 half the labourers' wages went in taxesy There was also 
 increase in the National Debt. During the war we had nominally 
 borrowed £600,000,000, although owing to the way in which the 
 loans were raised, the actual sum which came into the national 
 exchequer was only £350,000,000. All this capital was with- 
 drawn from productive industry, and the demand for labour was 
 diminished to that extent. Lastly, the labourer was often actually 
 paid in bad coin, quantities of which were bought by the manu- 
 facturers for the purpose ; and he was robbed by the truck system, 
 through which the employer became a retail trader, with power to 
 over-price his goods to an indefinite extent. 
 
 Some of these causes affected the agricultural and manufacturing 
 labourers alike ; they suffered, of course, equally from bad harvests. 
 But we have seen in former lectures that there were agrarian and 
 social changes during this period, which told upon the agricultural 
 labourer exclusively. The enclosures took away his common rights, 
 and where the land, before enclosure, had been already in cultiva- 
 tion, they diminished the demand for his labour, besides depriving 
 him of the hope of becoming himself a farmer, and, to mention a 
 seemiugly small but really serious loss, cutting off his supply of milk, 
 which had been provided by the "little people" who kept cows on the 
 commons. He was further affected by the enormous rise in cot- 
 tage rents. Mr. Drummond, a Surrey magistrate, told the Commis- 
 sion on Labourers' "Wages ia 1824, that he remembered cottages 
 with good gardens letting for 30s. before the war, while at the 
 time when he was speaking the same were fetching £5, £7, or £10. 
 This rise was due to causes we have before had in review, to 
 the growth of population, the expulsion of servants from the farm- 
 houses, and the demolition of. cottages in close villages. When 
 the labourers, to meet the deficiency, built cottages for themselves 
 on the wastes, the farmers pulled them down, and, if the labourers 
 
1 26 The Industrial Revolution. 
 
 rebuilt them, refused to employ them, with the result that sucl 
 labourers became thieves and poachers.^ "Again, during this period 
 it was not uncommon for the farmers absolutely to determine whal 
 wages should be paid, and the men in their ignorance were entirelj 
 dependent on them. Here are two facts to prove their subservience, 
 In one instance, two pauper families who had cost their parish nc 
 less than £20 a year each, were given instead an acre of land rent 
 free, and the rates were relieved to that amount ; but though suc- 
 cessful, the experiment was discontinued, " lest the labourer should 
 become independent of the farmer." ^ And this is the statement oi 
 an Essex farmer in 1793 : "I was the more desirous to give them 
 an increase of pay, as it was unasked for by the men, who were 
 content with less than they had a right to expect." The agricul- 
 tural labourer at this time was in an entirely helpless condition in 
 bargaining with his employer. Nor were the farmers the only class 
 who profited by his deterioration ; for the high rents of the time 
 were often paid out of the pocket of the labourer. The period was 
 one of costly wars, bad seasons, and industrial changes. The mis- 
 fortunes of the labouring classes were partly inevitable, but they 
 were also largely the result of human injustice, of the selfish and 
 grasping use made of a power which exceptional circumstances had 
 placed in the hands of landowners, farmers, and capitalists 
 
 XII. 
 EICAEDO AND THE GEOWTH OF EENT. 
 
 Influence of Ricardo on economic method — His public life — His relation tc 
 Bentham and James Mill — Eioardo supreme in English Economics from 
 1817 to 1848 — His Law of Industrial Progress — His influence on finance 
 and on general legislation — The effect of the idea of natural law in his 
 treatise — The Socialists disciples of Bicardo — Assumptions on which he 
 grounds his theory of the constant rise in rents — His correct analysis of the 
 cause of Kent — Rent not the cause, but the result of price — Explanation oi 
 rise in rents between 1790 and 18.30 — Rise of rents in towns — Proposal to 
 appropriate rent to the State. * 
 
 In Political Economy, as in other sciences, a careful study of 
 method is an absolute necessity. And this subject of method will 
 
 1 Gommittee on Labourers' Wages (1824), p. 47. ^ /j^^_ -^ 4g_ 
 
Ricardo and the Growth of Rent. 127 
 
 come into special prominence in the present lecture, because we 
 have now to consider the writings of a man of extraordinary 
 intellect and force, who, beyond any other thinker, has left the 
 impress of his mind on economic method. Yet even he would 
 have been saved from several fallacies, if he had paid more careful 
 attention to the necessary limitations of the method which he 
 employed. It may be truly said that David Eicardo has produced 
 a greater effect even than Adam Smith on the actual practice of 
 men as well as on the theoretical consideration of social problems. 
 His book has been at once the great prop of the middle classes, 
 and their most terrible menace ; the latter, because from it have 
 directly sprung two great text-books of Socialism, Bas Ka^pital of 
 Karl Marx, and the Progress and Poverty of -Mr. Henry George. 
 And yet for thirty or forty years Eicardo's writings did more than 
 those of any other author to justify in the eyes of men the exist- 
 ing state of society. 
 
 Eicardo's life has little in it of external interest. He made his 
 fortune on the Stock Exchange by means of his great financial 
 abilities, and then retired and devoted himself to literature. During 
 the few years that he sat in Parliament, he worked (we have it on 
 Huskisson's testimony) a great change in the opinions of legisla- 
 tors, even in those of the country squires — a remarkable fact, 
 since his speeches are highly abstract, and contain few allusions 
 to current politics, reading in fact like chapters from his book. 
 We may notice one direct effect of his speeches : they were the 
 most powerful influence in determining the resumption of cash 
 payments. In his private life he associated much with Bentham 
 and James MiU. , 
 
 James Mill, like Bentham and Austin, was a staunch adherent 
 of the deductive method, and it was partly through Mill's influence 
 that Eicardo adopted it. Mill, was his greatest friend; it was he 
 who persuaded him both to go into Parliament, and to publish 
 his great book. Eicardo's political opinions in fact merely reflect 
 those of James Mill, and the other philosophical Eadicals of the 
 time, though in Political Economy he was their teacher. Eicardo 
 reigned without dispute in English Economics from 1817 to 1848, 
 and though his supremacy has since then been often challenged, 
 it is by no means entirely overthrown. His influence was such 
 that his method became the accepted method of economists ; and 
 
128 The Industrial Revolution. 
 
 to understand how great the influence of method may be, you shoul( 
 turn from his writings and those of his followers to Adam Smitl 
 or to Sir Henry Maine, where you come in contact with anothe 
 cast of mind, and will find yourselves in a completely differen 
 mental atmosphere. Now what is this deductive method whicl 
 Eicardo employed ? It consists in reasoning from one or twi 
 extremely simple propositions down to a series of new laws. B 
 always employed this method, taking as his great postulate tha 
 all men will on all matters follow their own interests. The defec 
 of the assumption lies in its too great simplicity as a theory o 
 human nature. Men do not always know their own interest 
 Bagehot points out that the £10 householders, who were enfran 
 chised by the first Eeform Bill, were after 1832 the most heavil; 
 taxed class in the community, though the remedy was in thei 
 own hands ; because they were ignorant and apathetic. And evei 
 when men know their interests, they will not always follow them 
 other influences intervene, custom, prejudice, even fear. Cairnei 
 frankly admits these defects in Eicardo's method;^ but it tool 
 economises some thirty or forty years to learn the necessity o 
 testing their conclusions by facts and observation.^ Since 184i 
 their attitude has improved ; it is now seen that we must insis 
 upon the verification of our premisses, and examine our deduction 
 by the light of history. 
 
 Eicardo has deduced from very simple data a famous law o 
 
 / industrial progress. In an advancing community, he says, ren 
 
 I must rise, profits fall, and wages remain about the same.* Wi 
 
 shall find from actual facts that this law has been often true, am 
 
 \ is capable of legitimate application, though Mr. Cliffe Leslie wouh 
 
 I repudiate it altogether ; but it cannot be accepted as a universa 
 
 \,law. The historical method, on the other hand, is impotent o 
 
 itself to give us a law of progress, bdCause so many of the fact 
 
 on which it reUes are, in Economics, concealed from us. By th 
 
 historical method we mean the actual observation of the course o 
 
 economic history, and the deduction from it of laws of economi 
 
 progress; and this method, while most useful in checking th 
 
 * 
 
 1 Logical Method of Political Economy, p. 42, 2d ed. 1875. 
 
 2 This was first pointed out in a review of Mill's Principles in Fraser 
 Magazine for 1848. 
 
 3 Works (M'CuUooh's edition, 1876), pp. 54, 55, 375. 
 
Ricardo and the Growth of Rent. 129 
 
 results of deduction is, by itself, full of danger from its tendency to 
 set up imperfect generalisations. Sir H. Maine and M. Laveleye 
 for instance, have taken an historical survey of land-tenure, and 
 drawn from it the conclusion that the movement of property in 
 land is always from collective to individual ownership ; and Mr. 
 Ingram,^ again, alluding to this law, accepts it as true that there 
 is a natural tendency towards private property ia land. He can 
 buUd his argument on the universal practice from Java to the 
 Shetlands, and it would seem a legitimate co/uclusion that the 
 tendency will be constant. Yet there is at the present day a 
 distinct movement towards replacing private by collective owner- 
 ship, due to the gradual change in the opinions of men as to the 
 basis on which property in land should rest. Mill, in 1848, argued 
 that where the cidtivator was not also the owner, there was no 
 justification for private ownership ; later in his life, he advocated 
 the confiscation of the unearned increment in land.^ If we ask, 
 Was he right ? — the answer must be : Every single institution of 
 society is brought to the test of -utility and general national well- 
 being ; hence, private property in land, if it fails under this test, 
 will not continue. So too with the rate of interest : older econo- 
 mists have insisted on the necessity of a certain rate, in order to 
 encourage the accumulation of capital; but we may fairly ask 
 whether the rate of remuneration for the use of capital is not too 
 high — whether we could not obtain sufficient capital on easier 
 terms ? These considerations show that, in predicting the actual 
 course of industrial progress, we must not be content to say that 
 because there has been a movement in a certain direction in the 
 past — for example, one from status to contract-^it wiU therefore 
 continue in the future. We must always apply the test. Does it 
 fit in with the urgent present requirements of human nature ? 
 
 Eicardo's influence on legislation, to which I have already 
 alluded, was twofold ; it bore directly upon the special subject of 
 currency and finance; and, what is more remarkable, it affected 
 legislation in general. As regards finance, his pamphlets are the 
 real justification of our monetary system, and are stiU read by all 
 who would master the principles of currency. With respect to 
 
 1 The. Present Position and Prospects of Political Economy, p. 22. 
 
 2 See the papers of the Land Tenure Keform Association, in Dissertations and 
 Discussions, vol. iv. 
 
 I 
 
1 30 The Industrial Revolution. 
 
 other legislation, he and his friends have the great credit ol 
 having helped to remove not merely restrictions on trade ir 
 general, but those in particular which bore hardest on the labourer 
 When Joseph Hume, in 1824, proposed the repeal of the Com- 
 bination Laws, he said he had been moved thereto by Eicardo 
 But though Eicardo advocated the removal of restrictions whicli 
 injured the labourer, he deprecated all restrictions in his favour 
 he ridiculed the Truck Acts, and supported the opposition of the 
 manufacturers to the Factory Acts — an opposition which, be i1 
 remembered, though prompted by mere class interest, was alsc 
 supported in the name and on the then accepted principles oJ 
 economic science. 
 
 In this way Eicardo became the prop, as I have called him, ol 
 the middle classes. Throughout his treatise there ran the idea oi 
 natural law, which seemed to carry with it a sort of justificatior 
 of the existing constitution of society as inevitable. Hence hi£ 
 doctrines have proved the readiest weapons wherewith to combal 
 legislative interference or any proposals to modify existing insti- 
 tutions. Hence, too, his actual conclusions, although gloomy anc 
 depressing, were accepted without question by most of his con- 
 temporaries. Another school, however, has grown up, accepting 
 his conclusions as true under existing social conditions, but seeing 
 through the fallacy of his " natural law." These are the Socialists 
 through whom Eicardo has become a terror to the middle classes 
 The Socialists believe that, by altering the social conditions whicl 
 he assumed to be unalterable, Eicardo's conclusions can be escaped 
 Karl Marx and Lassalle have adopted Eicardo's law of wages ; bu! 
 they have argued that, since by this law wages, under our presen 
 social institutions, can never be more than sufficient for the bar( 
 subsistence of the labourer, we are bound to reconsider the whoL 
 foundation of society. Marx also simply accepts Eicardo's theori 
 I of value. The value of products, said Eicardo, is determined b 
 the quantity of the labour expended on them ; and Marx uses thii 
 statement to deduce the theorem that the whole value of the pro 
 duce rightly belongs to labour, and that by having to share thi 
 produce with capital the labourer is robbed. 
 
 I Mr. Henry George, again, the latest Socialist writer, is purel; 
 ' and entirely a disciple of Eicardo. The whole aim of his treatise 
 ' Progress and Poverty, is to prove that rent must rise as societ' 
 
Ricardo and the Growth of Rent. 1 3 1 
 
 advances and wealth increases.^ It is not the labourer, Eicardo 
 reasoned, who will be richer for this progress, nor the capitalist,, 
 but the owner of land. Mr. George's theory of progress is the 
 same. Putting aside his attempt to show a connection between 
 the laws of interest and wages, which he contends will rise and 
 fall together, there is little difference between his conclusions and 
 Eicardo's. Others before Mr. George had clearly enough seen this 
 bearing of the law of rent. Eoesler, the German economist, says : 
 " Political Economy would only be a theory of human degradation 
 and impoverishment, if the law of rent worked without modifica- 
 tion." ^ 
 
 Now let ns see what are the assumptions on which Eicardo 
 grounded his law about the course of rent, wages, and profits in a 
 progressive community. The pressure of population, he argued, 
 makes men resort to inferior soils ; hence the cost of agricultural 
 produce increases, and therefore rent rises. But why will profits 
 fall ? Because they depend upon the cost of labour,^ and the main 
 element in determining this is the cost of the commodities con- 
 sumed by the workmen. Eicardo assumes that the standard of 
 comfort is fixed. If, therefore, the cost of a quartern loaf increases, 
 and the labourer is to obtain the same number of them, his wages 
 must rise, and profits therefore must fall. Lastly, why should 
 wages remain stationary ? Because, assuming that the labourer's 
 standard of comfort is fixed, a rise of wages or a fall in prices will 
 only lead to a proportionate increase of population. The history 
 of the theory of rent is very interesting, but it is out of our road, 
 so I can only lightly touch upon it. Adam Smith had no clear or 
 consistent theory at all on the subject, and no distinct views as to 
 the relation between rent and price. The modern doctrine is first 
 found in a pamphlet by a practical farmer named James Anderson, 
 published in 1777, the year after the appearance of The Wealth of 
 Nations ;* but it attracted little attention till it was simultaneously 
 
 1 We find almost exactly the same theoretical conclusions drawn from 
 Eicardo's premisses by Professor Cairnes. See his Leading Principles of Political 
 Economy (p. 333), published in 1864. Of course he does not also draw the same 
 
 -socialistic conclusions as Mr. George. 
 
 2 Roesler, Grundsatze, p. 210, quoted in Kosoher's Grundlarjen, p. 352. 
 
 3 That is, accepting Mill's correction of Ricardo's theory. — See his Political 
 Economy, vol. i. p. 493 (1st ed. 1848). 
 
 * Inquiry into the Nature of the Corn Laws (Edinburgh, 1777). 
 
132 The Industrial Revolution. 
 
 re-stated by Sir Edward West, and by Ma] thus in his pamphlet on 
 the Corn Laws.^ Had the theory, however, been left in the shape 
 in which they stated it, it would have had little influence. It was 
 Eicardo, who, puzzled by the question of rent, snatched at the 
 theory, and gave it currency by embodying it in his whole doctrine 
 of value and of economic development. 
 
 J Eicardo's two great positive conclusions are : first, that the 
 \ main cause of rent is the necessity of cultivating inferior soil as 
 ; civilisation advances ; and secondly, that rent is not the cause but 
 I the result of price.^ The theory has been disputed and criticised, 
 but nearly all the objections have come from persons who have not 
 understood it. We may say conclusively that, as a theory of the 
 causes of rent, apart from that general doctrine of industrial develop- 
 ment of which in Eicardo it forms a part, the theory is true. The 
 one formidable objection which can be urged against it is, that 
 the rise in rents in modern times has been due not so much to 
 the necessity of resorting to inferior soils, as to improvements in 
 agriculture ; but when Professor Thorold Eogers * attacks the theory 
 on this ground,. he merely proves that Eicardo has overlooked some 
 important causes which have led to an increase of rents since the 
 Middle Ages. 
 
 I What, then, are we justified in stating to be the ultimate causes 
 of rent ? First, the fertility of the soil and the skill of the cultiva- 
 tor, by which he is able to raise a larger produce than is necessary 
 for his own subsistence ; this makes rent physically possible. Next, 
 the fact that land is limited in quantity and quality ; that is, that 
 the supply of the land most desirable from its situation and fertility 
 is less than the demand : this allows of rent being exacted.* The 
 early colonists in America paid no rent, because there was an abund- 
 
 ^ Essay on the Application of Capital to Land, by a FeUow of University 
 College, Oxford (1815) ; Observations on the Effect of Vom Laws (1814), by Kev. 
 T. K. Malthus. 
 
 2 Notice the verbal ambiguity of the text-books. When they say that " rent 
 is not an dement of price," they mean that it is not a cause of price. For in- 
 stance, the great rent paid for mills is an element ia the price of yarn. 
 
 ' Contemporary Review, April 1880. 
 
 * E.g., "Asa consequence both of their difference of situation and their fer- 
 tility, in the Himalaya, the farmers low down on the sides pay 50 per cent, of the 
 gross produce as farm rent, and higher up 20 per cent, less." — Koscher, Political 
 Economy (English translation, Chicago, 1878), ii. 19. In Buenos Ayres, " only a 
 short time since, an English acre, fifteen leguas from the capital, was worth from 
 3d. to 4d., and at a distance of fifty leguas, only 2d." — Ibid. ii. 28. 
 
Ricardo and the Growth of Rent. 1 33 
 
 ance of land open to every one ; but twenty years later, rent was paid 
 because population had grown. Let us see exactly what happens 
 in such a case. A town is founded on the sea-coast ; as it grows, 
 the people in that town have to get some of their food from a dis- 
 tance. Assume that the cost of raising that corn and bringing it 
 to the town is 20s., and that the cost of raising it close to the 
 town is 1 5s. for every five bushels (we wUl suppose that in the 
 latter instance the cost of carriage is n%C) ; then, as both quantities 
 will be. sold at the same price, the surplus 5s. in the latter case 
 will go for rent. Thus we find that rent has arisen because corn 
 is brought into the market at different costs. In twenty years 
 more, rents will have risen still further, because soils still more 
 inferior in fertility or situation wUl have been brought into culti- 
 vation. But the rise of rent is not directly due to the cultivation 
 of inferior soils; the direct cause is the increase of population 
 which has made that cultivation necessary. 
 
 Going back to the question raised by Professor Eogers, as to the 
 effect of agricultural improvements on rent, we may notice that 
 the controversy on this question was first fought out between 
 Eicardo and Malthus. Eicardo thought that improvements would 
 lead to a fall in rents ; Malthus maintained the opposite, and he 
 was right. Take an acre of land close to the town, such as we 
 were considering above, with an original produce of five bushels of 
 wheat, but which, under improved cultivation, yields forty bushels. 
 If the price of wheat remains the same, and all the land under 
 cultivation has been improved to an equivalent extent, the rent 
 will now be 5s. multiplied by eight. Yet there are a few historical 
 instances where agricultural improvements have been followed by 
 a fall in rents. For instance, during the Thirty Years' War the 
 Swiss supplied Western Germany with corn, and introduced im- 
 provements into their agriculture, in order to meet the pressure of 
 the demand. After the peace of Westphalia the demand fell off; 
 the Swiss found they were producing more than they could sell ; 
 prices fell, and, as a consequence, rents fell also.^ 
 
 Professor Eogers has further objected to Eicardo's theory that 
 
 it does not explain the historical origin of rent. The term " rent " 
 
 is ambiguous ; it has been used for the payment of knight-service, 
 
 for the performance of religious offices, for serfs' labour and 
 
 1 Rosoher, op. cit. ii. 32, note. 
 
134 The Industrial Revolution. 
 
 the sums of money for which it was commuted. In Eicardo's 
 
 mouth it meant only the money rent paid by a capitalist farmer, 
 
 I expecting the usual rate of profits; but it is quite true that 
 
 i these modern competition rents did not arise till about the time 
 
 \ of James i.''^ 
 
 The last point in the theory of rent is the relation between rent 
 and price. Before Eicardo's time most practical men thought that 
 rent was a cause of price. Eicardo answered, There is land culti- 
 vated in England which pays no rent, or at least tjiere is capital 
 employed in agriculture which pays none ; therefore there is in the 
 market corn which has paid no rent, and it is the cost of raising 
 this corn, which is grown on the poorest land, that determines the 
 price of all the corn in the same market.^ Probably he was right 
 in his statement that there is land in England which pays no rent ; 
 but even if all land and all farmers' capital paid rent, it would not 
 affect the argument, which says that rent is not the cause but the 
 result of price. We may conclude that at the present day rent is 
 determined by two things : the demand of the population, and the 
 quantity and quality of land available. These determine it by 
 / fixing the price of corn. - — 
 
 I Now let us turn to facts, to see how our theories work. We 
 will take the rise in rents between 1790 and 1830, and ask how 
 it came about. The main causes were — (1.) Improvements in agri-. 
 culture, the chief of which were the destruction of the common- 
 field system, rendering possible the rotation of crops, the consolida- 
 tion of farms with the farmhouse in the centre of the holding, and 
 the introduction of machinery and manures ; (2.) the great growth 
 of population, stimulated by mechanical inventions ; (3.) a series of 
 bad harvests, which raised the price of corn to an unparalleled 
 I height ; (4.) the limitation of supply, the population having to be 
 \ fed with-the produce of England itself, since, during the first part 
 i of the period all supplies from abroad were cut off by war, and later, 
 I higher and higher protective duties were imposed, culminating in 
 \ the famous corn bill of 181^ After 1815, however, a fall in rents 
 — not a very great one — took place, a process which greatly puzzled 
 people at the time. It was the consequence of a sudden coincidence 
 of agricultural improvements and good harvests ; there was for a 
 
 ' Gontemporavji Reiiiew, April 1S80. 
 2 Works, p. 40 (M'CuUoch's ed. 1876). 
 
Ricardo and the Growth of Rent. 135 
 
 time an over production of corn, and wheat fell in price from 90s. 
 to 35s. This fact is the explanation of Eicardo's mistaken idea 
 that agricultural improvements tend to reduce rents. Having 
 no historical turn of mind, such as Malthus had, he did not 
 recognise that this effect of agricultural improvements was quite 
 accidental. This case, indeed, and the instance of Switzerland 
 given above, with the similar events in Germany about 1820, are 
 the only historical examples of such an effect. For a time there 
 was great agricultural distress; the farmers could not get their 
 rents reduced in proportion to the fall in prices, and many, in 
 spite of the enormous profits" they had before made under beneficial 
 leases, were ruined ; the farming class never wholly recovered till 
 the repeal of the Corn Laws. But the fall was temporary and 
 exceptional. iTaking the period as a whole its striking feature is 
 the rise of rents, and this rise was due to the causes stated: 
 increased demand on the part of an increased population, and 
 limitation of quantity, with improved quality, of the land available. 
 I have hitherto been considering the theory of agricultural 
 rents ; I now pass to a subject of perhaps greater present impor- 
 tance — ground-rents in towns. If the rise in the rent of agricul- 
 tural lands has been great; the rise in that of urban properties has 
 been still more striking. A house in Lombard Street, the property 
 of the Drapers' Company, was in 1668 let for £25 ; in 1877 the 
 site alone was let for £2600. How do we account for this ? It 
 is the effect of the growth of great towns and of the improvements 
 which enable greater wealth to be produced in them, owing to the 
 development of the arts, and to the extension of banking and 
 credit. Are town rents then a cause of the rise in prices ? Certainly 
 not. Eent may be an element in price, but the actual amount of 
 rent paid depends upon these two things: the demand of the 
 population for commodities, which determines price, and the value 
 of a particular site for purposes of business. 
 
 These considerations bring us to the question now sometimes 
 raised : Is rent a thing which the State can abolish ? Is it a human 
 institution, or the result of physical causes beyond our control ? If 
 we abolished agricultural rent, the result would simply be, as 
 Eicardo says, that the rent would go into the pockets of the 
 farmers, and some of them would live like gentlemen. Eent itself 
 is the result of physical causes, but it is within our power to say 
 
136 The Industrial Revolution. 
 
 who shall recei-ve the rent. This seems a fact of immense impor- 
 tance, but the extent of its significance depends largely on the 
 future course of rent in England ; and so we are bound to inquire 
 whether Eicardo was right in assuming that rents must necessarily 
 rise in a progressing state. Many think the contrary, and that we 
 are now on the eve of a certain and permanent fall in agricul- 
 tural rents ; and if rents continue steadily to fall, the question will 
 become one of increasing insignificance. As means of communica- 
 tion improve, we add more and more to the supply of land avail- 
 able for satisfying the wants of a particidar place ; and as the 
 supply increases, which it is likely to do to an increasing extent, 
 the price of land must fall. Social causes have also influenced rents 
 in England, and social changes are probably imminent, which 
 will at once reduce the value of land for other than agricultural 
 purposes, and increase the amount of it devoted to" agriculture. 
 Such changes would likewise tend to diminish rent. We may 
 say therefore that, since there are these indications of a permanent 
 fall in rents, so great a revolution as the transference of rent from 
 the hands of private owners to the nation would not be justified 
 by the amount which the nation would acquire. The loss and 
 damage of such a revolution would not be adequately repaid. 
 
 But wiU rent in towns fall ? Here it is impossible to predict. 
 For instance, we cannot say whether London will continue to 
 grow as rapidly as it has done heretofore. Now it is the monetary 
 centre of the world ; owing to the greater use of telegraphy, it is 
 possible that it may not retain this pre-eminence. The decay of 
 the provincial towns was largely due to the growth of great estates, 
 which enabled their proprietors to live and spend in London; 
 but if changes come to break up these large properties, London 
 will cease to be the^centroaLiaalxian^ or at any rate to have such a 
 large fashionable population. Politics, moreover, are certainly 
 tending to centre less in London. And further inventions in the 
 means of locomotion and the greater use of electricity may result 
 in causing a greater diffusion of population. 
 
XIII. 
 TWO THEOEIES OF ECONOMIC PEOGEESS. 
 
 Distribution of Wealth the problem of the present time — Eioardo's theory that 
 wages will remain stationary and interest fall — Facts disprove both proposi- 
 tions — Henry George's theory of economic progress likewise contradicted 
 by facts. 
 
 Since Mill, in 1 848, wrote his chapter on the future of the 
 working classes, the question of the distribution of wealth has be- 
 come of still greater importance. We cannot look round on the 
 political phenomena of to-day without seeing that this question is 
 at the root of them. We see the perplexity in which men stand, 
 and the divisions springing up in our great political parties, because 
 of the uncertainty of politicians how to grapple with it. Political 
 power is now widely diffused ; and whatever may be the evils of 
 democracy, this good has come of it, that it has forced men to 
 open their eyes to the misery of the masses, and to inquire more 
 zealously as to the possibility of a better distribution of wealth. 
 Economists have to answer the question whether it is possible for 
 the mass of the working classes to raise themselves under the 
 present conditions of competition and private pr6perty. Eicardo 
 and Henry George have both answered, No ; and the former has 
 formulated a law of economic development, according to which, as 
 we have seen, rent must rise, profits and interest fall, and wages 
 remain stationary, or perhaps fall. Now is there any relation 
 of cause and effect between this rise in rent and fall in wages ? 
 Eicardo thought not. According to his theory, profits and wages 
 are fixed independently of rent ; a rise in rent and a fall in wages 
 might be due to the same cause, but the one was not the result of 
 the other, and the rise in rent would not be at the expense of the 
 labourers. Yet practical opinion goes in the opposite direction. 
 From the evidence of farmers and land-agents we see that it is 
 widely believed that the high rents exacted from farmers have 
 been partly taken out of the pockets of the labourers. " If there 
 is a fall in the price of corn, agricultural wages will fall, unless 
 there is a corresponding fall in rent," was said before a Parliamen- 
 
138 The Industrial Revolution. 
 
 tary Commission in 1834.i Ten years ago the connection was 
 admitted in Ireland; and the Land Act of 1870 was founded on 
 the belief that rack-rents were not really the surplus left when 
 capital and labour had received their fair returns, and that the 
 only limit to the rise of rents was the bare necessities of the 
 peasantry. In England it has been assumed that wages and 
 profits have fixed lines of their own independent of rent, but this 
 is not universally true ; where the farmers have suffered from high 
 rents, they in their turn have ground down the labourers. Thus 
 even in England rent has been exacted, from the labourer ; and 
 this is not an opinion but a fact, testified by the evidence of 
 agents, clergy, and farmers themselves. What appears accurate to 
 say about the matter is, that high rents have in some cases been 
 one cause of low wages. 
 
 This direct effect of rent on wages under certain conditions is 
 quite distinct from the " brazen law of wages " which Lassalle took 
 from Eicardo. It is impossible, according to Eicardo, for labourers 
 to improve their position under existing industrial conditions, for if 
 wages rise, population wiU advance also, and wages return to their 
 old level ; there cannot therefore be any permanent rise in them. 
 Eicardo, indeed, did not deny that the standard of comfort varied 
 in different countries, and in the same country at different times ; 
 but these admissions he only made parenthetically, he did not 
 seem to think they seriously touched the question of popxilation, 
 and they did not affect his main conclusions. For instance, he 
 argues that a tax on corn will fall entirely on profits, since the 
 labourer is already receiving the lowest possible wages. This 
 statement may be true with regard to the very lowest class of 
 labourers, but it certainly does not apply to artisans, nor to a large 
 proportion of English working men at the present time. With 
 them, at any rate, it is not true that they are already receiving the 
 lowest possible wage, nor that there is an invincible bar to their 
 progress. Let us turn to the test of facts and see if wages have 
 
 1 See Afjrkultural Oommission, 1882, vol. iii. pp. 37-38 ; on the other hand, 
 Kebbel's Agricultural Labourei;, p. 22, and Heath's Englith Peasantry, pp. 67, 
 348. Mr. Kebbel's statement really bears out the assertion in the text ; he says, 
 "The present writer could point to more than one large estate, where a very low 
 rental has been paid for years, but where the wages of the labourer are perhaps 
 at the lowest point, thourth the attention of the tenants has been repeatedly directed 
 to the anomaly." 
 
Two Theories of Economic Progress. 
 
 139 
 
 risen since 1846. Henry George says that free trade has done 
 nothing for the lahourer;^ Mill, in 1848, predicted the same. 
 Professor Cairnes came to a very similar conclusion; writing in 
 1874 he said, that "the large addition to the wealth of the country 
 has gone neither to profit nor to wages, nor yet to the public at 
 large, but to swell . . . the rent-roll of the owner of the soil." ^ 
 Yet it is a fact that though the cost of living has undoubtedly 
 increased, wages have risen in a higher ratio. Take the instance 
 of a carpenter as a fair average specimen of the artisan class. The 
 necessaries of a carpenter's family in 1839 cost 24s. lOd. per week; 
 in 1875 they cost 29s. But meanwhile the money wages of a 
 carpenter had risen from 24s. to 35s. Thus there had been not only 
 a nominal but a real rise in his wages. Turning to the labourer, 
 his cost of living was about 15s. in 1839, it was a little under 15s. 
 in 1875. The articles he consumes have decreased in cost, while 
 in the case of the artisan they have increased, because the labourer 
 spends a much larger proportion of his wages on bread. The 
 labourer's wages meanwhile have risen from 8s. to 12s. or 14s. ; in 
 1839 he could not properly support himself on his wages alone.^ 
 These facts seem conclusive, but certainty is difficult from the 
 very varying estimates of consumption and money wages. For 
 strong proof of a rise in agricultural wages we may take a par- 
 
 1 Progress and Poverty, book iv. c. ui. p. 229, 4th ed. 1881. 
 
 2 Leading Principles, p. 333. 
 
 3 Weekly Expenses of a Carpenter with Wife and 3 Children — 
 
 
 
 
 
 In 1839. 
 
 In 1875 
 
 s. d. 
 
 s. d. 
 
 8 quartern loaves, . . . .58 
 
 4 4 
 
 8 lbs. meat, 
 
 
 
 4 4 
 
 6 
 
 \\ lbs. butter. 
 
 
 
 I 6 
 
 1 9 
 
 1 lb. cheese. 
 
 
 
 
 7 
 
 8 
 
 2 lbs. sugar, 
 
 
 
 
 1 2 
 
 8 
 
 i lb. tea, . 
 
 
 
 
 1 6 
 
 8 
 
 1 lb. soap, . 
 
 
 
 
 5 
 
 4 
 
 1 lb. candles, 
 
 
 
 
 6 
 
 6 
 
 1 lb. rice, . 
 
 
 
 
 4 
 
 2 
 
 2 quarts milk. 
 
 
 
 
 4 
 
 8 
 
 Vegetables, 
 
 
 
 
 6 
 
 1 
 
 Coals and firing. 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 2 4 
 
 Rent, 
 
 
 
 
 4 
 
 6 6 
 
 Clothes and sundries, 
 
 
 
 3 
 
 3 6 
 
 
 24 10 
 
 29 1 
 
140 
 
 The Industrial Revolution. 
 
 ticular instance. On an estate in Forfar the yearly wages of a 
 first ploughman were by the wages-book, in 
 
 1840, . . £28 2 1870, . . £42 5 
 
 1850, . . 28 15 1880, . . 48 9 
 
 1860, . . 39 7 
 
 According to his own admission the standard of comfort of the 
 first ploughman employed on this estate in 1880 had risen, for he 
 complained, in a letter describing his position, of his increased 
 expenditure, increased not because things were dearer, but because 
 he now needed more of thern. 
 
 We may take as further evidence the statistics of the savings 
 of the working classes; it is impossible to get more than au 
 approximate estimate of them, but they probably amount to about 
 £130,000,000.^ To these we may add the savings actually invested 
 in houses. In Birmingham there are 13,000 houses owned by 
 artisans. All this is small compared with the whole capital of the 
 country, which, in 1875, was estimated at £8,500,000,000 at least, 
 with an annual increase of £235,000,000 — this latter sum far ex- 
 ceeding the "total savings of the working classes.^ The comparison 
 will make us take a sober view of their improvement; yet the 
 facts make it clear that the working classes can raise their position, 
 though not in the same ratio as the middle classes. Mr. MulhaU 
 
 Weekly Expenses of a Farm Labourer with Wife and 3 Children. 
 
 9 quartern loaves, . 
 1^ lb. meat and bacon, 
 
 1 lb. cheese, 
 \ lb. butter, 
 
 2 oz. tea, . 
 1 lb. sugar, 
 \ lb. soap, 
 \ lb. candles, 
 Coals and firing. 
 Rent, 
 Clothes and Sundries, 
 
 In 
 
 1839. 
 
 In 1875 
 
 *. 
 
 d. 
 
 a. d. 
 
 6 
 
 4, 
 
 4 lOi 
 
 
 
 9; 
 
 1 0; 
 
 
 
 7 
 
 8 
 
 
 
 6 
 
 7 
 
 
 
 9 
 
 4 
 
 
 
 7 
 
 4 
 
 
 
 3 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 3 
 
 3 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 1 6 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 1 6 
 
 3 
 
 
 
 3 6 
 
 15 IJ 
 
 14 9i 
 
 ' This sum has been carefully calculated from the statistics of Building Socie- 
 ties, Savings Banks, Co-operative Societies, Trades-Unions, Friendly Societies, 
 and Industrial and Provident Societies. 
 
 ^ Giffen's Essays on Finance, p. 173-5. 
 Bemew, December 1881. 
 
 See also MulhaU, in Contemporary 
 
Two Theories of Economic Progress. 141 
 
 also estimates that there is less inequality between the two classes 
 now than 40 years ago. He calculates that the average wealth of 
 a rich family has decreased from £28,820 to £25,803, or 11 per 
 cent.; that of a middle- class family has decreased from £1439 to 
 £1005, or 30 per cent. ; while that of a working-class family has 
 increased from £44 to £86, or nearly 100 per cent.^ But without 
 pinning our faith to any particular estimate, we can see clearly 
 enough that the facts disprove Eicardo's proposition that no 
 improvement is possible ; and there are not wanting some who 
 think that the whole tendency of^odern society is towards an 
 increasing equality of condition. 
 
 Was Eicardo any more correct in saying that interest and profits 
 (between which he never clearly distinguished) must fall ? As a 
 matter of fact, for the last century and a half, interest in England 
 has been almost stationary, except during the great war. In Wal- 
 pole's time it was three per cent. ; during the war it doubled, but 
 after the peace it dropped to four per cent., and has remained pretty 
 steady at that rate ever since. Eicardo thought that the cost of 
 the labourer's subsistence would necessarily increase, owing to the 
 necessity of cultivating more land, and as he would thus require 
 a greater share of the gross produce, less wealth would be left for 
 the capitalist. He overlooked the fact that the rate of interest 
 depends not merely on the cost of labour, but on the field of employ- 
 ment as well. As civilisation advances, new inventions and new 
 enterprises create afresh demand for capital : some £700,000,000 
 have been invested in English railways alone. No doubt, if the 
 field for English capital were confined to England, the rate of in- 
 terest might fall; but Eicardo forgot the possibility of capital 
 ejnigrating on a large scale. Thus Eicardo's teaching on this point 
 is deficient both in abstract theory and as tested by facts. What 
 we really find to have taken place is, that though rent has risen, 
 there is good reason to suppose that in the future it may fall ; that 
 interest has not fallen much; and that the standard of comfort 
 and the rate of wages, both of artisans and labourers^of the 
 former most decidedly, and to a certain extent also of the latter, 
 has risen. 
 
 ^ Contemporary Review, February 1882. He defines a rich family as one 
 spending over £5000; a middle-class famUy as one spending between £5000 
 and £100 ; a working-class family, as one spending under £100. 
 
142 The Industrial Revolution. 
 
 I wish next to examine Mr. George's theory of economic pro- 
 gress.^ Mr. George is a disciple of Eicardo, both in his method 
 and his conclusions ; he has as great a contempt for facts and veri- 
 fication as Eicardo himself.^ By this method he succeeds in for- 
 mulating a law, according to which, in the progress of civilisation, 
 interest and wages will faU together, and rents will rise. Not only 
 is the labourer in a hopeless condition, but the capitalist is equally 
 doomed to a stationary or declining fortune. "Eent," he says, 
 "depends upon the margin of cultivation, rising as it falls, and 
 falling as it rises. Interest and wages depend on the margin of 
 cultivation, falling as it falls, and rising as it rises."* The returns 
 which the capitalist obtains for his capital and the labourer for his 
 work, depend on the returns from the worst land cultivated ; that 
 is, on the quality of land accessible to capital and labour without 
 payment of rent. 
 
 Now Mr. George's observations are derived from America, and 
 what he has done is to generalise a theory, which is true of some 
 parts of America, but not of old countries. His book seems con- 
 clusive enough at first sight. There is little flaw in the reasoning, 
 if we grant the premisses ; but there are great flaws in the results 
 when tested by facts. Do interest and wages always rise and 
 fall together? As an historical fact they do not. Between 1715 
 and 1760, while rents (according to Professor Eogers) rose but 
 slowly (Arthur Young denies that they rose at all), interest fell, 
 and wages rose. Between 1790 and 1815 rent doubled, interest 
 doubled, wages fell. Between 1846 and 1882 rents have risen, 
 interest has been stationary, wages have risen. Thus in all these 
 three periods the facts contradict Mr. George's theory. Eent 
 indeed has generally risen, but neither profits nor wages have 
 steadily fallen, nor have their variations borne any constant rela- 
 tion to one another. Coming to Mr. George's main position, that 
 rent constantly tends to absorb the whole increase of national 
 wealth, how does this look in the light of fact? Does all the 
 increase of wealth, for instance, in the Lancashire cotton manu- 
 factures, go simply to raise rents ? Evidently not. Wages have 
 
 ' The arguments here used againat Henry George are expanded in the two 
 published lectures on Progress and Poverty, which were delivered in January 
 1883.— Ed, 
 
 2 Progress and Poverty, book iii. ch. vi. (4th ed. p. 184), 3 lUd, p. 197. 
 
Two Theories of Economic Progress. 143 
 
 risen owing to improvements in machinery; and in most cases 
 profits have also risen. We can prove hy statistics that in Eng- 
 land the capitalists' wealth has increased faster than that of the 
 landowners'; for in the assessments to the income-tax there has 
 been a greater increase under Schedule D, which comprises the 
 profits of capitaKsts and the earnings of professional men, than 
 under Schedule A, which comprises revenues from land. At the 
 same time, Mr. George has made out a strong case against private 
 property in knd in great towns ; but here he has only restated 
 more forcibly what Adam Smith and Mill advocated, when they 
 recommended taxes on ground rents as the least objectionable of 
 all taxes. Under existing conditions the working people in great 
 towns may be said to be taxed in the worst of ways by the bad 
 condition of their houses. An individual or a corporation lets a 
 block of buildings for a term of years ; the lessee sublets it, and 
 the sub-lessee again for the third time. Each class is here 
 oppressing the one beneath it, and the lowest units suffer most. 
 This is why the problem of the distribution of wealth is sure, in 
 the near future, to take the form of the question, how to house the 
 labourers of our towns. 
 
 XIV. 
 THE I'UTUEE OF THE WOEKIKG CLASSES. 
 
 Causes of improvement in the condition of the working classes since 1846 — 
 Pree trade — Steady price of bread and of manufactured produce — Steadiness 
 of wages and regularity of employment — Factory legislation-^Trades- 
 Unions — Co-operation — ^WiU the same causes continue to act in the future ? 
 — Moral improvement among the working classes — Better relations between 
 ■workmen and employers — Evil as well as good in the close personal relation- 
 ships of former times — Trades-Unions have improved the relations of the 
 two classes — Can the workmen really secure material independence ?— 
 Various solutions of the problem — Industrial partnership — Communism — 
 Modified Socialism. 
 
 I HAVE thus far tried to show that the material condition of the 
 workman is capable of improvement under present social conditions. 
 
1 44 The Industrial Revoiution. 
 
 \ I wisli now to explain the causes which have contributed to its 
 'actual improvement since 1846. The most prominent of these 
 causes has been Free Trade. In the first place, Free Trade has 
 enormously increased the aggregate wealth of the country, and 
 therefore increased the demand for labour ; this is an indisputable 
 fact. Secondly, it has created greater steadiness in trade, — a point 
 which is often overlooked in discussions of the subject. Since 
 1846 workmen have been more regularly employed than in the 
 preceding half-century. Free trade in wheat has, moreover, given 
 us a more steady price of bread, a point of paramount importance 
 to the labouring man ; and this steadiness is continually becoming 
 greater. From 1850 to 1860 the variation between the highest 
 and lowest prices of wheat was 36s., between 1860 and 1870 it 
 was 24s., and in the last decade it has been only ] 5s. And since 
 the sum which the workman has spent on bread has become more 
 and more constant, the amount which he has had left to spend on 
 manufactured produce has a,lso varied less, and its price in con- 
 sequence has been steadier. But why then, it may be asked, the 
 late great depression of trade since 1877? I believe the answer 
 is, because other countries, to which we sell our goods, have been 
 suffering from bad harvests, and have had less capacity for buying. 
 The weavers in Lancashire have had to work less time and at 
 lower wages because far-off nations have not been able to pur- 
 chase cotton goods, and the depression in one industry has spread 
 to other branches of trade. 
 
 The greater steadiness of wages which has been caused by Free 
 Trade is seen even in trades where there has been no great rise. 
 But besides the amount of the workman's wages per day we must 
 take into consideration the number of days in the year and hours 
 in the day, during which he works. He now finds employment on 
 many more days (before 1846 artisans often worked only one or 
 two days in the week), but each working day has fewer hours ; so 
 that his pay is at once steadier and more easily earned. And 
 hence even where his daily wages have remained nearly the 
 same, with more constant employment and with bread both cheap 
 and fixed in price, his general position has improved. 
 , "What other agencies besides Free Trade have been at work to 
 I bring about this improvement ? Factory legislation has raised the 
 condition of women and children by imposing a limit on the 
 
The Future of the Working Classes. 145 
 
 hours of work, and especially the sanitary environment of the 
 labourer ; the factory laws seek to regulate the whole life of the 
 workshop. Trades-Unions, again, have done much to avert social 1 
 and industrial disorder, and have taught workmen, hy organisation 
 and self-help, to rely upon themselves. Herein lies the difference 
 between the English and the Continental workman ; the former, 
 because he has been free to form voluntary associations, does 
 not look to the State or to revolutionary measures to better his 
 position. For proof of this, it is enough to compare the parlia- 
 mentary programme of the last Trades-Unions Congress with the 
 proceedings of the International at Geneva. English Trades- h:-, 
 Unions resort to a constitutional agitation which involves no /' 
 danger to the State ; indeed, as I have said, their action averts ■ 
 violent industrial dislocations. And beyond this, Trades-Unions 
 have achieved some positive successes for the cause of labour. By 
 means of their accumulated funds workmen have been able to hold 
 out for better prices for their labour, and the Unions have further 
 acted as provident societies by means of which their members can 
 lay up sums against sickness or old age. The mischief and waste- 
 fulness of strikes is generally enough insisted on, but it is not as 
 often remembered that the largest Unions have sanctioned the 
 fewest strikes ; the Amalgamated Engineers, who have 46,000 
 members, and branches in Canada and India, expended only six 
 per cent, of their income on strikes from 1867 to 1877. The 
 leaders of such a great Union are skilful, well-informed men, who 
 know it to be in their interest to avoid strikes.^ 
 
 Lastly, we must not forget to mention the great Co-operative | 
 Societies, which in their modern shape date from the Eochdale 
 Pioneers' Store, founded in 1844, under the inspiration of Eobert 
 Owen's teaching, though the details of his plan were therein 
 abandoned. These, like Trades-Unions, have taught the power 
 and merit of voluntary association and self-help. At present, 
 however, they are only big shops for the sale of retail goods, 
 through which the workman gets rid of the retail dealer, and 
 shares himself in the profits of the business, by receiving at the 
 end of each quarter a dividend on his purchases. Such stores, 
 however useful in cheapening goods, and at the same time encour- 
 
 1 See Howell's Conflict of Capital and Labour. 
 
1 46 The Industrial Revolution. 
 
 aging thrift, do not represent the ultimate object of co-operation. 
 That object is to make the workman his own employer. Hitherto 
 the movement has not been successful in establishing productive 
 societies ; the two great difficulties in the way being apparently 
 the inability of a committee of workmen to manage a business 
 well, and their unwillingness to pay sufficiently high wages for 
 superintendence. The chief obstacles are thus moral, and to be 
 found in the character of the workmen, and their want of educa- 
 tion ; but as their character and education improve, there is no 
 reason why these difficulties should not vanish. 
 
 Such are the chief agencies to which we trace the improvement 
 in the position of the labourer during the last forty years. At the 
 beginning of this period Mill insisted on one thing as of para- 
 mount importance, namely restriction upon the increase of 
 population, and without this he believed all improvement to be 
 impossible. Yet we find that during this period the rate of in- 
 crease has not slackened. It is nearly as great now as between 
 1831 and 1841. It was greater during the last decade than it had 
 been since 1841. On the other hand, there has undoubtedly been 
 an enormous emigration which has lightened the supply of labour. 
 Three millions and a half of people have emigrated from Great 
 Britain since 1846. 
 
 The question which now most deeply concerns us is, Will the 
 same causes operate in the future ? Will Free Trade continue to 
 be beneficial ? WiU our wealth continue to increase and our trade 
 to expand ? On this point a decided prediction is of course im- 
 possible. Competition in neutral markets is becoming keener and 
 keener, and we may be driven out of some of them, and thus the 
 national aggregate of wealth be lessened. But, on the other hand, we 
 have reason to believe that increased supplies of corn from America 
 and Australia will give an enormous impetus to trade. As in the 
 past so in the future corn is the commodity of most importance to 
 the labourer ; and if the supply of corn becomes more constant, trade 
 will be steadier and wages will probably rise. Besides, cheap corn 
 means that all over the world the purchasing power of consumers 
 is increased, and this again will stimulate trade. So that in this 
 respect the labourers' outlook is a hopeful one. As to emigration 
 also, there is no reason to suppose that there will be any check on 
 this relief to the labourer for the next fifty years at least. Again, 
 
The Future of the Working Classes. 147 
 
 there is every prospect of co-operation and even productive co- 
 operation making great progress in the future, though I do not 
 think that the latter is likely for some time to be an important 
 factor in improving the status of the workmen. The moral 
 obstacles to co-operative production which I mentioned will dis- 
 appear but slowly. In certain directions, however, it is likely to 
 develop ; I mean in the direction of manufacturing for the great 
 Wholesale Co-operative Societies, because here the market is 
 secured. Trades-Unions too are likely to expand. 
 
 Turning to the moral condition of the workpeople, we find an 
 improvement greater even than their material progress. 'WTien 
 we see or read of what goes on in the streets of our great towns, we 
 think badly enough of their morality ; but those who have had 
 most experience in manufacturing districts are of opinion that the 
 moral advance, as manifested, for example, in temperance, in orderly 
 behaviour, in personal appearance, in dress, has been very great. 
 For the improvement in the inner life of workshops as early as 1 8 34, 
 take the evidence of Francis Place, a friend of James Mill, before a 
 Committee of the House of Commons in that year. He told the 
 Committee that, when he was a boy, he used to hear songs, such 
 -as he could not repeat, sung in respectable shops by respectable 
 people ; it was so no longer, and he was at a loss how to account 
 for the change.^ Similar statements are made by workmen at 
 the present day. Conversation, they say, is bad at times, but 
 opinion is setting more and more against immoral talk. The 
 number of subjects which interest workpeople is much greater 
 than before, and the discussion of the newspaper is supplanting 
 the old foul language of the workshop. We have here an indirect 
 effect of the extension of the suffrage. Add to this the statistics 
 of drunkenness. In 1855 there were nearly 20,000 persons con- 
 victed for drunkenness, in 1880 there were not many more than 
 11,000. 
 
 Again, the relations between workmen and employers are cer- 
 tainly much better. The old life, as described by Owen and 
 Cobbett, of an apprentice in the workshop, or a boarded labourer 
 in the farm-house, is at first sight most attractive ; and the facts 
 told to the Commission of 1806 seem to realise the ideal Hfe 
 of industry. The relations between masters and workmen were 
 
 1 Porter, pp. 683-685. 
 
1 48 The Industrial Revolution. 
 
 then extremely close, but this close relationship had its bad side. 
 There was often great brutality and gross vice. The workman 
 was at his employer's mercy : in Norfolk the farmer used to horse- 
 whip his labouring men, and his wife the women.^ There existed 
 a state of feudal dependence, which, like all feudalism, had its 
 dark and light sides. The close relationship was distinctly the 
 result of the small system of industry, and hence it was shattered 
 by the power-loom and the steam-engine. When huge factories 
 were established there could no longer be a close tie between the 
 master and his men ; the workman hated his employer, and the 
 employer looked on his workmen simply as hands. From 1800 to 
 1843 their mutual relations, as was admitted by both parties, were 
 as bad as they could be. There could be no union, said employ- 
 ers, between classes whose interests were different, and farmers, 
 contrary to ancient usage, ruthlessly turned off their men when 
 work was slack. The " cash-nexus " had come in, to protest 
 against which Carlyle wrote his Past and Present ; but Carlyle was 
 wrong in supposing that the old conditions of labour could be re- 
 established. Feudalism, though it lingers in a few country places, 
 has virtually disappeared alike in agriculture and in trade. The 
 employer cannot offer and the workman cannot accept the old 
 relations of protection and dependence : for, owing to the modem 
 necessity of the constant movement of labour from place to place 
 and from one employment to another, it has become impossible to 
 form lasting relations, and the essence of the old system lay in 
 the perinanency of the workmen's engagements. Trades-Unions 
 too have done much to sever what was left of the old ties. 
 Workmen are now obliged, in self-defence, to act in bodies. In 
 every workshop there are men who are attached to their masters, 
 and who on occasion of a strike do not care to come out, but are 
 yet compelled to do so in the common interest. Before this obli- 
 gation was recognised by public opinion, the effect of Unions was, 
 no doubt, to embitter the relations between masters and men. 
 This was especially the case between 1840 and 1860. 
 
 Since the latter date, however, Trades-Unions have distinctly 
 improved the relations between the two classes. Employers are 
 beginning to recognise the necessity of them, and the advantages 
 
 ' See Dr. Jeasop, in the Nineteenth Century, May 1882. 
 
The Future of the Working Classes. 149 
 
 of being able to treat with a whole body of workmen through 
 their most intelligent members. Boards of Conciliation, in which 
 workmen and employers sit side by side, would be impossible 
 without Unions to enforce obedience to their decisions. In the 
 north of England, at the present moment, it is the non-unionists 
 who are rejecting arbitration. And the reason why such Boards 
 have succeeded is, because the employers have of their own accord 
 abandoned all ideas of the feudal relation. They used to say 
 that it would degrade them to sit at the same board with their 
 workmen ; but it is noticeable that directly the political independ- 
 ence of the latter was recognised, as soon as he possessed the 
 franchise, these objections began to disappear. The new union of 
 employers and workmen which is springing up in this way, is 
 based on the independence of both as citizens of a free state. 
 The employers meet their workmen also in political committees, 
 on School Boards and similar bodies, and the two classes are 
 learning to respect one another. Thus this new union bids fair 
 to be stronger than the old one. 
 
 Still the question remains. Can this political independence of 
 the workman be combined with secure material independence? 
 Until this is done he will be always at the mercy of his employer, 
 who may practically stultify his political power by influencing 
 his vote, as Mr. George asserts is done in New England.^ Among 
 the many solutions of this problem proposed in our own country 
 two deserve especial prominence. The first is that of the Eng- 
 lish Positivi^ts. Comte, although he had but a glimpse of the 
 English Trades-Unions, understood the meaning of them far better 
 than Mill. Inspired by him, Mr. Frederick Harrison and his friends 
 deny the possibUity of solving the labour question by co-operative 
 production or any such schemes. They rely on a gi-adual change in 
 the moral nature of capitalists ; not that they expect the old system 
 of feudal protection to return, but they hope that the " captains of 
 industry " of the future will rise to another conception of their 
 position, will recognise the independence of the workman, and at 
 the same time be willing to hand over to him an increased share 
 of their joint produce. This belief may seem ridiculous, and 
 we must expect for a long time yet to see capitalists stiU striving 
 
 1 Progress ami Poverty, Book x. c. iv. p. 480. 
 
150 The Industrial RevohUion. 
 
 to obtain the highest possible profits. But observe, that the 
 passion for wealth is certainly in some senses new. It grew up 
 very rapidly at the beginning of the present century ; it was not 
 so strong in the last century, when men were much more content 
 to lead a quiet easy life of leisure. The change has really influenced 
 the relations between men ; but in the future it is quite possible 
 that the scramble for wealth may grow less intense, and a change 
 in the opposite direction take place. The Comtists are right when 
 they say that men's moral ideas are not fixed. The attitude of 
 public opinion towards slavery was completely changed in twenty 
 or thirty years. Still I am obliged to believe that such a moral 
 revolution as the Comtists hope for is not possible within a 
 reasonable space of time. 
 
 I should have more hope of Industrial Partnership as elabo- 
 rately described by Mr. Sedley Taylor.^ This also implies a certain 
 change in the moral nature of the employers, but one not so great 
 as the alternative system would require. It has been adopted in 
 over a hundred Continental workshops, though the experiment of 
 Messrs. Briggs in England ended in failure. There is hope of its 
 being more successful in the future, because by promoting the 
 energy of the workmen and diminishing waste, it coincides with 
 the interest of the employer. I think that in some industries it 
 win extend, but that it will not be generally adopted. 
 
 There remains the ordinary Communist solution. This has 
 taken various forms ; the simplest being a voluntary association of 
 individuals based on the principle of common property, and in 
 which every person works for the community according to fixed 
 rules. There are many successful instances of this, on a small scale, 
 in the United States,^ but we cannot suppose such a solution to be 
 possible for society as a whole. It has only been tried with picked 
 materials, whereas our object is rather to improve the great mass 
 of the population. The Communism of recent European theorists, 
 of whom the best known is Lassalle, presents a somewhat different 
 aspect.* It aims at the appropriation of all instruments of pro- 
 duction by the State, which is tq take charge of the whole national 
 
 ' The, Participation of Labour (London : 1881), and Profit-sliaring between 
 Capital and Labour (Cambridge : 1882). 
 
 ^ See Nordhoff's Communistic Societies. 
 
 ' See tlie account of hia system in M. de Laveleye's Le Socialisme Contem- 
 porain. 
 
The Future of the Working Classes. 151 
 
 industry and direct it. But the practical difficulty of such a 
 scheme is obviously overwhelming. 
 
 The objections to a Communistic solution do not apply to 
 Socialism in a more modified shape. Historically speaking, 
 Socialism has already shown itself in England in the extension of 
 State interference. It has produced the Factory Laws, and it is 
 now beginning to advance further and interfere directly in the 
 division of produce between the workmen and their employers. 
 The Employers' Liability Act recognises that workmen, even when 
 associated in Trades-Unions, cannot without other aid secure full 
 justice, and in the name of justice it has distinctly handed over 
 to the workmen a certain portion of the employers' wealth. The 
 extension of regulative interference however, though it is to be 
 expected in one or two directions, is not likely to be of much 
 further importance. With regard to taxation, on the other hand. 
 Socialist priuciples will probably attain a wide-reaching applica- 
 tion, and here we shall see great changes. 
 
 The readjustment of taxation would enable the State to supply for 
 the people many things which they cannot supply for themselves. 
 Without assuming the charge of every kind of production, the State 
 might take into its hands such businesses of vital importance as 
 railways, or the supply of gas and water. And should not the State 
 attempt in the future to grapple with such questions as the housing 
 of the labourers? Municipalities might be empowered to buy 
 ground and let it for buUding purposes below the full competition 
 market value. I think that such a scheme is practicable without 
 demoralising the people, and it would attack a problem which has 
 hitherto baffled every form of private enterprise; for aU the Societies 
 put together, which have been formed in London with this object 
 since 1842, have succeeded in housing only 60,000 persons. And 
 this brings up the whole question of public expenditure for' the 
 people. A new form of association, which has become common 
 of late years, is that of a certain number of private individuals 
 combining to provide for some want of the public, such as Coffee 
 Taverns, or Artisans' Dwellings, or cheap music. Such Societies 
 are founded primarily with philanthropic objects, but they also 
 aim at a fair interest on their capital. Might not municipalities 
 seek in a similar way to provide for the poor ? In discussing all 
 such schemes, however, we must remember that the real problem 
 
152 The Industrial Revolution. , 
 
 is not how to produce some improvement in the condition of the 
 working man — for that has to a certain extent heen attained 
 already — but how to secure his complete material independence.^ 
 
 ' The subject of this lecture is also treated of in the Address Are Sadicala 
 Socialists ? — Ed, 
 
POPULAR ADDRESSES. 
 
 1. WAGES AND NATUEAL LAW. 
 
 2. INDUSTRY AND DEMOCRACY. 
 
 3. ARE RADICALS SOCIALISTS ! 
 
 THE EDUCATION OF CO-OPERATORS. 
 
 THE IDEAL RELATION OP CHURCH AND STATE, 
 
WAGES AND NATUEAL LAW.^ 
 
 When I was invited to deliver this lecture, anticipating that my 
 audience would be largely composed of working men, I thought I 
 could not do better than try to dispel some of those prejudices 
 which working men in the past have entertained, and still to some 
 extent entertain, towards Economic Science. I do not mean to say 
 these prejudices are unjust. On the contrary, many of them are 
 most just, and many of the statements made by economists have 
 been not only false in the abstract, but most mischievous from the 
 point of view of workpeople. Perhaps the most striking example 
 of the false statements made by economists has been their asser- 
 tions with regard to the causes which determine the rate of wages 
 — I mean those assertions which throw ridicule on the efforts of 
 working men, by means of Trades-Unions and other organisations, 
 to improve their condition. Economists have said that Trades- 
 Unions were a foolish, and perhaps a wicked, resistance to the 
 incAritable laws of nature. Political economists have had, on this 
 point, to make a great recantation ; and my desire to-night is, to 
 state the nature of that recantation, and to explain what I mean 
 by natural law in Political Economy, and what the causes are 
 which really determine the condition of workpeople. 
 
 Perhaps the most prominent idea of the present age is this idea 
 of natural law. If you look back into the beginnings of civilisa- 
 tion you will find that the idea of natural law is entirely absent, 
 and that men then attributed all things to will, arbitrary chance, 
 or caprice. But after Newton's great discovery of the law of gravi- 
 tation, two or three thinkers began to trace law and order in human 
 society also. All our vast fabric of civilisation, aU our arts, and 
 sciences, and literature, which seem the creation of the wilful mind 
 of man, appeared to them to be the product of law. The first to 
 
 ^ A Lecture given at the Mechanics' Institute, Bradford, in January 1880, 
 and repeated in part at Firth College, Sheffield, in February 1882. 
 
1 56 Wages and Natural Law. 
 
 lay hold of this idea clearly were the economists ; Adam Smith it 
 was who first insisted, in a way understood by every one on the 
 presence of law in human society ; and, dealing only with a part 
 of society, he established the laws which determine the production 
 of wealth. This idea of law in human society was a great 
 discovery. We have not come to the end of it yet ; and I do not 
 know what revolution it may not yet be destined to effect in our 
 habits of thought and in our daily action. But I am not now 
 going to deal with this very wide subject; I intend to confine 
 myself to one narrow point — Are the laws regarding the distribu- 
 tion of wealth as laid down by economists, by Malthus, Eicardo, 
 and John Stuart Mill, really laws of nature in the same sense as 
 the law of gravity, is a law of nature ? 
 
 Now, the idea of law as applied to some social and economic 
 facts, such as the increase in the number of marriages when 
 corn is cheap, and the rise that takes place in the price of cotton 
 when there is a short supply in the market, is intelligible, because 
 these events do take place with a sequence almost as invariable 
 as tHat of a law of nature ; but, as you will see presently, the idea 
 of law is also applied in an altogether indefensible way to the in- 
 fluences which determine the distribution of wealth among the 
 various classes of the community. I do not hesitate to say that 
 this question of the distribution of wealth is the greatest question 
 of our time. But in considering to-night how a portion of the 
 wealth of the nation is distributed, remember that we are not con- 
 sidering how the wealth of the nation ought to be distributed. We 
 are only going to investigate the so-called laws of wages, profits, 
 and interest ; indeed, it is obvious that the way in which wealth 
 is now distributed must be studied before we can apply with any 
 effect our notions of how it ought to be distributed. We have to 
 explain how wealth is distributed under a system of private 
 property and of division of employments, how it is distributed, in 
 fact, in England at the present time. Having done this we can 
 then go on, if we choose, to frame practical precepts for the guid- 
 ance of workmen and employers under existing circumstances, 
 or to enable them to modify these circumstances, if they think 
 fit, and establish a new method of distribution for the future. 
 
 Political economy has a twofold character : it is a theoretical 
 science and a practical science. In explaining how wages are 
 
Wages and Natural Law. 157 
 
 determined under tlie existing system of society, I shall have to 
 exhibit political economy as a theoretical science. I shall say 
 nothing as to whether this system of society is or is not right; 
 I shall simply endeavour to explain how wealth is distributed 
 under existing conditions among men as they are at present con- 
 stituted. The distinction between theoretical and practical econo- 
 mics, which is a very important one, has been constantly neglected, 
 not only by journalists, but by employers and working men. 
 Because the laws of Political Economy express the action of self- 
 interest, men have said that Political Economy enjoins men to 
 value their self-interest to the disregard of their humanity, their 
 morality, and their religion. That is not true. Political Economy 
 as a practical science bids men follow their own self-interest only 
 when it promotes the good of the community. Political Economy 
 never said that there was no room for humanity or morality or 
 religion in the world. 
 
 I will show you by three illustrations the truth of what I 
 have said as to the mistake ^ade by journalists, working men, 
 and employers, as to the nature of Political Economy. In the 
 first place, I will take a case which occurred in America. In 
 the great labour war of 1877, which was followed by a long 
 controversy in the American magazines and newspapers. Colonel 
 Scott, the manager of the Pennsylvanian Eailway, wrote an 
 elaborate defence of the policy of his company in the reduction 
 of wages. He said : " We have kept in our employment more 
 men than we wanted, and this I know is contrary to the hard 
 rules of Political Economy" — as if, as I have observed before. 
 Political Economy bade men discard humanity. Again, in a re- 
 cent arbitration question the representative of the men, in arguing 
 his case before the arbitrators, said : "If in 1872 we had followed 
 our own interest on the true principles of Political Economy, then 
 our wages would be double what they are at the present time." 
 There again that man thought that because the laws of Political 
 Economy expressed the action of self-interest, therefore the political 
 economist enjoined men always to act from self-interest and not 
 from any other motive. Lastly, let me give a quotation from the 
 Times. In a leading article on a great strike the Times said, con- 
 demning the action of the workmen : " It is true that the sternest 
 economist, when he thinks of the sufferings of some classes of 
 
1 58 Wages and Natural Law. 
 
 labour, gives an involuntary shudder. He involuntarily wishes 
 the laws of economy might be relaxed in favour of this class 
 of workmen." Did that writer suppose that the laws of Political 
 Economy were of the same character as the laws of gravity, that 
 they expressed facts which were unalterable by human endeavour ? 
 He did, and he was entirely wrong. In 1848, many years before 
 that leading article was written, John Mill had shown the great 
 distinction between those laws of Political Economy which are true 
 laws of nature — true as the law of gravity to which the laws of 
 Political Economy have been compared with wearisome iteration — 
 and those laws of Political Economy which are true only under 
 certain assumptions — that is, under a certain existing social system 
 which is alterable by human endeavour; under existing human 
 passions which can be modified in the progress of civilisation by 
 higher passions and higher ideals. This is what I wish to enforce 
 upon you before proceeding to the immediate subject of my lecture 
 — that a large portion of the laws of Political Economy simply ex- 
 press the action of human beings as they are at present constituted 
 under the existing system of law and social institutions, and that 
 though we cannot expect rapidly or completely to change the 
 nature of man, the nature of man is being slowly but surely 
 changed by the progress of civUisation, of morality, and of rehgion, 
 and therefore if a man alleges in his behalf, when he has done an 
 inhuman thing, the laws of Political Economy, he is discarded alto- 
 gether by all the economists of the most recent school 
 
 It is true that certain economists of the old school, misled by 
 the influence of physical science, believed that the law of the dis^ 
 tribution of wealth, the law of wages, was an inevitable and eternal 
 law, and this conception gave rise to the wage-fund theory. 
 Though John Mill distinctly said the laws of distribution of 
 wealth were true only under existing social conditions which 
 might be altered, he yet maintained that granting these conditions 
 the law of wages was inevitable and unalterable by human 
 endeavour, and in saying this he undid the chief benefit of his 
 treatise. It was not until a late period of his life that he gave up 
 this theory; in 1869, he publicly, in an article in the Fortnightly 
 Review, confessed that he had been wrong. What economists for a 
 long time had been saying to working men who were trying by com- 
 bination to raise their wages, was 1 " You are doing a very foolish 
 
Wages and Natural Law. 159 
 
 thing. You miglit as well try to make iron swim , as to alter the 
 rate of wages by your iadividual will. The rate of wages, like the 
 succession of night and day, is independent of the will of either 
 employer or employed. Neither workmen nor employers can 
 change the rate determined by competition at any particular time." 
 Such an assertion as this was not only made in text-books and by 
 abstract theorists, but it was made by journals and by members of 
 Parliament. Mr. Eoebuck is an example. Mr. Eoebuck was in 
 his own way a great friend of the working man, but he was a very 
 strict political economist of the old school, and opposed to Trades- 
 Unions. Some of you may remember that Mr. Eoebuck was a 
 member of the Trades-Uuion Commission in 1867, and examined 
 the leaders of the Trades-Unions adversely. In 1847, in the course 
 of the great debate on the Ten Hours' BUI, when the country 
 gentlemen eagerly tried to avenge themselves on the manufacturers 
 for the repeal of the Corn Laws, Mr. Eoebuck took the side of the 
 manufacturers, and urged that landowners ought to look at home. 
 " Think," he said, " of the low wages you are paying your 
 labourers ; don't be always insisting upon the miserable condition 
 of the operatives of the north." And notice how he went on : "I 
 am not going to retort upon you because the wages which you pay ; 
 your workmen are low. You cannot, I know, afford to pay more J 
 wages to them." In other words, Mr. Eoebuck meant to say that 
 the 6s. a week which the Wiltshire peasant was getting at that 
 time was the result of an inevitable law which neither landowner, 
 nor farmer, nor labourer could change. But though the wage-fund 
 theory has been given up by economists, it is extremely difficult to 
 frame another theory in its place which shaU explain the facts. 
 The facts of our present industrial system are of so complicated a 
 nature that they have not only defied the attention of economists 
 for the last fifty years, but they have deceived practical men who 
 have given to them not only the time economists have given, but 
 their whole lives. This is the peculiar difficulty under which the 
 economist lies, the geologist or the physicist has the facts of 
 the physical world before him ; he can quietly observe them, he 
 can make experiments ; but the economist has to deal with facts 
 which are far more complicated, which are obscured by human 
 passions and interests, and, what is stiU more to the point, which 
 are perpetually in motion. 
 
i 
 
 1 60 Wages and Natural Law. 
 
 I believe the wage-fund theory was the great cause of the un- 
 popularity of Political Economy among working men; first because 
 the theory contradicted obvious facts known to the working classes, 
 such as a rise of wages caused by the action of Trades-Unions ; 
 secondly, because it strengthened the hands of the employer in 
 bargaining with the workman by bringing public opinion to bear on 
 his side, for the workmen were represented as kicking against an in- 
 evitable law of nature ; and thirdly, because it affected to place an 
 immoveable barrier to the improvement of the working classes, tell- 
 ing them that there was only one escape for them, limitation of their 
 numbers — a hard saying. But before going on to an explanation 
 of the law of wages as it exists at the present time, I wish to 
 state, as shortly as I can, what the wage-fund theory really was. 
 In the first place, it said that at any given moment the rate of wages 
 was determined by causes entirely beyond the control of the em- 
 ployer and the working man. It said, " Wages are paid from past 
 accumulations of capital. A certain portion of that capital is put 
 aside by the employer for the payment pi wages. That portion 
 and no more the working man can get. (^The wages question is a 
 question of saving and not of bargaining.^ Therefore, the political 
 economist condemned Trades-Unions, which are an organised 
 attempt to bargain for the rate of wages ; therefore, the English 
 political economist said that wages were a question of population. 
 He said, " The only way for the working man to improve his con- 
 dition is to limit his numbers." He looked upon the working 
 man as a divisor, and not as a multiplier. He said, " The working 
 man cannot increase the dividend, therefore let him diminish the 
 divisor." That was the only hope which English economists for 
 fifty years held out to the working classes. All the endeavours of 
 the working classes to improve their condition were condemned by 
 this theory, and therefore it was that the working man said, " If 
 Political Economy is against the working man, it behoves the 
 working man to be against Political Economy." 
 
 And the working man was right. The economists had made a vast 
 mistake, but there were certain deceptive appearances which misled 
 them. It must not be supposed that because they made a mistake 
 about the most important question of their time, these men were either 
 blindly prejudiced or thoroughly incapable. They were deceived 
 by certain facts which are very difficult to interpret. The first fact 
 
Wages and Natural Law. 1 6 1 
 
 is, that though wages are not paid out of capital, they are always 
 > ad/oanced out of capital. The next fact is that, though the rate of 
 wages is not determined by the proportion of food capital to the 
 population that exists at a given moment, yet the existence of that 
 food capital is a necessary condition of the employment of the 
 working man ; and therefore the economist said, that it formed also 
 the limit to his wages, because according to the theory of population, 
 wages are always at the level of bare subsistence. During the past 
 ten years economists in Germany,. in America, and in England 
 have been busy pointing out the mistakes committed by the old 
 school, but no economist has yet succeeded in constructing another , 
 complete theory of wages. The fact is, that no simple^ISmiula or 
 phrase can cover so complicated a set of facts, and the most I can 
 do this evening is to explain certain leading conditions which 
 determine the rate of wages. I shall not pretend to exhaust the 
 subject, but I think I can put in a clear way the most prominent 
 and important causes affecting wages in England at the present 
 time. 
 
 In order to render my statement clear, I must make certain 
 divisions. These divisions will be necessarily artificial, and there- 
 fore to a certain extent misleading, but they are absolutely 
 essential to a clear exposition of my subject. We must first ask. 
 Why are wages paid at all ? and secondly. What determines the 
 real wages received by the working man — that is, what determines, 
 in Adam Smith's language, " the amount of the necessaries, con- 
 veniences, and luxuries of life received by the working man?" 
 Now, in answeriug the first question, we must remember that three 
 things are necessary to the employment of the laboarer. (1.) There 
 must be an unsatisfied want — that is, there must be a demand for 
 the commodities produced by his labour. (2.) There must be what 
 we may call " food capital ;" somebody must have saved, or abstained 
 from the consumption of so much food and clothing as is absolutely 
 indispensable to the labourer until the product of his labour is real- 
 ized. (3.) The labourer must find an employer, some one who will 
 provide the capital, manage the industry, and undertake to satisfy 
 the want of the consumer. The function of the employer in the 
 modern industrial system seems to have been very little under- 
 stood. It is a function at the present time of enormous import- 
 ance. The employer scrutinises the natural resources of the 
 
 L 
 
1 62 Wages and Natural Law. 
 
 country ; he detects new possibilities ; he creates a new industry 
 out of the waste of old industries ; he gathers together men in 
 factories ; he takes the whole risk of the business ; he guarantees 
 the wages of the workmen, and he studies the wants of the con- 
 sumer. He must know where to buy his raw material ; he must 
 know how to buy it in the cheapest market, when to sell his 
 goods, and when not to sell them. He must undertake operations 
 which involve relations with all sorts of men, not only in his own 
 country but in distant countries. Without him it is absolutely 
 impossible, as long as the present industrial system lasts, for the 
 workman to live. These three things, then, are necessary : — First 
 of all, demand for the commodities ; secondly, capital ; and, thirdly, 
 the employer. If there is demand for a certain commodity, and 
 if there is an employer who will advance the capital and take the 
 risk of satisfying that demand, then the labourer gets employment. 
 Observe that if the capital, the labour, and the business knowledge 
 and enterprise 'all belonged to the same man there would be no 
 question of distribution. But as a fact the three things often belong 
 to three sets of people, and the question therefore arises, how are 
 we to divide the price of the produce ? for wages are paid out of 
 the price of the produce. This brings us to the second division of 
 our subject. 
 
 When the labourer is employed, what determines the amount 
 of his wages ? We will first of aU consider the wages question as 
 a question of production. As wages are primarily determined by 
 the amount of the produce, our first business is to inquire what 
 determines this amount. Now, the amount of the produce depends 
 to a large extent upon the efficiency of labour. It is this which 
 chiefly determines the quantity of wealth the labourer can create. 
 If we look at different countries — at America, at France, at Germany, 
 nt Eussia, and at England, we shall see that there are different rates 
 of wages in these countries. What is the main cause of this 
 difference in the rate of wages ? It is the difference in the 
 efficiency of labour, as weU as in the natural resources of the 
 country. Here is the first great hope which the latest analysis of 
 the wages question opens out to the labourer. It shows him that 
 there is another mode of raising his wages besides limiting his 
 numbers. He can increase the dividend by increasing the amount 
 of the produce. 
 
Wages and Nahtral Law. 163 
 
 Let us consider for a moment on what the efficiency of labour 
 depends. First of all it depends on the physical strength and 
 the technical skill of the labourer. Next, it depends upon the 
 state of the mechanical arts, on the kind of machinery with which 
 the labourer has to work. Next, it may be said to depend upon 
 climate. A climate may or may not be like that of England, 
 which permits continuous labour and stimulates a hardy and 
 vigorous existence. Next, it depends upon the foresight and skill 
 of the employer in the distribution of labour, and in the manage- 
 ment of the economy of the factory. The amount of the produce 
 is affected by all these things. Eecently many statistics have 
 been collected in order to show the different efficiency of labour in 
 different countries. 
 
 I shall give one or two instances to illustrate my position. 
 One reason why wages in England are high compared with wages 
 on the Continent, is that the machinery used in England is more 
 efficient than that used on the Continent, and that the physical 
 strength and skill of the working man here enables him to super- 
 intend more machinery than the working man on the Continent 
 is able to superintend. You may say that machinery is an 
 injury to the working man. Well, machinery, like many other 
 things in the progress of mankind, has been an injury to certain 
 classes of working men. If a man has got a special aptitude for 
 a special occupation, and a machine is invented which displaces 
 him, he may become a pauper. That raises the question, how 
 to promote industrial progress without unnecessary suffering to 
 the individual — a question which is too wide to be dealt with in 
 my present lecture. But remember that machinery has also had 
 a great effect in raising wages ; first because it has made labour 
 more efficient, and the labourer thus produces more ; and secondly 
 because it has cheapened commodities, and therefore the labourer 
 can buy more. You have probably heard of the bitter complaints 
 of American manufacturers, of the high wages they have to pay, 
 of their desperate competition with the " pauper labour" of Europe. 
 Now. why do men get high wages in America ? Partly for the 
 very reason we are considering, because workmen produce more in 
 America than in other countries, for labour-saving machinery has 
 been more rapidly invented there than in any other country. At 
 the very time when American manufacturers were complaining of 
 
1 64 Wages a,nd Natural Law. 
 
 the competition of " pauper labour " in Europe, it was shown that 
 in the American hardware industries, in which wages were double 
 as high as they were in England, America was underselling other 
 countries in their own markets. Again, take the coal industry. 
 The output of a single collier in England has been calculated at 
 272 tons per annum. In Belgium it is 185 tons. This is due to 
 a difference of physical strength, and to improved mechanical 
 appliances. Sir Thomas Brassey considers that though French 
 wages are twenty per cent, cheaper than English, yet the cost of 
 making iron in France is greater; this is due to the "want of^ 
 appliances for the saving of labour." 
 
 Thus far we have seen that the labourer receives wages accoid- 
 ing to the amount of the produce of his labour. We have next to 
 consider the price for which that produce will sell. Wages, in the 
 second place, depend upon the price of the produce. What deter- 
 mines the price of a manufactured commodity is a very -complicated 
 question, and one which has very much exercised the minds of 
 economists. I think it is possible to put the facts pretty simply 
 for our purpose. Commodities may be divided into two classes ; 
 those produced under free competition, and those produced under 
 monopoly. The price of commodities produced under free competi- 
 tion is the lowest which the producers wiU work for; the consumer in 
 these cases has his wants satisfied at the minimum cost. The price 
 of such commodities is determined by the actaal cost of production ; 
 and the product is sold at the lowest price at which any man can 
 afford to make it. If it fell lower, the producer would throw up the 
 business. The lock-trade, for instance, is not carried on like most 
 trades by large employers of labour with immense capital, but by 
 small masters employing six or eight apprentices. The competition 
 among them is so keen that the price of locks is reduced to the 
 lowest point. Here the individual master can do very little 
 indeed to determine the price, and the individual workman can do 
 very little to determine the price ; it is decided by causes beyond 
 the control of the producer, whether he is an employer or a work- 
 man. But with regard to commodities produced under a monopoly, 
 their price is not determined by cost of production, but by the de- 
 mand of the consumer. The consumer may have to pay three 
 times as much for a monopolised commodity as he would have had 
 to pay had it been produced under free competition, and the end of 
 
Wa^es and Natural Law. 165 
 
 the satisfaction of all wants at the minimum cost is thus defeated. 
 It is important to deal thoroughly with this question, because one 
 of the most favourite proposals at the present time, of employers 
 in America and working men in England, is a limitation of produc- 
 tion in order to secure a rise in price, and therefore a rise in wages 
 and profits ; to create, in fact, a monopoly price. But in con- 
 sidering this question we must keep in mind what is our fun- 
 damental aim — the satisfaction of wants at the minimum cost of 
 life, and with the minimum antagonism of interests. 
 
 How far then can a working man increase his wages — not 
 merely hy increasing the efficiency of his labour, and thereby 
 increasing the amount of his produce, but by getting a higher 
 price for his produce 1 We have to ask, in the first place. Can 
 he do it ? and, in the next place, if he can do it. Is it a policy 
 which a political economist, not as a scientific man analysing 
 facts, but as a teacher framing precepts to guide men's actions, 
 would recommend ? Now there is no doubt that under certain 
 circumstances the thing can be done. It can be done by limita- 
 tion in production, and by combination to raise wages — two things 
 closely connected. To take a particular industry : supposing that 
 the colliers, or the cotton-spinners and weavers of Lancashire, 
 determined to limit production in order to raise their wages, it 
 would be perfectly possible of course for the colliers to insist on 
 limiting the output of coal, the spinners the manufacture of 
 cottons; but remember, unless the combination among them is 
 universal it will not be successful. Unless they can get, not 
 merely the colliery owners of any particular district but of the 
 whole country, not merely the cotton-spinners of any particular 
 district but of the whole country, to consent to that limitation, 
 they will not gain their point. Supposing the manufacturers of 
 Lancashire limited the output, and other manufacturers refused 
 to do so, these latter would get the hold on the markets which 
 the Lancashire manufacturers had abandoned, and consequently, 
 when these again increased their production they would find 
 others in the possession of the market. So you see it is not an 
 easy matter to raise prices by limiting production. I do not, 
 however, condemn such a policy, when it can be successfully 
 attempted, if followed by men who wish for a time to adapt pro- 
 duction to consumption. A temporary limitation of production, 
 
1 66 Wages and Natural Law. 
 
 when there is a real glut of goods in the market, is a perfectly 
 legitimate attempt to remedy a defect in our industrial system. 
 But this is quite a distinct thing from a restriction of production 
 to obtain a monopoly price ; and what we have to consider at the 
 present time is the policy of attempting to limit permanently the 
 output of a particular industry, in order to draw into the hands 
 of the producers of that industry a larger amount of the general 
 wealth. 
 
 Now this object can, under certain circumstances, be effected 
 by a combination among capitalist employers — a common enough 
 policy in America, and a real danger of the modern industrial 
 system — or by a combination among the men. Supposing what 
 has been attempted by the employers in America had really 
 succeeded, that what are called "rings" had been formed, and 
 that such rings had determined to tax the whole body of con- 
 sumers for their own benefit, the result of course would have 
 been a small gain to themselves at the expense of a great loss 
 to the whole people. That word " consumer " is a very mis- 
 leading one. The body of the mere consumers in England is a 
 small one. Most consumers are producers, and half the things pro- 
 duced are consumed by working men. If a particular group of 
 working men and employers combine to raise the price of theii' 
 own products, what they do is simply this : they just draw into 
 their hands a larger quantity of commodities produced by other 
 producers, and tax the whole people for their own benefit. I do 
 not deny that such a policy is feasible, but as a practical political 
 economist I condemn it. There is already one great antagonism of 
 interest — that between employer and labourer — and here you would 
 be creating a second antagonism of interests between one group of 
 producers and the producers of the whole community, and the 
 result would be an industrial war within the community. This 
 would be, not a question of a struggle between two classes of the 
 community for the division of legitimate gains, but a combination 
 of two classes to obtain illegitimate gains at the expense of the 
 whole people. 
 
 The same reasoning applies to combinations, not of employers 
 and workmen, but of workmen alone to raise the price of their pro- 
 duce. The workmen of a given district, being all powerful owing 
 to their Trades-Union, may insist upon a rise in wages, and the 
 
Wages and Natural Law. 167 
 
 employer may grant such a rise, and try to throw the increased cost 
 on the consumer. But will the consumer pay the higher price ? 
 That is the question. He will certainly pay it if the article be 
 one which he cannot do without ; but what is then the result 1 
 He has less to spend on other commodities ; so that again one 
 group of working men gain at the expense of all other groups of 
 working men. You must remember it is the consumer who pays 
 wages though the employer advances them. But it may be that 
 the article in question is one which the consumer can do without, 
 or of which he can, at any rate, diminish his consumption. In that 
 case it is probable that the rise in prices will lead to a reduction 
 in the demand for the article, and thus, though the rate of wages 
 among the labourers producing the article has risen, they may be 
 none the better off, because the amount of the article required, and 
 consequently the amount of their employment, will be less. The 
 only effect of the rise of price would thus be to diminish the 
 production of some necessary or convenient article. 
 
 We have now come to the third circumstance which deter- 
 mines the rate of wages. I have spoken of the amount of the 
 produce, and the price of the produce : we have lastly to consider the 
 division of the price of the produce. The price of the produce 
 lias to be divided into three parts ; first, the interest on capital ; 
 second, what is called by Mill " the wages of superintendence," or, 
 to use the language of a more recent economist, " the earnings of 
 management ;" and third, the wages of labour. Over the first we 
 need not linger. Whether capital is borrowed or belongs to the 
 employer himself, the current rate of interest has to be paid on it. 
 The hard point to ascertain is, how the rest of the price is divided 
 between the employer and the workman. The rate of interest 
 is ascertainable enough, but the rate of profits and the rate of 
 wages is a matter of continual dispute. You are all familiar with 
 the old formula of supply and demand, but I shall be obliged 
 again to make use of it. As a fact, the rate of profit — the wages 
 of management — and the rate of wages — the reward of labour — 
 are determined by the famous law of supply and demand, that 
 dubious, hateful, convenient phrase. Primarily the remuneration 
 of the employer is determined by the number of employers com- 
 pared with the demand for them, the remuneration of the labourer 
 is determined by the number of labourers compared with the de- 
 
/ 
 
 1 68 Wages and Natural Law. 
 
 mand for them. In other words, the rate of wages and the rate 
 of what I will call profits, as distinguished from interest, are 
 determined by the comparative supply of employers and labourers. 
 You all remember the famous saying of ICobden's : " Wages rise 
 when two masters run after one workman ; wages fall when two 
 men run after one master." ) 
 
 If I were going into a complete investigation of the subject, I 
 should have to inquire into all the causes which determine the 
 supply of employers, and all the causes which determine the supply 
 of labourers, but that is far too intricate a question for me to enter 
 on to-night. What I wish to deal with is this: What determines the 
 actual bargains made between employers and workmen, assuming a 
 certain state of supply and demand ? In the first place let us ask 
 whether there is a minimum rate of profit ; that is, a rate of profit 
 on less than which the employer refuses to carry on his business. 
 In all the discussions which you meet with in the newspapers, 
 and in books written by impartial, faii'-minded men like Mr. 
 Brassey, you will find it constantly said that the employer must 
 have his fair rate of profit. What is really meant by the word 
 " fair " ? If you will look into it closely you will see that it means 
 this : that the fair rate of profit which the employer must have, 
 is that rate which, if he does not obtain in his own particular 
 industry, he can obtain either by moving to some other locality, or 
 by moving to some other occupation. There are actual instances 
 of employers doing this. You know that certain trades have been 
 driven from certain districts by the action of Trades-Unions, which 
 have refused to recognise that there is this minimum rate of profit. 
 I am saying nothing whatever as to whether the employer is right 
 or not in insisting on this rate of profit ; all I say is, that so long 
 as human nature is what it is, so long as employers are what they 
 are, so long will they insist upon this rate of profit while they can 
 get it. But this fair rate of profit is not a fixed quantity. The 
 employer, rather than throw up his business, may give higher 
 wages, and the workmen get their risr in wages at the expense of 
 the employer. The rate is not a fixed rate. Some employers will 
 be content with less than others, but remember that there is a 
 minimum rate of profit, there is a limit to the rise of wages at the 
 expense of the employer. 
 
 Now let us turn to the workman's side of the case. Is there a 
 
Wages and Natural Laiv. 1 69 
 
 minimum rate of wages ? We hear almost more about fair wages 
 than we hear about fair profits. Let us try to see what meaning 
 can be given to the term " fair," as applied to wages. It means 
 that there is a certain rate of wages in a given occupation on 
 less than which the workman refuses to carry on his business. 
 He says, " If you won't give ine this rate of wages, I can move to 
 another occupation or to another locality." The workman's 
 power of moving to another occupation depends very much 
 upon his brains, and his power of moving to another locality 
 depends upon the knowledge he has of the opportunities in other 
 places. He may either migrate from one part of England to 
 another, or he may leave the country altogether ; there is thus a 
 limit to a rise in profits. So far we have seen the limits to wages 
 and profits, now we have to ascertain what determines the division 
 of that part of the price which lies between these two limits. 
 
 You all know that it has been said, I suppose a hundred 
 thousand times in the last fifty years, that the wages of labour are 
 determined by the demand for and supply of labour, just as the 
 price of other commodities is determined by the demand for and 
 the supply of those commodities. This is what the newspapers 
 have said and many economists also ; but there is an assumption 
 in that statement which is not true. The writers who make that 
 statement assume that the market for labour is identical in 
 character with the market for commodities. Is that the case ? 
 The most eminent recent economists of more than one school 
 have denied it. They have shown that there is a radical 
 difference between the market for commodities and the market 
 for labour, and that in the bargain of the labourer with 
 the employer the labourer is, as an isolated individual, under a 
 natural disadvantage. Kemember that in the market for com- 
 modities buyer and seller meet on equal terms. They have equal 
 knowledge, and probably — thovgh not necessarily — equal capital. 
 They can hold out for their reserve price ; and if the merchant or 
 the manufacturer cannot seli his commodities in one market, he 
 has not the slightest difficulty in sending them to another. 
 Further, a bargain about a bale of cotton goods does not convulse 
 the industrial system, but the bargain about the price of labour in- 
 volves the social condition of a whole class. In order to place the 
 labourer on an equality with the employer in his bargain he must 
 
1 70 Wages and Natural Law. 
 
 have equal knowledge with the employer of the market demand 
 for employers and for labourers. But it is perfectly obvious that 
 the employer has the advantage of the labourer in point of know- 
 ledge. He knows better when to strike a bargain and when to 
 hold out. It is a fact that a few years ago labourers in the 
 south and south-west of England had never heard of Lancashire 
 and the demand for labour which existed there. 
 
 In the next place, in order that employer and labourer may 
 bargain on equal terms they must both have a reserve price, — 
 that is, equal power of using their knowledge of the market. 
 The isolated labourer is very much in the position of a merchant 
 who has to sell without being able to hold out for his price. 
 To enable the labourer to hold out he must have capital. He 
 must be able to say to the employer, " Very well : if you won't 
 give me my price, I will wait ;" and he must be able to live 
 during the time he is waiting. Trades-Unions have supplied 
 capital to the labourer and enabled him (as far as regards this 
 point) to approach the employer on a more equal footing. The 
 employer has a large capital ; so has the Trades-Union, and the 
 t\vo are now a very much more equal match than in the old times 
 before the repeal of the Combination Laws in 1824, when it was 
 illegal for the labourers to combine to hold out for their " reserve 
 price." But again, in making the bargain the employer is one man 
 united ; the labourers are many disunited. If the labourers unite 
 in a Trades-Union then they can bargain as one man and main- 
 tain their price. This is a second function of real importance 
 which Trades-Unions perform in the bargain between employers 
 and labourers ; they enable the men to bargain as a whole. Again, 
 if the employer and the labourer are to be on equal terms they 
 must have equal mobility — that is, an equal power of moving from 
 the place in which they are not wanted, to a place where they are 
 wanted. Has the labourer an equal mobility with the capitalist 
 employer ? No. The labourer has to contend with ignorance of 
 other localities, and with local attachment and domestic ties. A 
 bale of cotton goods has no domestic ties, has no local attachment. 
 And not only can an employer ship his goods to another- place, but 
 he can transport his business power and his capital elsewhere, 
 much more easily than the labourer can his labour. In 1870 a 
 large cotton-spinner in Glasgow took his capital and established a 
 
Wages and Natural Law. 171 
 
 factory in New York. Trades-Unions, however, also occasionally 
 send workmen from place to place. 
 
 There is another fact -which I wish to insist upon. If two 
 people are to be on an equal footing in making a bargain, they 
 must have an equal indifference to each other. Is the labourer 
 more in need of the employer, or the employer of the labourer ? 
 If the labourers are obstinate the employers can in many cases 
 introduce fresh machinery. Some of the most famous machines 
 of modern times have been introduced owing to strikes. Nasmyth, 
 the inventor of the steam-hammer, introduced machinery 
 in 1857 to the extent of reducing his hands one-half, thereby 
 much increasing his profits. I believe the contractors for the 
 Tubular Bridge in 1848 procured the invention of a machine for 
 punching holes in iron plates, and thus got rid of men who had 
 been troublesome. Have labourers yet discovered a machine which 
 they can substitute for employers ? And, again, employers have 
 another resource — the introduction of foreign workmen. You have 
 never heard of a labourer importing an employer ; it is not the 
 labourer who imports the employer, but the employer who imports 
 the labourer. Thus the employer is, in many ways, more necessary 
 to the labourer than the labourer to the employer. The employer, 
 again, may even refuse to use the commodity which the labourer 
 produces. He may, for instance, substitute concrete for stone, 
 and so get rid of a troublesome bargainer. 
 
 All these cases show that there is a real, essential difference 
 l)etween the market for labour and the market for commodities. 
 I am not stating this in any other than a perfectly scientific spirit. 
 It represents the careful analysis of the labour market by impartial 
 men, and is accepted by economists of different schools. To put 
 it shortly, we have in the market for commodities organised com- 
 petition on equal terms and no social question involved ; in the 
 labour market we have unorganised competition and a great social 
 question involved ; and the statement of the conditions necessary 
 to assimilate the labour market to the goods market is seen to be 
 a statement of the labourers' disadvantage. When we have the 
 labourer as an isolated individual bargaining with the employer, 
 this is unorganised competition on unequal terms ; but if labourers, 
 instead of bargaining singly, combine, accumulate capital, and 
 bargain with the employer as one man, as they can do through 
 
172 Wages and Natural Law. 
 
 their Trades-Unions, then there is organised competition on much 
 more equal terms. 
 
 Before I leave the subject of Trades-Unions let us just con- 
 sider the result of the action of a Union supposing it to gain a 
 direct rise in wages. A rise in wages may be a benefit to the 
 workman without being any real loss to the employer ; the work- 
 man may be more ef&cient owing to the rise in his wages, and by 
 turning out a larger produce may increase both wages and profits. 
 This may happen, but you must also remember that if Trades- 
 Unions not only endeavour to organise competition but attempt 
 likewise to limit competition, that is, if they do not merely com- 
 bine all the labourers in a given industry in one Union, but combine 
 a certain number of labourers and exclude others, then they may 
 get into difficulties, because if the combined labourers succeed in 
 getting a higher rate of wages, that higher rate will attract other 
 labourers from other districts. Now this happened as a fact ia 
 Glasgow about the year 1834. The wages of the cotton-spinners 
 being kept up by their Union, the high rate attracted outsiders, 
 and the Unionists were obliged to support these out of their own 
 wages in order to prevent their competition ! 
 
 I am not now about to discuss the question of how far Trades- 
 Unions can solve the struggle for existence, by limiting com- 
 petition to a select few. But I should like to point out that if 
 by limiting competition the Trade-Unionist diminishes the pro- 
 duce of labour, in the end he defeats his own purpose, for one of 
 the primary causes of higher wages is efficient labour. On the 
 other hand the actioft of Trades-Unions in organising competition 
 has been perfectly legitimate. They have organised supply where 
 supply was unorganised, they have got rid of the influences of 
 custom, and have forced employers to yield them a higher rate of 
 wages where employers have succeeded in getting higher profits. 
 But they cannot get a higher rate of wages than that determined 
 by organised competition; if they do, employers will withdraw 
 their capital, or new hands will be attracted by the high wages 
 into the trade. Yet we see that it is not pure and simple com- 
 petition in the market of workmen on one side and employers on 
 the other which determines the rate of wages. Given the same 
 number of workmen and the same number of employers under 
 different conditions, and a different rate of wages would ensue. 
 
Wages and Natural Law. 1 73 
 
 But I wish particularly to draw your attention to one fact, that 
 owing to the increased organisation of employers on the one hand 
 and labourers on the other, arbitration and conciliation are be- 
 coming increasingly necessary. The struggle is becoming very 
 definite. Vast groups of labourers are standing face to face with 
 groups of employers. Both parties are beginning to see the true 
 nature of the problem which they have been working out for the 
 last one hundred years, and the result is that they see that neither 
 can win any permanent advantage by protracted struggles. They 
 find that it is far better to meet in council and discuss the facts of 
 their business ; they find it is far better to treat each other, not 
 as natural opponents, but as merchants treat each other on the 
 exchange, not looking upon each other as determined foes, but as 
 men bargaining with a definite point at issue, a point which can 
 be ascertained by increased knowledge on the part of the labourer, 
 and increased willingness to take the labourer into his counsels on 
 the part of the employer. 
 
 But I have not exhausted the analysis of the causes which 
 determine the rate of wages. They are still influenced by custom, 
 by Poor-Laws^a bad Poor-Law, like the old one in England before 
 1834, may distinctly keep wages down — by all kinds of institutions 
 which seem but remotely connected with the labourer ; and by the 
 past history of the nation. Public opinion also is an influence of 
 great importance. The London daily press in times past has 
 unhappily been nearly always against the workmen. During the 
 builders' strike in 1861 the Daily Telegraph wrote, "It has been 
 settled by the expression of public opinion that ten hours is not 
 an oppressive day's work for a mason or labourer ; " the Standard 
 wrote, " We know that if the masters attempted anything hareh or 
 unusual the men would have public opinion with them, and the 
 employers would have to yield ; " the Times wrote, " They will not 
 enlist the public on their side, and without the public they will 
 not succeed against their masters." The power of public opinion 
 in America has been more thau once directly shown; a Shoe- 
 makers' Union was beaten in an attempt to obtain exorbitant wages 
 by the spirit evinced by the people generally who supported the 
 employers in the introduction of Chinese labour ; and a printers' 
 strike in Boston was defeated by the assistance lent to the pub- 
 lishers by the public, even a judge, it is said, helping to set type I 
 
1 74 Wages and Natural Law. 
 
 Happily public opinion exercises a considerable influence upon 
 masters as well as upon workmen. I am not now referring to 
 honourable employers, but to men who unfortunately exist in 
 every trade, whose only desire is to make money and who are 
 only too anxious to get it out of the weakness of their men. The 
 action of this class of employer, is controlled, not only by the 
 public opinion of the newspapers, but by the public opinion of 
 their own class. Let me give an example of this. Mr. Mundella, 
 who, singularly enough, was examined by Mr. Eoebuck before the 
 Trades-Union Commission, in the course of his evidence before 
 that Commission on the truck system at Nottingham, said that 
 some masters in his trade were as bad as they could be, that in 
 fact their conduct almost justified the violence of the men. 
 " But," Mr. Mundella added (he was then speaking of the Board 
 of Arbitration), " since we have got our Board, we have put a 
 stop to their exactions." In other words, the public opinion of 
 the workmen and the employers, expressed through the Board of 
 Arbitration, had coerced these masters, and had raised the wages 
 of their men, hitherto robbed by payment in truck instead of in 
 the coin of the realm. 
 
 I have said enough to show that it is not competition alone 
 that determines the rate of wages, that Trades-Unions, that 
 custom, that law, that public opinion, that the character of 
 employers, all influence wages ; that their rate is not governed by 
 an inexorable law, nor determined alone by what a great writer 
 once called " the brute natural accident of supply and demand." 
 As a matter of fact, wages are influenced by a great many causes 
 which are only too apt to escape our notice. That competition in 
 England and still more in America is the main influence no one 
 denies. In America the condition of the workmen is extremely 
 ^^good, and this is distinctly the result of competition joined to the 
 accident of the existence in the western states of America of a 
 vast extent of still unoccupied land. Unless manufacturers in 
 the eastern states paid their men the same wages as they can earn 
 with the farmers in the west, who are competing for their labour, 
 or which they can obtain by themselves taking up unoccupied 
 land and cultivating it, they would find that they were without 
 hands, But why are wages in England only one-half of what 
 they are in America ? Curiously enough the land has a great deal 
 
Wages and Natural Law. • 175 
 
 to do with it, even in England, though in the opposite direction to 
 its influence in America. From causes into which I cannot go now 
 labourers have in this country been driven off the land, out of 
 agricultural districts into the towns, where they compete with the 
 manufacturing labourer, and thus depress wages. The main reason 
 why wages are lower here than in America is because there are 
 more labourers competing in the labour market. I admit, and for 
 the second time, that competition is the main cause of low wages ; 
 also that unless we can modify competition by other things, the 
 condition of the workmen in England is not likely to improve at 
 any very great pace; but it is more important to recognise that 
 competition is not the sole, cause than to recognise that it is the 
 main cause. 
 
 Wages on the whole have risen since the repeal of the corn- 
 laws, bread has been cheaper and steadier in price, and some of the 
 other necessaries of life more plentiful; an enormous emigration 
 has also relieved the labour market. Socialists say all this is 
 nothing, and that the only way permanently to improve the con- 
 dition of working men is to abolish private property and get rid of 
 competition entirely, substituting in^heir place collective property 
 under the control of the State. Wein England laugh at such 
 conceptions, but if we are able to laugh at them, it is because we 
 have here institutions like Trades-Unions, which have enabled 
 working men to hold their own against employers, and to effect a 
 considerable improvement in their condition. 
 
 But taking into account all that Trades-Unions have done and 
 can do, we have to recognise that if human nature is to continue to 
 be as it is; that if employers go on seeking to obtain the highest rate 
 of profit possible, and exert their power to the full, workmen will 
 find it extremely difficult to obtain any great improvement in their 
 condition. But human nature is not always the same. It slowly 
 changes, and is modified by higher ideals and wider and deeper 
 conceptions of justice. Men have -forgotten that although it is 
 impossible to change the nature of a stone or a rock, human nature 
 is pliable, and pliable above all to nobler ideas and to a truer sense 
 of justice. "We have no reason to suppose that human nature as it 
 is now will always remain the same. We have reason, on the other 
 handj to suppose that employers under the influence of the wider 
 and deeper conceptions of which I have spoken, may be willing 
 
1 76 Wages and Natural Law. 
 
 to forego in the struggle for the division of wealth, some part of 
 that share which would come to them if they chose to exert their 
 force without restraint. It may be said : " This is chimerical ; 
 human nature will be the same, and always has been the same." 
 This I deny, and I instance that great change of opinion which took 
 place in England with regard to slavery. If such a rapid change 
 could take place in our moral ideas within the last hundred years, 
 do not you think it possible that in the course of another hundred 
 years English employers and English workmen may act upon 
 higher notions of duty and higher conceptions of citizenship than 
 they do now? I am not speaking to employers alone. The matter 
 is as much in the hands of the workman as it is in the hands of 
 the employer. It is not merely a question of the distribution of 
 wealth ; it is a question of the right use of wealth. You know 
 only too well that many working men do not know how to use the 
 wages which they have at the present time. You know, too, that 
 an increase of wages often means an increase of crime. If working 
 men are to expect their employers to act with larger notions of 
 equity in their dealings in the labour market, it is at least rational 
 that employers should expect that workmen shall set about reform- 
 ing their own domestic life. It is at least reasonable that they 
 should demand that working men shall combine to put down 
 drunkenness and brutal sports. High wages are not an end in 
 themselves. No one wants high wages in order that working men 
 may indulge in mere sensual gratification. We want higher wages 
 in order that an improved material condition, with less of anxiety 
 and less uncertainty as to the future, may enable the working man 
 to enter on a purer and more worthy life. So far from high wages 
 being an end in themselves, we desire them for the workman just 
 in order that he may be delivered from that engrossing care for 
 every shilling and every penny which engenders a base materialism. 
 Therefore in deaKng with the subject of wages, I do not hesitate 
 to insist that you cannot separate it from the whole question of Ufe. 
 I shall be content if I have succeeded in showing that the ques- 
 tion is within the power of human wiU to determiae ; that man 
 need not crouch and shiver, as he did in the past, imder the shadow 
 of an inexorable law; but that human will may largely modify 
 human fate for good or ill. If also I have achieved a still more 
 humble purpose ; if I have shown working men that they should 
 
Wages and Natural Law. t ']'] 
 
 study economic science if they would understand within what 
 limits they can raise wages under present social conditions, and 
 taking human beings as they are — if I have succeeded in doing 
 this, then also I shall be content. 
 
 In conclusion, I would entreat working men to believe that 
 Political Economy is no longer an instrument for the aggrandise- 
 ment of the rich and the impoverishment of the poor ; that in as 
 far as it is a science at all, it endeavours to explain the laws by 
 which wealth is produced and distributed by men, as they are at 
 present constituted under the existing institutions of society ; that, 
 as a theoretical science, it pronoimces no judgment on these laws, 
 nor on the conduct of labourers and employers; but that as a 
 practical science, it does frame precepts, not in the interests of the 
 employers alone, not in the interests of the workmen alone, but in 
 the interests of the whole people. 
 
 M 
 
II. 
 
 INDUSTEY AND DEMOCEACY.^ 
 
 I FEEL that some explanation is due from me to those who are 
 assembled here to-night, of my claim to deal with the subject I 
 have chosen. It is a difficult subject, and seems to belong to the 
 politician and the practical man. I am neither"; I am simply a 
 student, — a student who has stepped outside his usual sphere to 
 handle a question which seems to raise issues beyond the power 
 of a student to appreciate. And yet I am content to rest my claim 
 to address you to-night, on the fact that I am a student, because 
 in that capacity I have, I believe, certain qualifications not pos- 
 sessed in an equal degree by the politician and man of business. 
 The student will not — at any rate at first — be suspected of class 
 prejudice or political prejudice. This, I think, is a strong point, 
 when we consider the delicacy of the question and its social 
 importance. But there is a stronger point still in favour of the 
 student: he is not only free from prejudice, he is able to take 
 those wide, connected views of things which are often to the poli- 
 tician and practical man impossible. They live in the world, are 
 immersed in its cares, distracted by its cries — are in the arena 
 carrying on the struggle. The student lives retired, watches the 
 world from afar, and discerns many things unnoticed by those who 
 
 1 This Address was delivered in the earlier part of 1881, to audiences of work- 
 ing men at Newcastle, Chelsea, Bradford (where employers also were present), 
 and Bolton. It is the only one of the addresses printed in this volume which 
 was prepared for publication by Toyubee himself. A note in his own hand, 
 which he wrote as a preface to the Address, says : — " With the exception 
 of one or two passages, this Address was not written out tEl after it was 
 spoken, but it is, I believe, here printed substantially as it was delivered. It 
 has not been thought necessary to give authorities for the facts mentioned ; but it 
 may be as well to state that the line of argument pursued is to be found, with varia- 
 tions, in Mr. Crompton's book on Industrial Conciliation (to which I would refer 
 all who are interested in that subject) ; in Brentano's Essay, Das Arbeitsver- 
 hdltniss gemass dem heutigen Secht ; and in Mr. Lushington's essay published in 
 the volume entitled Questions for a Reformed Parliament. The treatment of the 
 subject is necessarily incomplete, and it is intended to deal with some of the 
 points omitted in a second address, ' Socialism and Democracy." This second 
 address was never written. — Ed. 
 
Industry and Democracy. 179 
 
 are too often borne along in the tumult they seek to guide. From 
 his watch-tower he looks before and after, pursues with diligent eye 
 the receding past, and with anxious expectation forecasts the future. 
 You must not, however, suppose that I am describing the 
 student as a person of finer powers than the statesman ; I am 
 describing not his powers but his position, and on the advantages 
 of that position I insist, because I believe it to be one of peculiar 
 value at the present time. Owing to causes obvious to all, poli- 
 ticians have become less and less the leaders and teachers, and 
 more and more the instruments of the people. I pass no judgment 
 on the fact ; I state it simply to show the necessity for the inter- 
 vention in political and social affairs of a new order of men, who 
 may indeed be enrolled as members of this party or that, but who 
 shall not suffer party connections or personal aims to hamper them 
 in the elucidation of the questions which it is the function of 
 politicians to settle. Is it quite impossible to conceive of such 
 men? — of men who shall be as students impartial, as citizens 
 passionate ? 
 
 I propose to-night to apply a familiar philosophical conception 
 to the interpretation of a particular industrial problem. The con- 
 ception I mean is that of a law of progress — of a certain definite 
 order in human development which cannot be ignored or pushed 
 aside. I shall try to show what light is thrown by our knowledge 
 of this law on the relations between employers and workmen ; and 
 when you have listened to me, I venture to hope you will have 
 received some little help towards an understanding of the problems 
 which perplex the present and make the future dark with menace. 
 I have called my subject " Industry and Democracy." By 
 " industry " I mean " the life and affairs of employers and work- 
 men ;" by democracy, " government of the people by the people." 
 The relations between industry and democracy are innumerable ; 
 I shall deal with only one of them. I intend to trace shortly the 
 industrial history of the last century and a quarter, and to show 
 how democracy has contributed to the solution of the problems 
 presented by industrial change. I shall also incidentally show how 
 the growth of industry has stimulated the growth of democracy ; 
 for in human affairs no event is single. 
 
 I must ask you to transport yourselves in imagination to Eng- 
 land as it was a century and a quarter ago. We are accustomed 
 
/ 
 
 1 80 Industry and Democracy. 
 
 to think that, however the life of man may alter, the earth on 
 which he moves must remain the same. But here the revolutions 
 in man's life have stamped themselves upon the face of nature. The 
 great landmarks, the mountain ranges, the river channels, the inlets 
 and estuaries, are for the most part unaltered ; nothing else remains 
 the, same. For desolate moors and fens, for vast tracts of unen- 
 closed pasturage and masses of woodland, we have now corn-fields 
 and orchards, and crowded cities with their canopies of smoke. 
 Only a few years before the time of which I speak, men complained 
 that half the country was waste. To-day we have a struggle to 
 preserve any open land at all. 
 
 It is to a revolution in three industries, agriculture, cotton, and 
 iron, that this transformation is principally due. The stupendous 
 advances in manufactures towards the close of the last century, 
 with which we are all familiar, have a little overshadowed the 
 y^ simultaneous and parallel changes in agriculture. Yet these were 
 of equal importance. In the middle of the last century farms were 
 small and the method of cultivation primitive. The old system 
 of common cultivation was still to be seen at work in a large 
 number of parishes in the Midland counties. Eotation of crops 
 was only imperfectly understood ; the practice of growing winter 
 roots and artificial grasses was only slowly spreading. " As for the 
 sheep," said an old Norfolk shepherd, speaking of a stUl more 
 recent period, " they hadn't such food provided for them as they 
 have now. In winter there was little to eat except what God 
 Almighty sent for them, and when the snow was deep on the 
 ground they ate the ling or died off." I am tempted to give many 
 more details in illustration of the state of agriculture, but I cannot 
 spare the time. Let us turn to the condition of manufactures. 
 The cotton industry, which now supports more than half a million 
 of persons, was then oppressed by Parliament as a possible rival to 
 older industries, and was too insignificant to be mentioned more 
 than once, and then incidentally, by Adam Smith in the great 
 book which contains so full and accurate a description of the Eng- 
 land of his time. The iron industry, with which the materM 
 greatness of England has during the present century been so 
 conspicuously associated, was gradually dying out. Much of 
 the ore was stiU smelted by charcoal in small furnaces blown 
 by leather bellows worked by oxen. And it was not a trade 
 
Industry and Democracy. 1 8 r 
 
 upon which the nation looked with complacency or pride. On 
 the contrary, it had long been denounced by patriots as the 
 voracious ravager of the woods which furnished timber for our 
 warships, and pamphleteers demanded that we should import all 
 our iron from America, where vast forests still remained to be 
 cleared in the interests of agriculture. Not cotton and iron, but 
 wool was considered, in those days, the great piUar of national 
 prosperity. There were few people who doubted but that the ruin 
 of England would follow the decay of this cherished industry, and 
 it was only philosophers like Bishop Berkeley who, going very 
 deep into matters, ventured to ask whether other countries had 
 not flourished without the woollen trade. 
 
 To show you the external conditions of industrial life in the 
 middle of the last century, I cannot, I think, do better than give a 
 short description of the way in which wool was manufactured in 
 the neighbourhood of Leeds — a description drawn from a singularly 
 full and interesting account contained in the evidence taken be- 
 fore a Parliamentary committee. The business was in the hands 
 of small master-manufacturers who lived not in the town but in 
 homesteads in the fields, and rented little pasture-farms — we are 
 especially told'that clothiers who took arable farms rarely pros- 
 pered — of from 3 to 1 5 acres in size. Most of them kept horses 
 to carry their cloth to the Hall in Leeds where it was sold. Every 
 master worked with his own hands, and nearly aU the processes 
 through which the wool was put — the spinning, the weaving, and 
 the dyeing — were carried on in his own house. Few owned more 
 than three or four looms, or employed njore than eight or ten 
 people — men, women, and children. This method of carrying on 
 the trade was called the domestic system. " What I mean," said 
 a witness, " by the domestic system is the little clothiers living in 
 villages or detached places, with all their comforts, carrying on 
 business with their own capital: every one must have some 
 capital, more or less, to carry on his trade, and they are in some 
 degree little merchants as well as manufacturers, in Yorkshire." 
 There are many other facts of extreme interest, but what I 
 have told you may be taken as a fair description of an industrial 
 system which was not by any means peculiar to one place or to 
 one trade. 
 
 To make my description complete I ought, perhaps, to remind 
 
1 82 Industry and Democracy. 
 
 you that the manufacture of wool was not confined to one or two 
 special districts like the neighbourhood of Leeds or the valleys of 
 Gloucestershire and Somersetshire. A spinning-wheel was to 
 be found in every cottage and farm-house in the kingdom, a loom 
 in every village. And the mention of this fact brings me to an- 
 other point in the economic history of this period — the extremely 
 narrow circle in which trade moved. In many districts the 
 farmers and labourers used few things which were not the work 
 of their own hands, or which had not been manufactured a few 
 miles from their homes. The poet Wordsworth's account of the 
 farmers' families in Westmoreland, who grew on their own land 
 the corn with which they were fed, spun in their own homes the 
 wool with which they were clothed, and supplied the rest of their 
 wants by the sale of yarn in the neighbouring market town, was 
 not so inapplicable to other parts of England as we might at irst 
 imagine. If the inland trade was thus circumscribed, we shall 
 not be surprised to find that our foreign trade was, compared with 
 its present dimensions, on a tiny scale. There is no doubt that it 
 was in a far smaller proportion to the home -trade than at the 
 present time. I have mentioned these facts about the area of trade, 
 because, taken in connection with the contemporary industrial con- 
 ditions, they explain to a large extent why, in those days, though 
 there were periods of keen distress, there was no such thing as 
 long-continued wide-spread depression of trade. Over-production 
 — of which we hear so much as the cause of trade depressions — 
 over-production was impossible when the producer lived next door 
 to the consumer, and knew his wants as well as the country shoe- 
 maker of to-day knows the number of pairs of boots that are 
 wanted in his village. And when foreign trade was so insigni- 
 ficant, wars and rumours of wars could exercise but little influence 
 over the general circle of commerce. So that not only was the 
 whole state of industry then very different, but the most compli- 
 cated of all the difficulties which beset us now had not made their 
 appearance. 
 
 I have still to give some explanation of the extreme simplicity 
 of our productive system, and of the limited character of the inland 
 trade. The main cause was undoubtedly the badness of com- 
 munications and the high cost of carriage. Brindley had only just 
 cut the first canal ; the great bulk of goods were borne in coasting 
 
Industry and Democracy. 183 
 
 vessels. The expense of carriage was enormous — it cost forty 
 shillings to send a ton of coals from Manchester to Liverpool — and 
 it was as slow as it was expensive. Adam Smith tells us that it 
 took a broad-wheeled wagon, drawn by eight horses, and attended 
 by two men, three weeks to carry four tons of goods from London 
 to Edinburgh. The roads — even the main roads — were often im- 
 passable. A famous traveller describes how the high road between 
 Preston and Wigan had, even in summer, ruts four feet deep, float- 
 ing with mud : and in many parts of the country the principal 
 means of communication were tracks used by pack-horses. The 
 hosiery manufacturers of Leicester, in the very middle of England, 
 employed this last mode of conveyance. Was it not natural that, 
 shut up within such narrow confines, unstimulated by wide markets 
 and varied intercourse, manufactures advanced but slowly and 
 inventions were rare 1 During the last century there has been a 
 series of inventions, the greatest the world has seen ; but Adam 
 Smith expressly declares that during the three centuries preceding 
 the time in which he wrote, only three inventions of any import- 
 ance had been made in the clothing trade, the staple industry of 
 the English people. Man's life moved on from generation to 
 generation in a quiet course which would seem to us a dull, un- 
 varying routine. 
 
 Such then, briefly and imperfectly described, were the external 
 forms or conditions of industry in the middle of the last century. 
 If now we turn to its inner life — to the relations between 
 employers and workmen — we shall fiiid the revolution which has 
 taken place equally startling. The majority of employers were 
 small masters — manufacturers like those already described, who, in 
 ideas and habits of life, were little removed from the workmen, 
 out of whose ranks they had risen, and to whose ranks they might \ 
 return once more. There were, of course, even then capitalist \ 
 employers, but on a small scale ; nor was their attitude to their 
 workmen very different from that of the little masters in the 
 same trade. That they were not numerous is proved by the 
 extreme rarity of the term " capitalist " in the writings of the 
 period ; whilst the term " manufacturer " which now denotes the 
 employer then described the workman — a change of meaning 
 curiously significant of the transformation in the conditions of 
 industrial life. Few of the small masters of whom I have spoken 
 
184 Industry and Democracy. 
 
 did not work with their own hands ; and it was the common thing 
 for them to teach their apprentices the trade. Both the apprentices, 
 for whose moral education he was responsible, and the journey- 
 men were lodged and boarded in the master's house. Between 
 men living in such close and continuous relations (the journey- 
 man was hired by the year, and seldom changed his master if 
 he was a good one) the bonds were naturally very intimate. Nor 
 were these bonds loosened when the journeyman married and 
 lived in his own house. The master knew all his affairs, his 
 particular wants, his peculiarities, his resources, the number of 
 his chUdren, as well as he did before. If the weaver was sick, 
 the master lent him money ; if trade was slack he kept him on 
 at a loss. This state of things had its dark side, no doubt, 
 but that it existed there is a mass of evidence to prove. " We 
 consider it a duty to keep our men," said one employer. 
 "Masters and men," said another, "were in general so joined 
 together in sentiment, and, if I may be permitted to use the term, 
 in love to each other, that they did not wish to be separated if 
 they could help it." And the workmen corroborated the assertions 
 of the masters. " It seldom ■ happens," said a weaver, " that the 
 small clothiers change their men except in case of sickness and 
 death." It was not uncommon for a workman to be employed 
 by the same master for forty years ; and the migration of labourers 
 in search of work was small compared with what goes on in the 
 present day. A workman would live and die on the spot where 
 he was oorn, and the same family would remain for generations 
 working for the same employers in the same village. It would be 
 difficult to find examples of this life in England now ; but were 
 we to Cross the sea and travel to the ancient town of Nuremberg 
 in Bavaria, in whose quaint, narrow streets the old industrial 
 system still survives, we should light upon many an example. 
 There we should discover, for instance, a certain family of Schmidts 
 employed by a certain firm named Sachs, whose ancestors three 
 hundred years ago entered the service of that same house; the 
 two families are united by an indissoluble tie. Under such con- 
 ditions the master busies himself with the welfare of the workman, 
 and the education of his children ; the workman eagerly promotes 
 the interests of the master, and watches over the fortunes of the 
 house. They are not two families but one. 
 
Industry and Democracy. 185 
 
 And this warmth of personal attachment, this close dependence 
 of the workman on the employer, existed at the time of which I 
 am speaking not only in manufactures, hut also in agriculture. 
 The labourer, hired by the year, and boarded and lodged in the 
 farm-house, was a member of the farmer's household. William 
 Cobbett, the most graphic painter of English rural life we have 
 ever had, describes life in the farm-house as he knew it when a 
 boy, and as it had existed many years before his time. "The 
 farmer," he says, " used to sit at the head of the oak table along 
 with his men, say grace to them, and cut up the meat and the 
 pudding. He might take a cup of strong beer to himself, when 
 they had none ; but that was pretty nearly all the difference in 
 the manner of living." If we turn to a less prejudiced observer 
 than Cobbett, to the old Norfolk shepherd, whom I have already 
 quoted, we shall find that he tells us the same tale. " The farmer 
 then worked like his men, and all messed together. He hadn't 
 much more book-learning than we shepherds, who could neither 
 read nor write." The farmer, in fact, like the master manufacturer, 
 hardly belonged to a different class from his labourers. 
 
 There is yet one other characteristic of industry in those 
 days which remains for us to scrutinise. This is the network of , 
 restrictions and regulations in which it was entangled, and which 1 
 exercised an important influence over both its inner and its outer ' 
 life. These laws and regulations were of two kinds — first, those 
 which expressed ideas common to both workmen and employers ; 
 secondly, those which expressed the ideas of the employers alone. 
 To the first kind I need only just allude. The most famous of ^ 
 them were the regulation of trade by corporations with exclusive 
 privileges, the law of apprenticeship, and (perhaps) the settlement 
 of wages by Justices of the Peace. Of the second kind I must 
 speak a little in detail, for they throw a strong light on the status 
 of the workman at that time. Most conspicuous were the com- / 
 bination laws, — laws which made it illegal for labourers to combine 
 to raise wages, or to strike. " We have no Acts of Parliament," 
 says Adam Smith, " against combining to lower the price of work, 
 but many against combining to raise it." And in another passage 
 he describes a strike as generally ending "in nothing but the 
 punishment or ruin of the ringleaders." Cobbett has said the 
 same thing in more vehement language. " There was a turn-out 
 
1 86 Industry and Democracy. 
 
 last winter," he writes, after a visit to the clothiers of the west of 
 Eagland some half century after the period in which Adam Smith 
 wrote, " but it was put an end to in the iisual way : the constable's 
 staff, the bayonet, the gaol." And not only was combination to 
 raise wages illegal, but emigration from parish to parish in search 
 of work was rendered almost impossible by the law of settlement 
 — part of the cumbrous machinery of the old Poor Law. The web 
 of restrictions upon the labourer's movements was completed by 
 laws which forbade him to emigrate. These laws, wliich cruelly 
 hindered the workman in his efforts to secure a livelihood, were 
 bad ; but there were other laws directly affecting the position of 
 the workman as a citizen which were worse. I select one example. 
 The law of Master and Servant made breach of contract on the 
 part of an employer a civil offence, on the part of the labourer a 
 crime. 
 
 Now, how was it that the English statute-book was disfigured 
 by laws which robbed the labourer as a wage-earner, and degraded 
 him as a citizen ? The explanation, I think, is simple. Except as 
 a member of a mob, the labourer had not a shred of political 
 influence. The power of making laws was concentrated in the 
 hands of the landowners, the great merchant princes, and a small 
 knot of capitalist-manufacturers who wielded that power — was 
 it not natural ? — in the interests of their class, rather than for the 
 good of the people. And different as the small master-workmen 
 were from the classes who were supreme in Parliament, they had 
 this in common with them — they were masters ; and when disputes 
 with their workmen arose, they did not hesitate to appeal to the 
 legislature for a support which it was only too ready to give. 
 Nor is the famous assertion of the great economist that, whenever 
 Parliament attempted to regulate differences between masters and 
 their workmen, its counsellors were always the masters, unsup- 
 ported by facts. It receives lively illustration from the pen of a 
 pamphleteer of the period, who remarks with an air of great 
 naturalness and simplicity that " the gentlemen and magistrates 
 ought to aid and encourage the clothier in the reduction of the 
 price of labour, as far as is consistent with the laws of humanity, 
 and necessary for the preservation of foreign trade." 
 
 You must not suppose, however, that the ruling classes were 
 utterly incapable of sympathy with the people, or of playing the 
 
Industry and Democracy. 187 
 
 part of protectors. When their interests were not imperilled, or 
 their class prejudices involved, they frequently did interpose to 
 shield the workmen from injustice. Parliament, even in its worst 
 days, was never entirely on the side of the masters ; there were 
 always certain kinds of oppression against which it steadily set its 
 face. Its attitude was a mixed one. For example, if we turn to a 
 statute of the reign of George i. which forbids combinations of 
 workmen under penalty of three months' imprisonment with hard 
 labour, we shall find in the very same Act clauses making it illegal 
 for employers to pay their workmen in truck under penalty of a 
 ten pound fine. The country gentlemen, though they regarded com- 
 binations as insurrections against the established order of society, 
 were quite capable of seeing that payment in kind was an instru- 
 ment of fraud; and the benevolence of their intentions is not 
 affected by the fact that in the first case the penalty is a heavy, in 
 the second a light one. It is so important to understand this double 
 attitude of the ruling classes towards the labourers that I cannot 
 resist illustrating it by another example, designedly selected from a 
 later period when the " Lords of the Loom " had taken their places 
 in the legislature by the side of the " Merchant Princes " and the 
 country squires, but when the workmen had not yet obtained the 
 franchise. Sir Eobert Peel, father of the famous statesman, was 
 the author of the first Factory Act of 1802, and a man of honesty 
 and benevolence. But when asked by a Committee of the House 
 of Commons whether he would follow up his suggestion to repeal 
 the law of apprenticeship by a proposal to repeal the law forbid- 
 ding the emigration of artisans, he answered that there was a great 
 want of workmen at home, and that on this point legislation would 
 be premature. Now it is well known that the law of apprentice- 
 ship was repealed on the demand of the masters against the wishes 
 of the great mass of workmen ; and it is obvious that the " true 
 principles of commerce " urged in favour of the first, applied with 
 equal force in favour of the second. But whilst the repeal of the 
 first was in the interest of the masters, the repeal of the second 
 would have been in the interest of the workpeople. We see, there- 
 fore, that the disposition of the great manufacturers towards the 
 labourers resembled that of the country gentlemen ; but it was 
 not, on the whole, so favourable. Though in mentioning this 
 incident I have anticipated my narrative, I have yet obtained an 
 
1 88 Industry and Democracy. 
 
 excellent illustration of the point I have been striving to prove- 
 namely, that the position of the workman was a transitional one. 
 He halted half-way between the position of the serf and the posi- 
 tion of the citizen ; he was treated with kindness by those who 
 injured him ; he was protected, oppressed, dependent. 
 
 The England I have described was the England Adam Smith 
 saw when he was collecting materials for his great book.^ But in 
 the facts contained in the book itself are traces of the industrial 
 revolution which had already begun when its publication took 
 place. Out of many instances I will choose one. Adam Smith 
 remarks that wages had recently risen in the neighbourhood of 
 Carron ; and it was at Carron that Eoebuck had, in 1760, set up 
 the first ironworks ever established in Scotland, and succeeded in 
 smelting iron by pit coal — an invention which revolutionised the 
 iron trade. It was, however, in Glasgow itself where Adam 
 Smith was teaching the new science of Political Economy, that 
 the signs of new movement in industry were most conspicuous. 
 The city is described by a contemporary writer as a " perfect bee- 
 hive of industry," and " filled with a noble spirit of enterprise." 
 And it was in Glasgow that Adam Smith saw a most startling 
 proof of the obstacles thrown in the way of industrial originality 
 by the old regulations of industry. Whilst he was Professor at 
 the University, there came to Glasgow James Watt, the inventor 
 of the condensing steam-engine, anxious to set up as a mathe- 
 matical instrument-maker; but the Corporation of Hammermen 
 refused him permission, on the ground that he was neither a 
 burgess of the town nor had served an apprenticeship to the 
 trade. Fortunately, however, for Watt, he had a friend among the 
 Professors, by whose influence he was allowed to establish his 
 workshop within the University buildings, where the power of the 
 corporation could not penetrate. No wonder that every page of 
 the Wealth of Nations is illumined with an illimitable passion for 
 freedom of industry and trade. In the spirit of that book still 
 more than in the facts contained in it, the dawn of a new epoch is 
 visible. The Wealth of Nations is the great proclamation of the 
 rights of industry and trade. 
 
 Let us pause and inquire what the proclamation really meant. 
 
 ' Compare with this and the following paragraphs a similar passage in 
 "Rioardo and the Old Political Economy" above, pp. 13-15. — Ed. 
 
Industry and Democracy. 189 
 
 We shall find, if we consider it closely, that it contained two 
 assertions ; first, an assertion of the right of the workman to legal ' 
 equality and independence ; secondly, an assertion that industrial ^/^ 
 freedom is essential to the material prosperity of the people. The 
 first assertion — ^rather implied than insisted on — reflected the 
 political ideas of the age. It is significant that the same year 
 which witnessed the enunciation of the industrial rights of man in 
 the publication of the Wealth of Nations witnessed the enunciation 
 of the political rights of man in the Declaration of American Inde- 
 pendence. All around, indeed, men pointed out signs of the dis- 
 solution of the old social and political system. " Subordination," 
 said Dr. Johnson, who could compress keen observation into 
 pregnant sentences — " subordination is sadly broken down in this 
 age. No man, now, has the same authority which his father had 
 — except a gaoler." The second assertion contained in this pro- 
 clamation expressed the inarticulate desire for the removal of 
 ancient restrictions once approved by both masters and men, a 
 desire created by the rapid growth of material prosperity. Just 
 now I said that in the middle of the last century there was com- 
 paratively little movement of workmen from place to place ; but 
 Adam Smith's fierce attack on the law of settlement shows that 
 migration was on the increase. The world was, in fact, on the 
 eve of an industrial revolution ; and it is interesting to remember 
 that the two men who did most to bring it about, Adam Smith and 
 James Watt, met, as I have mentioned, in Glasgow, when one was V^ 
 dreaming of the book, and the other of the invention, which were 
 to introduce a new industrial age. 
 
 JTor the Wealth of Nations and the steam-engine (with the 
 great inventions, like the spinning-jenny and the power-loom, y 
 which accompanied or followed it) destroyed the old world and 
 built a new one. The spinning-wheel and the hand-loom were 
 silenced, and manufactures were transferred from scattered villages 
 and quiet homesteads to factories and cities filled with noise. 
 Villages became towns, towns became cities, and factories started] 
 up on barren heath and deserted waste. I cannot stop to describe 
 this vast revolution in detail; I must try to carry you quickly, 
 over a period of seventy years, marking as strongly as I can the 
 principal features of the change. Eapid as the revolution was it 
 did not come at once. In the cotton trade, for instance, first the 
 
1 90 Industry and Democracy. 
 
 hand-wheel was thrown away, and mills with water-frames and 
 spinning-jennies were built on the sides of streams ; then the mule 
 was invented, which, supplied the weaver with unlimited quantities 
 of yarn, and raised his wages and increased the demand for loom- 
 shops, causing even old barns and cart-houses hastily pierced with 
 windows to be adapted to that purpose ; finally there came the intro- 
 
 J duction of the power-loom, the general application of steam to drive 
 machinery, and the erection of the gigantic factories that we see 
 around us at the present time. By these last changes the final 
 
 I blow was struck at the little master, half-manufacturer half- 
 farmer, and in his place sprang up the great capitalist employer, 
 
 ^ the owner of hundreds of looms, the employer of hundreds of 
 m^ buying and selling in every market on the globe. 
 I The revolution, however, was not entirely due to the substitu- 
 j tion of steam for hand power in production; it was partly the 
 \ result of an enormous expansion of internal and external trade. 
 The expansion of internal trade was the effect of unparalleled 
 improvements in the means of communication, the establishment 
 of the canal system, the construction of new roads by Telford, and 
 the introduction of railways. The expansion of external trade was 
 caused by the great war of 1793, which, closing the workshops of 
 the Continent, opened every port in Europe to English iron and 
 cotton. We should naturally expect such radical changes to give 
 rise to new industrial and commercial problems, and this was the 
 case. In the literature of this period we find, for the first time, 
 discussions of those intricate questions of over-production and 
 depression of trade with which we are now only too familiar — 
 questions, remember, which never embarrassed an earlier age. On 
 these points, however, I do not intend to speak to-night. I must 
 proceed instead to a brief examination of a subject which is 
 perhaps the most vital of those that I have considered ; I mean the 
 effects of the revolution in the external forms of industry upon its 
 inner lifej 
 
 VThese effects were terrible. In the new cities — denounced as 
 dens where men came together not for the purposes of social life, 
 but to make calicoes or hardware, or broad cloths— in the new 
 cities, the old warm attachments, born of ancient, local contiguity 
 and personal intercourse, vanished in the fierce contest for wealth 
 among thousands who had never seen each other's faces^ before. 
 
Industry and Democracy. 191 
 
 Between the individual workman and the capitalist who employed 
 hundreds of " hands " a wide gulf opened : the workman ceased to 
 he the cherished dependant, he became the living tool of whom the 
 employer knew less than he did of his steam-engine. The breach 
 was admitted by the employer, who declared it to be impassableJ 
 " It is as impossible," said one, " to effect a union between the high 
 and low classes of society as to mix oil and water ; there is no 
 reciprocity of feeling between them." The absence of any mutual 
 affection was openly attributed to an irreconcilable antagonism of 
 interest. "There can be no union," said the same employer, 
 " between employer and employed, because it is the interest of the 
 employer to get as much work as he can, done for the smallest sum 
 possible." We know that, in the old time, in spite of the intimate 
 relations in which masters and workmen lived, there were disputes 
 between them ; we know that there were combinations on the one 
 side and oppression on the other ; but we may be sure it would 
 have been difi&cult to find a master who openly used words like 
 these. Contrast them with the statement I quoted before: 
 " Masters and men were in general so joined together in sentiment, 
 and if I may be permitted to use the term, in love to each other, 
 that they did not wish to be separated if they could help it!" 
 Masters in the domestic system were often brutal and ignorant 
 enough, but the quotation I have just repeated was not, let me 
 remind you, an exaggerated description of the relations which, in 
 maqy cases, actually existed between them and their workpeople. 
 
 flo return to my narrative. The destruction of the old bonds 
 between employers and workmen was not peculiar to manu- 
 factures ; it came to pass in agriculture also. An agrarian as well 
 as an industrial revolution had taken place. Scientific methods 
 of cultivation had been substituted for unscientific ; vast enclosures 
 had been made ; traces of the old three-field system of apportion- 
 ing the land were fast disappearing ; small farms were giving way 
 to large. A new race of farmers, corresponding to the new race of 
 manufacturers, had sprung into existence, who, enriched by the 
 high prices which prevailed during the great war, changed their 
 habits of life. The labourer ceased to be a member of the farmer's 
 household, and, to use Cobbett's words, was thrust out of the 
 farm-house into a hovel. Exceeding bitter was the labourer's 
 cry. " The farmers," said one, " take no more notice of us than 
 
192 Indtistry and Democracy. 
 
 \ if we were dumb beasts ; they let us eat our crust by the ditch- 
 side.^ 
 fP On the part of both the artisans in the cities and the labourers 
 ' in the villages lamentation at the changed attitude of their em- 
 ployers was intensified by the physical distress into which great 
 masses of them had fallen. Though many of the old restrictions 
 attacked by Adam Smith had been abolished, or had become 
 obsolete — though the law of apprenticeship had been abolished 
 (not, as I before said, at the demand of the labourers) — though, 
 owing to the growth of new cities and the extension of internal 
 trade, corporations had lost their power — though the material 
 wealth of the country had increased with enormous rapidity (the 
 cotton trade had trebled in fifteen years) — yet the people seemed 
 to have little share in the wealth they produced, and large num- 
 bers of them sank deeper and deeper into destitution and misery 
 and vice. Why was this ? There were several causes : first the 
 old Poor Law, which stimulated increase among a degraded popula- 
 tion, and the Corn Laws, which made bread dear and dif&cult to get ; 
 secondly, the exhausting conditions of the new industrial methods ; 
 
 (' thirdly, the fact that this was a period of transition from one mode 
 of industry to another — all transition is painful — and that many 
 workmen were fighting with machinery for a miserable subsistence. 
 It would serve no good purpose to enlarge on the sufferings of the 
 people at this time^ I shall content myself with showing by the 
 example of one industry in one place the wretchedness of those 
 who were striving still to maintain themselves under the old 
 system, which was being fast trodden out by the new. In 
 Leicester and its neighbourhood, about the middle of the last 
 century, an eye-witness describes the stocking-makers as remark- 
 ably prosperous. They had each a cottage and a garden, rights of 
 common. for pig and poultry, and sometimes for a cow, a barrel of 
 home-brewed ale, a work-day suit of clothes and another for Sun- 
 days, and plenty of leisure. It is stated that they seldom worked 
 more than three days a week ; but the general average in the trade 
 was probably five. The working day was about ten hours. Nearly 
 a hundred years later Thomas Cooper, the Chartist, returning late 
 at night from a Chartist meeting in Leicester, and hearing as he 
 passed along the streets, the creak of the stocking frame, and seeing 
 lights in the upper windows, turned to his companion and said. 
 
Industry and Democracy. 193 
 
 "What do these people earn?" "About four and sixpence," was 
 the reply. "You mean four and sixpence a day?" said Cooper. 
 " No," said his friend, " four and sixpence a week." Cooper, though 
 a workman himself, was incredulous that men who were at their 
 frames for sixteen hours a day could receive such a wretched pit- 
 tance.^ 
 
 \The misery, of which this is only one instance, was spread fari 
 and wide; and about the time Cooper was in Leicester, that isj 
 about the year 1840, things had reached a crisis. It is true that* 
 the old Poor Law had been reformed, and the great Factory Act ofl 
 1833 passed, but many thought these and all other remedies were' 
 ineffectual or too late. " All schemes of reform," said an old reformer, \ 
 " are far too late to prevent the tremendous evils which I have j 
 long seen gathering around us, and for which I see no remedy." i 
 That a social revolution was inevitable was an opinion generally | 
 held^ " We are engulfed, I believe, and must inevitably go i 
 down the cataract," said Dr. Arnold. Nor was this belief confined 
 to the upper and middle classes. Even Ebenezer Elliott, the Corn- 
 law Ehymer, declared that had he known French he would have 
 fled to France to avoid the coming revolution for the sake of his 
 children. Whilst many were paralysed by the conviction that a 
 revolution was at hand, hundreds of a more sanguine temperament 
 raised their voices to offer remedies of their own, or to denounce 
 the remedies of others. Not a few turned round and attacked the 
 gospel of Adam Smith and James Watt. " Liberty," said Carlyle, 
 " liberty, I am told, is a divine thing. Liberty, when it becomes 
 the ' Liberty to die by starvation,' is not so divine." 
 
 POf all those who assailed the new industrial world created byl 
 the Wealth of Nations and the steam-engine, Carlyle was thel 
 greatest; and Past and Present, the book in which he flung out 
 his denunciations, is the most tender and pathetic picture of the' 
 Past, the most unsparing indictment of the Present that exists in 1 
 modern English literaturej "England," wrote Carlyle, "is full of \ 
 wealth, of multifarious produce, supply for human wants in every 
 kind; yet England is dying of inanition." Throwing impatiently 
 aside such explanations of this contradiction as those at which I 
 
 1 The account I have given of this dialogue is condensed and not quite 
 Uteral ; but the original is too long for quotation, though well worth reading at 
 length in Cooper's Autobiography. 
 
 N 
 
1 94 Industry and Democracy. 
 
 hinted a few minutes ago,[Carlyle fixed his eyes on two facts which 
 he asserted to be at the root of the nation's suffering. The first 
 was want of 'permanence. Gazing on the ever-shifting scene of the 
 Present ; the perpetual moving to and fro of men in search of 
 wealth ; workmen breaking away from masters, and masters dis- 
 carding workmen; and contrasting this with the quiet, restful 
 Past, when men lived together in contentment whole lifetimes, 
 and formed unbroken habits of affection; J Carlyle passionately 
 declared that, unless we could bring back permanence, those habits 
 of affection on which our whole life rests could never more be 
 formed, and society must fall in pieces and dissolve. " I am for 
 permanence," he cried, "in all things, at the earliest possible 
 moment and to the latest possible. Blessed is he that continueth 
 where he is." And only in the restoration of the old system of 
 employment, in the' substitution of the principle of permanent 
 contract for temporary (then every day gaining ground), did he see 
 some faint hope for the future. " The Principle of Permanence 
 year by year better seen into and elaborated, may enlarge itself, 
 expand gradually on every side into a system. This once secured, 
 the basis of all good results were laid." ( The second fact which 
 Carlyle singled out as closely connected with the first was what he 
 called the cash-nexus — " man's duty to man resolving itself into 
 handing him certain metal pieces, and then shoving him out of 
 doors " — and the contemplation of it filled him with that same 
 immeasurable indignation and rage which . he poured out upon 
 want of permanenca^ " We call it a society," he writes, " and go 
 about proposing openly the totalest separation and isolation. Our 
 life is not a mutual helpfulness; but rather, cloaked under due 
 laws-of-war, named fair competition and so forth, it is a mutual 
 hostility. We have profoundly forgotten everywhere that eask- 
 payment is not the sole relation of human beings ; we think, nothing 
 doubting, that it absolves and liquidates all engagements of man. 
 'My starving workers V answers the rich mUl-owner. ' Did I not 
 hire them fairly in the market ? Did I not pay them to the last 
 sixpence the sum covenanted for ? What have I to do with them 
 more?'" Do with them more? Carlyle would have had him do 
 infinitely more — would have had him cherish them as human 
 beings and not forget them as hands ; would have had him guide 
 and protect them, help them in sickness and misfortune, and»not 
 
Industry and Democracy. 195 
 
 dismiss them even when trade was bad, and profits were gone. In 
 one word, Carlyle would have had the rich govern and protect the 
 poor as they did in the past. - 
 
 But what said the poor themselves whose cause Carlyle so 
 eagerly pleaded ? Did they accept his view ? No ! The poor 
 believed that the time for government by the rich had passed; 
 that the time had come for government by the whole people. 
 " Give us," cried the Chartists, who represented the aspirations of 
 the people, " give us, not government by the rich, but government 
 by the people, not protection, but political rights — give us, in one 
 word, our Charter, and then wiU this dread interval of darkness 
 and of anguish pass away ; then will that dawn come for which 
 we have watched so long, and justice, love, and plenty inhabit this 
 land, and there abide." 
 
 Who was right, Carlyle or the people ? The people ! Yes ! 
 the people were right — the people who, sick with hunger and 
 deformed with toil, dreamed that Democracy would bring deliver- 
 ance. The people were right ; Democracy, so giantlike and threaten- 
 ing, which, with rude strength severs sacred ties and stamps out 
 ancient landmarks. Democracy, though in ways undreamt of, did 
 bring deliverance. For Democracy is sudden like the sea, and' 
 grows dark with storms and sweeps away many precious things ; 
 but, like the sea, it reflects the light of the wide heavens and 
 cleanses the shores of human life. 
 
 IDemocracy saved industry : let us see in what way. I have 
 already drawn your attention to the fact that on the eve of the 
 industrial revolution there were on every side signs of political 
 change. But the French Eevolution frightened statesmen, and 
 political reform in England was delayed for nearly half a centurj^ 
 Nevertheless there were in Parliament disciples of Adam Smith 
 who stroye to obtain for the workman civil equality and indepen- 
 dence, apart from the franchise. Owing to their endeavours, the 
 Combination Laws were repealed in 1824; but the following year 
 proved how insecure was the position of the workman when with- 
 out a vote. In 1825 the fears of the employers were powerful 
 enough to induce Parliament, while legalising the common delibera- 
 tions of workmen, to make illegal any action in which such deli- 
 berations might result, and the workmen lost nearly all they had 
 gained the year before. But though in Parliament their cause 
 
1 96 Industry and Democracy. 
 
 might fluctuate, in the country their power was rapidly increasing, 
 owing to their concentration in large cities ; and the Eeform Bill 
 of 1832 was largely due to their influence. Bitter disappointment, 
 however, followed ; for the working classes found that they had 
 only thrown additional power into the hands of their masters and 
 the middle classes, whilst they themselves remained oppressed and 
 fettered as before. The disappointment bore fruit in the agitation 
 for the Charter, which assumed formidable proportions during that 
 time of misery of which I have spoken, but died away when the 
 repeal of the Corn-Laws restored prosperity to the nation. In the 
 lull that followed, the workmen ceased to agitate, but they were 
 y not idle; they were quietly organising themselves; and in 1867, 
 after a sharp struggle, the triumph came. The workmen had 
 gained the key of the position when they obtained the suffrage. 
 You have only to mark the results. In 1871 Trades-Unions were 
 legalised — this is not merely a fact in the history of Trades-Unions, 
 but in the history of English citizenship; in 1875 the law of con- 
 spiracy was abolished, and the old law of master and servant was 
 replaced by a law putting master and servant on exactly the 
 same footing. The workman had at last reached the summit of 
 the long ascent from the position of a serf, and stood by the side 
 of his master as the full citizen of a free state. 
 
 Meanwhile, during this whole period of struggle the gulf 
 between workman and employer was becoming every day more 
 
 i wide. The causes of this growing estrangement were manifold ; I 
 
 s can only mention one or two of them. First, the introduction of 
 
 I machine-tools, in many cases, enabled the master to dispense with 
 
 '; a body of highly skilled mechanics ; he was no longer reluctant, as 
 
 in the old days, to dismiss a man whom it would be difficult, per- 
 
 i haps impossible, to replace. Next, Trades-Unions sprang up : and 
 
 I though it is essential to remember that, without these associations, 
 
 I giving as they did both material power and organisation to the 
 
 workmen. Democracy would have been impotent to effect a 
 
 solution of the labour question; yet it is equally important to 
 
 recognise that by forcing the workmen to act in masses through 
 
 delegates, they tore away the last remnants of personal ties between 
 
 individual workmen, and employers, and seemed to make their 
 
 separation completej The change was deeply regretted by the best 
 
 members of both classes. " In the strike of 1859," said a master 
 
Industry and Democracy. 197 
 
 builder before the Trades-Union Commission, " men came to us 
 who had worked at the place for thirty or forty years, and said to 
 us — ' This is the saddest day that ever happened to us in our lives, 
 but we must go, we are bound to go.' " And as the men had, as 
 we have seen, upbraided the masters with their changed conduct, 
 so now the masters in their turn justly complained of the men. 
 " There is a difference in the very behaviour of the men ; some 
 hardly address you with ordinary civility," remarked the same 
 employer, dwelling on the altered bearing of his men after they 
 had joined a Union. Again, though Carlyle had pleaded passion- 
 ately for permanent instead of temporary engagements, short con- 
 tracts became more and more the rule. Yearly hirings ceased in 
 every industry except agriculture, where they are also beginning to 
 disappear ; and in many trades, for instance in the building and 
 iron trades, what is called the minute system was established — a 
 system by which men can leave and be discharged at a moment's 
 notice. For this change also the Trades-Unions are, in the main, 
 responsible. Yearly hirings were condemned by them as a kind 
 of slavery, since they put the workmen in the power of the 
 employer, and only allowed the Union to step in and defend his 
 interests once a year, instead of every minute. And apart from 
 the system of short contracts, which does not necessarily mean 
 transient ties, there was a cause for separation between employer 
 and workmen in the very constitution of modern industrial life — 
 with its rapid migration of men from occupation to occupation, and 
 from place to place. This is most conspicuous in a new country 
 like America, where the whole staff of a cotton factory is some- 
 times changed in three years, and where the western farmer, 
 hiring labourers for the season, seldom sees the same faces a 
 second time. How could personal bonds exist under such condi- 
 tions as these ? Not only, moreover, did the workman become . 
 more and more divided from his employer ; he had, as De Tocque- ; 
 vUle long ago pointed out, become more and more unlike him. 
 The modern capitalist understands nothing of the details of his 
 business. He leaves the management of his factory and the 
 engagement and discharge of his men to a subordinate, Kves 
 in a mansion far away from the works, and knows nothing 
 of, cares nothing for, the condition of his workpeople. Fre- 
 quently the employer is not an individual but a company; and 
 
igS Industry and Democracy. 
 
 towards a company at any rate warm personal attachment is im- 
 possible. 
 
 As the result of all these changes, the workman, divided from 
 his employer and receiving from him no benefits, regarded him from 
 a distance with hatred and suspicion, as the member of a dominant 
 class. The employer divided from his workman and conferring upon 
 him no benefit, looked upon him uneasily as the member of a 
 subject class claiming a dangerous independence. The gulf between 
 the two classes seemed, and to many still seems, impassable. 
 
 It is not impassable — ^it is .bridged hy Democracy, which, by 
 making workmen and employers equal, makes union possible. 
 
 You will ask at once — Where is this union visible ? I answer, 
 that the conditions of union — the altered disposition of both classes 
 towards each other, the changed tone of the public press on 
 industrial questions, — are visible everywhere; and if I cannot 
 point to many actual unions of workmen and employers, there is 
 one plain and palpable instance which is of extreme significance. 
 I mean the Boards of Conciliation established at Nottingham and 
 other towns which are not, like many other schemes, artificial 
 expedients of the hour, but the outgrowth of a long history based 
 upon a great principle — the full, ungrudging recognition by the 
 employer of the workman's equality and independence. 
 
 It is not difficult to show how completely Boards of ConciHation 
 rest upon this principle. An equal number of workmen and em- 
 ployers, elected by their respective classes, sit intermixed at the 
 same table, and discuss questions of wages, and everything con- 
 nected with the interests of the trade. The expenses are borne 
 equally by both sides. "What is the principle involved may be 
 most clearly seen if we turn to Mr. Mundella's description of the 
 opposition he encountered in establishing such boards at Notting- 
 ham and elsewhere. " My obstacle, my difficulty whenever I go to 
 get a board formed," he complained, " is that masters have that old 
 feudal notion, they wiU deal with their men one at a time : they 
 expect the men to give up the advantages of association ; and 
 until the masters acknowledge that the men are right in associat- 
 ing there is no chance, I think, of peace." Then some employers, 
 he found, thought it would degrade them to sit at the same table 
 with their men. Next there was suspicion on both sides. " It is 
 impossible to describe to you," said Mr. Mundella to the Trade- 
 
Industry and Democracy, 1 99 
 
 Union Commissioners, " how suspiciously we looked at eacli other." 
 Finally the principle flashes full upon us in Mr. MundeUa's state- 
 ment of his own attitude. "We consider in buying labour we 
 should treat the seller of labour just as courteously as the seller 
 of coal or cotton." That is the point; that is the solution. 
 Democracy transforms disputes about wages from social feuds 
 into business bargains. It sweeps away the estranging class ele- 
 ments of suspicion, arrogance, and jealousy, and freeing the 
 pent-up economic elements whose natural tendency is not towards 
 division, it enables workmen and employers to take the first step 
 to unite. 
 
 But how hard to admit that this is the solution ! How 
 reluctant we are to confess that questions of wages — questions 
 which affect the comfort, nay the whole life-status, the health, 
 the happiness of thousands of families — that these questions \y 
 should be treated like questions about coal and cotton. How , 
 tempting to bend over the faded past with its kindly protection 
 and willing dependence ! Even Mr. Mundella himself, the 
 originator of Boards of Conciliation, cannot help giving a pathetic, 
 backward glance at the old industrial conditions — "we employ 
 thousands ; we do not know their faces, they are hands to us, they 
 are not men." For the moment he forgot that what the employer 
 buys is the workman's hands and not his life ; that his life is now 
 his own, to be cherished in a noble independence. 
 
 |The old system is gone never to return. The separation j( 
 lamented by Carlyle was inevitable : but we can now see that it 
 was not wholly evil. A terrible interval of suffering there was 
 indeed when the workman, flung off by his master, had not yet 
 found his feet: but that is passing away, and the separation is 
 recognised as a necessary moment in that industrial progress which 
 enabled the workman to take a new step in advance. The detested 
 cash-nexus was a sign, not of dissolution but of growth ; not of the 
 workman's isolation, but of his independence. If, however, Carlyle 
 was mistaken in denouncing the revolution, he was right in pro- 
 claiming that isolation is not the permanent condition of human 
 Hfe. If history teaches us that separation is necessary, it also 
 teaches us that permanent separation is impossible. The law of 
 progress is that men separate — but they separate in order to unite. 
 The old union vanishes, but a new union springs up in its place. ( 
 
200 Industry and Democracy. 
 
 The old union founded on the dependence of the workman di 
 appears — a new union arises hased on the workman's indepen( 
 ence. And the new union is deeper and wider than the old. r( 
 workman and employer parted as protector and dependant to unil 
 as equal citizens of a free state. 
 I [Democracy makes union possible — creates its initial conditioi 
 — but a profounder and more delicate power can alone make it a 
 enduring fact of social life. Though it is a mistake to attempt t 
 bring back the old moral relations which were the product of pas 
 social conditions, it is equally a mistake to assert that questions ( 
 wages can be treated as business bargains and nothing more. I 
 spite of a fundamental identity of interest between employers an 
 workmen revealed by the subsidence of social strife, there alway 
 will be, there always must be, antagonisms of interest ; and thes 
 can only be met by moral ideas appropriate not to the feudal, bu 
 to the citizen, staged Men's rights will clash, and the reconciliatio; 
 must come through a higher gospel than the gospel of rights — th 
 gospel of duty ; that gospel which Mazzini lived to proclaim ; fo 
 not Adam Smith, not Carlyle, great as he was, but Mazzini is th 
 true teacher of our age. He, like Carlyle, wrote a great bool 
 The, Duties of Man, which is the most simple and passionat 
 statement published in this century of man's duties to God am 
 his fellows. Mazzini was a democrat who spent his life i 
 struggling to free his country ; but he believed in liberty not a 
 an end but as a means — a means to a purer and nobler life for th 
 whole people. The time has come to preach this gospel : not be 
 cause it is not always true, but because there are social condition 
 in which it is little better than a mockery to preach it. Ho\ 
 could you preach duty to men who were conscious that they ha( 
 not their rights ? " Who made it ?" said workmen speaking of th 
 old law of master and servant. "Not we; we had no hand ij 
 making it ; it was made by those who employ us, and by thos 
 who govern us." But now that law has been repealed ; and th 
 bitter sense of injustice is gone. Democracy, to be praised fo 
 many things, is most to be praised for this : that it has made i 
 possible, without shame or reluctance, to preach the gospel o 
 duty to the whole people. 
 
 I have not come to preach that gospel to-night ; but before '. 
 sit down, I would venture, from this long historical review, t 
 
Industry and Democracy, 20i 
 
 draw a single practical conclusion. It is this ; that we should do 
 all that in us lies to establish Boards of Conciliation in every trade 
 when the circumstances — economic or moral — are not entirely un- 
 favourable. I know it is not easy to form them ; and that it 
 is difficult to maintain them may be learned in Nottingham at 
 the present time. But, notwithstanding failures and obstacles, I 
 believe these Boards will last: and more than that, I believe 
 that they have in them the possibilities of a great future. If I 
 might trust myself on the unsure ground of prediction I would 
 point out that Boards of Conciliation may grow into permanent 
 councils of employers and workmen, which, — thrusting into the 
 background, but not superseding Trades-Unions and Masters' 
 Associations — for these must long remain as weapons in case of a 
 last appeal to force, — should, in the light of the principles of social 
 and industrial science, deal with those great problems of the 
 fluctuations of wages, of over-production and the regulation of 
 trade, which workmen and employers together alone can settle. 
 However remote such a consummation may appear — and to 
 many it must seem remote indeed — of this I am convinced, 
 that it is no dream, but a reasonable hope, born of patient 
 historical survey and sober faith in man's higher nature. And 
 it is reasonable above all in England, where, owing to a con- 
 tinuous, imbroken history, some sentiment of muLual obligation 
 between classes survives the dissolution of the ancient social 
 system. 
 
 It is true indeed that, as we move in the chill and tedious 
 round of daily work, this hope wiU sometimes seem to us a dream. 
 History will grow dim, faith will die, and we shall see before us, 
 not the fellow-citizen, but the obstinate, suspicious workman, 
 the hard, grasping employer. Yet let us remember, even in these 
 moments of depression, that there never has been a time when 
 such union between classes has been so possible as it is to-day or 
 soon will become. For not only has the law given to workman and 
 employer equality of rights, but education bids fair to give them 
 equality of culture. We are aU now, workmen as well as employers, 
 inhabitants of a larger world ; no longer members of a single class, 
 but fellow-citizens of one great people : no longer the poor recipients 
 of a class tradition, but heirs of a nation's history. Nay more, we 
 are no longer citizens of a single nation, we are participators in 
 
 V 
 
202 Industry and Democracy. 
 
 the life of mankind, and joint-heirs of the world's inheritance. 
 Strengthened by this wider communion and ennobled by this vaster 
 heritage, shall we not trample under foot the passions that divide, 
 and pass united through the invisible portals of a new age to 
 inaugurate a new life ? 
 
III. 
 
 AEE EADICALS SOCIALISTS ?> 
 
 When I had the honour of speaking at Newcastle last year, 
 I ventured to explain that I was not a politician, but a student ; 
 and though the subject with which I have undertaken to deal is 
 a political one, it is still as a student that I wish to address you 
 to-night. It may be asked what business a student has to meddle 
 with political questions in a town like Newcastle, which is so 
 great a centre of political activity and intelligence. I acknowledge 
 the weight of the objection, and confess that it was not without 
 hesitation, and even fear, that I resolved to approach so formidable 
 a subject before so formidable an audience ; for I had to consider 
 not only the character of my audience, but that of my subject — a 
 subject full of snares and pitfalls for a person without political 
 experience. I felt also that I lacked that minute acquaintance 
 with the actual course of political affairs which is necessary to 
 give reality and appropriateness to political utterance. Neverthe- 
 less I determined to face my difficulties ; for I am convinced that, 
 however deficient in many respects he may be, a student who is 
 not devoid of the interest and passion of a citizen, ought to be 
 able to contribute something towards the solution of such a 
 question as I propose. 
 
 The times are troubled, old political faiths are shaken, and 
 the overwhelming exigencies of the moment leave but small 
 breathing-space for statesmen to examine the principles on which 
 they found their practice. The result has been that startling 
 legislative measures, dictated by necessity — with which no com- 
 pact is to be made — have been defended by arguments in sharp 
 contradiction to the ancient principles of those who have pressed 
 these arguments into their service. I think this contradiction is 
 undeniable. It is asserted in connection with the support given 
 by Eadicals to recent Acts of Parliament, not only by enraged 
 
 ' This address was delivered in the earlier part of 1882 to audiences of 
 workmen and employers at Newcastle, Bradford, Bolton, and Leicester. 
 
204 Are Radicals Socialists f 
 
 political opponents, but by adherents of the Eadical and Liberal 
 party who have refused to abandon their allegiance to their former 
 principles. The gravest of the charges brought against Eadicals is 
 the charge of Socialism, a system which in the past they strained 
 every nerve to oppose. Accusations of Socialism are common 
 enough; the Times once accused Mr. Cobden of inciting the 
 peasants to seize the land and divide it in small pieces among 
 themselves, because he advocated the abolition of entail and 
 primogeniture; but on the present occasion the accusation has 
 been made with a definiteness and elaboration that render it 
 worthy of patient examination. It is not a wholesome state of 
 things that a great party should be in doubt — as I think I am 
 justiiied in saying certain sections of the Eadical party are — as to 
 the principles by which it is guided. A great party which is un- 
 certain as to its principles ceases to be a party, and becomes an 
 aggregate of factions without vigour or coherence. 
 
 I propose in this address first of all to show what the old 
 Eadical creed was which we are accused of silently deserting; 
 next, to state the opinions to which it was opposed ; and finally, to 
 explain what changes this creed has undergone by the adoption of 
 some of its opponents' principles under the pressure of external 
 circumstances. 
 
 I shall carry you back forty years to a time of great national 
 calamity, and seek to ascertain what Eadical priaciples were at 
 that time. I go back thus far for two reasons ; first, because at 
 that distance we shall be able to find Eadical principles in their 
 original purity ; and, secondly, because a period of national distress 
 is a period in whiclj opinions get sharply and clearly stated, and 
 men are forced to ascend to the fountain-head, in order to see if 
 their principles are adequate to the necessities of the time. The 
 old Eadical creed may be summed up in three words — justice, 
 liberty, and self-help. To obtain justice and liberty they believed 
 all classes should be admitted to the suffrage; to promote self- 
 reliance they believed that every restriction on trade should be 
 abolished, that labour and commerce should be as free as the 
 winds. Two things are observable in this creed, the intense dislike 
 of the old Eadicals to State interference, and their complete faith 
 in the people. Others might fear, they trusted the people ; and 
 nothing shook this faith, — not the wild cries of starving multi- 
 
Are Radicals Socialists ? 205 
 
 tudes, not ignorant tumults, not violence. For was their stanch 
 belief in the power of the people to help themselves ever weakened ; 
 nothing changed it, not even revelations of hideous suffering 
 and degradation amongst the poorest and weakest of the labouring 
 classes. 
 
 There was much to upset their coniidence in both liberty and 
 self-help in the circumstances of that dreadful time before the 
 repeal of the Corn-Laws, a time which can no more be compared 
 to the period of distress through which we are just now passing, 
 than the sleet and hail of a winter hurricane can be compared to a 
 summer shower. A full description of its misery is impossible in 
 the time I have at my command ; but I can tell you enough to 
 make you understand the need that all political parties felt to do 
 something to save the people. 
 
 This was the state of the great towns: in Manchester 12,000 
 families were supported by charity ; 2000 families were without a 
 bed; 5492 houses were shut up, and 116 mills and workshops 
 idle; and it was calculated that there were 8666 persons whose 
 weekly income was not 1 4 Jd. each. In Stockport, so many houses 
 were untenanted, that a wag chalked up on a shutter, " Stockport 
 to let !" There may be persons still living in Bolton who can 
 remember a letter written by Colonel Thompson, to a paper now 
 defunct. The Sun, in which he described what he called the siege 
 of Bolton. In the year 1 842 he said : " Have you ever seen a 
 pennyworth of mutton ? Come to Bolton and see how rations are 
 dealt out under the landlord's siege " (he was alluding to the Com 
 Laws). " A pennyworth of mutton might bait a rat trap ; but a 
 well-fed rat would not risk his personality for such a pittance." 
 Pennyworths of mutton and half-pennyworths of bread, that was 
 the way in which the shopkeepers sold their goods to the inhabi- 
 tants in the time of Colonel Thompson, who went about Bolton 
 visiting the houses of the poor in company with Mr. Ashworth. 
 One of the lecturers of the Anti-Corn-Law League reported at 
 the time that out of fifty mills in Bolton thirty were idle, or only 
 working four days a week, and there were 7000 people in Bolton 
 whose average income per head was not much more than Is. a 
 week. There were 1500 houses empty at this time. In Leicester 
 one-third of the workmen in the hosiery trade are said to have been 
 out of employment. At the same time the population was huddled 
 
2o6 Are Radicals Socialists f 
 
 together in these towns in filthy dens like wild animals, and women 
 worked like beasts of burden in the mines. The country labourers 
 were almost worse off than the weavers of the towns ; they famished 
 in their dark hovels ; no wonder that the skies were reddened by 
 the flames of burning ricks. Not only was there distress, but 
 there was tumult and anger amongst the people, the like of which 
 we have not seen since. On the Lancashire and Yorkshire moors 
 torch-light meetings were held and addressed by angry and 
 vehement orators, who uttered deep threats, and incited the people 
 to take up arms for vengeance. And not only were the poor 
 excited, but men who by their position were secure against want 
 were driven to despair ; to them also everything seemed too late 
 and revolution at hand, so terrible was the distress, the suffering, 
 and the bewilderment of that period. 
 
 What were the remedies proposed by the different parties of the 
 day ? What did the Eadicals, men like Joseph Hume, Sir William 
 Molesworth, Oobden, Bright, Fox, and Villiers propose ? They 
 said, " Eepeal the Corn-Laws, and then all the rest will come — you 
 will then have cheap bread and steady prices." The Corn-Laws, 
 which sent the quartern loaf up to Is. lOd., they declared to be at 
 the root of the evU. But the working men, curiously enough, were 
 not eager in their support of the An ti- Corn-Law League. They 
 did not deny that the Corn-Laws were bad ; but they said the Corn 
 Laws were only a bad part of a bad system. What they wanted 
 was to get rid of the bad system; and in order to do this the 
 working man must have the suffrage. The working-class Eadicals, 
 such men as William Lovett, Henry Heatherington, and James 
 Watson, set their hearts on a political measure, and demanded the 
 passing of their Charter, including the ballot, electoral districts, 
 annual parliaments, manhood suffrage, payment of members, and 
 the abolition of the property qualification. There were those who 
 said that the cry for cheap bread only meant low wages, and those 
 who held this view went to the meetings of the Anti-Corn-Law 
 League and tried to break them up. Ultimately the League 
 triumphed ; but Cobden himself admitted that the workmen never 
 heartily joined in the agitation. On the other hand, many of 
 the middle-class Eadicals supported the Charter, only they were 
 convinced that the first thing to do was to repeal the Corn-Laws. 
 This the Chartists denied. Lovett said, " The Corn-Laws, though 
 
Are Radicals Socialists ? 207 
 
 highly mischievous, are only one of the effects of the great curse 
 we are seeking to remove, and in justice we think the question of 
 their repeal ought to be argued by the representatives of all the 
 people." Others denounced the Anti-Corn-Law movement as a 
 middle-class manoeuvre ; Thomas Cooper spoke thus : " If you give 
 up your agitation for the Charter to help the Free-traders, they 
 wUl not help you to get the Charter. Don't be deceived by the 
 middle-classes again. You helped them to get their votes. You 
 swelled their cry of ' the BiU, the whole Bill, and nothing but the 
 BUI,' but where are the fine promises they made you ? Gone to 
 the winds ! — and now they want to get the Corn-Laws repealed, 
 not for your benefit, but for their own. Cheap bread they cry, but 
 they mean low wages. Do not listen to their cant and humbug. 
 Stick to your Charter, you are veritable slaves without your votes." 
 It is a mistake, however, to suppose that the genuine Chartists, 
 men like Lovett, Heatherington, and Watson, had a mere blind 
 belief in the suffrage ; nothing is more striking than the intelli- 
 gence of their manifestoes ; they argued on the true ground, " We 
 cannot get justice until every class is Represented in the State." 
 Neither were these men advocates of violence, for though they 
 were willing to frighten the middle-class they were not prepared 
 to hurt them. Their real position was vividly put by a Scotch 
 Chartist — " We must shake our oppressors well over hell's mouth, 
 but not let them drop in ! " 
 
 But though the genuine Chartists repudiated violence, they 
 were displaced by Feargus O'Connor and his physical force Chartists, 
 who openly advocated it. The opinions of these men are of little 
 interest, but associated with them were men whose opinions are of 
 great importance ; I mean, Joseph Eaynor Stephens and Eichard 
 Oastler, the "Factory King," whose opinions were again closely 
 allied to those of a distinguished man who had died a few years 
 before, M. T. Sadler, one of the most benevolent and self-devoted of 
 citizens. The number of these men was small, but their popular 
 influence was immense. Stephens and Oastler, though acting 
 with the Chartists, denied that they themselves belonged to that 
 body. Both were orators of great power. They insisted that the 
 ancient constitution of the realm, and the laws as they were, were 
 sufacient to meet the difficulties of the time; they exalted the 
 throne, and declared the powers that be to be ordained of God. 
 
2o8 Are Radicals Socialists f 
 
 But whilst denying and attacking the Kadical doctrine that 
 political power should be confided to the people, they insisted that 
 the Queen and her Parliament should protect and succour the 
 people. They helieved that the poor must be dependent for much 
 of the comforts and necessaries of life upon the rich and the 
 powerful, and were unsparing in their invective against those who 
 neglected the people. Because the poor were weak and helpless 
 they asserted that not only was it the duty of the rich to help 
 them, but that the poor had a right to help, had a claim on the 
 national wealth independent of individual merit or virtue. These 
 men made assertions which were really as dangerous as any ever 
 made in England. In one of Stephens' speeches he said, "The 
 man who is without a home has a quarrel with society, A man 
 who has no home, or a home which is not what God intended it to 
 be, that man is robbed." Oastler also said, " If you take away the 
 industrious poor man's right to relief" (he was speaking of the old 
 poor-law) "all other advantages crumble into dust and become 
 worthless." Now, if you examine these statements closely, you 
 wUl find they amount to this: an assertion of an unconditional 
 claim on the part of the people to an indefinite share in the 
 national wealth, which is, to say the least, a most pernicious 
 doctrine. It is to maintain that every individual has a right to a 
 share in other men's wealth, that is, that your property and mine 
 is not ours absolutely, but the beggar and the pauper have a right 
 to a part of it. These men were sometimes called Tory Chartists, 
 but they ought to have been called Tory Socialists, for their 
 doctrine was Socialism in the most unmistakable form. The 
 occasion of these wild assertions was the agitation against the 
 new Poor Law of 1834:, which was, although now forgotten, cer- 
 tainly a more popular agitation than that carried on by the Anti- 
 Corn-Law League. The new Poor Law, while not denying the 
 right to relief, had attached stringent conditions to the receipt of 
 it, had, in fact, made the relief conditional in many cases on 
 entering the workhouse — on imprisonment in a Bastille, as Stephens 
 and Oastler called it. The old Poor Law had given relief with- 
 out conditions, and had completely demoralised the people. Any 
 one who asked for relief could get it, in any form he liked, with 
 the result that the burden on the land had become so terrible that 
 we read of one parish in Buckinghamshire where nearly the whole 
 
Are Radicals Socialists ? 209 
 
 of the land had gone out of cultivation; and with a still worse effect 
 upon the people. Family affection was stamped out, mothers 
 threatened to leave their children out of doors if they were not 
 paid for keeping them, children deserted their bed-ridden parents. 
 Under this regime the idle were confounded with the honest poor, 
 and the Poor Law was well described at the time as a national 
 institution for the encouragement of vice and idleness and the 
 discouragement of honesty and thrift. 
 
 Although unsuccessful in their fierce attacks upon the new Poor 
 Law, Oastler and Stephens carried on successfully the agitation for 
 the Ten Hours' Bill. And they conducted this agitation on the 
 ■ same principle as the first one — that there were certain members of 
 society who, being unable to protect themselves, had a right to the 
 protection of the State. It is a remarkable thing that these 
 opinions were held also by rich men, by landowners and capitalists; 
 they were held by one man who afterwards became Prime Minister 
 of England. We are not accustomed to call Lord Beaconsfield a 
 Socialist, but I think we may apply the title to his lordship with- 
 out injustice. Let me show you what I mean. Lord Beaconsfield 
 was in the habit of expressing his political opinions not in 
 pamphlets but in novels; and about this time he published his 
 Sybil, in which is contained a description of the Chartist movement, 
 and in which an opinion exactly on all-fours with those of Oastler 
 and Stephens is expressed. He writes, " The people are not strong ; 
 the people never can be strong. Their attempts at self- vindication 
 will end only in their suffering and confusion," and then he goes 
 on to show how people must rely on an aristocracy who " are the 
 natural leaders of the people." Some think Lord Beaconsfield was 
 not sincere, but I think he was, and his opinion as to the condition 
 of the people and as to the state of political opinion in 1845 is of 
 great importance. Lord Beaconsfield's practical proposals were, 
 however, very curious, if all he could suggest was that the land- 
 owners should set up the Maypole once more on the village greens ; 
 that they should revive the old English sports; and that they 
 should join with the peasantry in these sports. 
 
 I have called Stephens and Oastler Socialists, and have hinted 
 at the connection between their views and those of Disraeli — and 
 indeed those of a far deeper thinker than Disraeli, Thomas Carlyle, 
 were in substance the same — but there was another body of men 
 
 
 
2IO Are Radicals Socialists f 
 
 who deliberately adopted the title of Socialists— Eobert Owen and 
 his followers. These men did not agree with either the Chartists 
 or the Anti-Corn-Law League. They scoffed at political remedies 
 for bettering the condition of the people, declaring that what was 
 recLuired were social changes. " The Chartists," wrote Owen in his 
 Rational System of Society, " have been and now are beating the air, 
 or, like Don Quixote, fighting with wind,aiiUs ;" political changes 
 are useless " that do not at the same time effect social changes." 
 The evU, according to Owen, was competition and the struggle for 
 6xistence ; his plan was to substitute association and brotherhood 
 for competition. His practical scheme was to found what he called 
 Home Colonies, associations of about 2000 oi: 2500, who should 
 have property in common, who should work in common, and 
 amongst whom the produce should be divided equally. Owen 
 neither wished to use force nor to confiscate property ; he hoped 
 gradually to transform society by the silent force of example. 
 Socialism with him meant not that the poor had a claim on the 
 wealth of the rich, but voluntary associated life with common 
 property and equal division of wealth. Some of his colonies were 
 actually founded, but ended in failure. Owen, nevertheless, should 
 be remembered as the first great English Socialist, and as a man 
 who has exercised immense influence on English institutions. 
 
 I have described thus briefly the Eadical creed and the opinions 
 to which it was opposed. Now, what was the answer which the 
 middle-class Eadicals, Joseph Hume, Mill, Bright, and Cobden, 
 gave to the various parties who opposed them? Eobert Owen 
 they ignored. To the Tory Socialists they declared : " Tour system 
 of patronage and of patriarchal government is now physically 
 impossible. Newspapers, railways, great cities, have made the 
 workman independent. The old system may linger on a while in 
 country districts, but its extinction is only a question of time. 
 You are trying to revive the habits and relations of a bygone age ; 
 but the workmen having once tasted the sweets of independence, 
 will never go back into dependence." A still more trenchant reply 
 to the Tory Socialists was given when the Eadicals turned on the 
 land-owners and those who supported them, and said, "Who are you 
 who are coming forward as the protectors of the people ? Why, 
 you are the very men who have robbed and injured the people by 
 the Corn-Laws. If you wish to prove your sincerity, repeal the 
 
Are Radicals Socialists ? 211 
 
 !:!orn and Game laws. What a suffering people requires is not 
 jsnevolence, but justice." To the Chartists their answer was, " "We 
 igree with you, we think you ought to have the suffrage ; but you 
 mow very well that you cannot get the suffrage except by violence, 
 fou know that the great bulk of the middle-class are not suffi- 
 liently intelligent to grant you the suffrage ; and the only thing 
 'or you to do is to join us in getting the repeal of the Corn Laws, 
 md when we have done that, we will unite, and ultimately obtain 
 ;he suffrage for you." Bright added, " The principles of the charter 
 will one day be established, but years may pass over, months must 
 pass over, before that day arrives." 
 
 We all know that the League won. In 1846 the Corn-Laws 
 were repealed, and much of what the League had prophesied 
 ;ame true. Cheap bread did not mean low wages, as many of 
 ;he Chartists had supposed, and bread from that time was not 
 3nly cheaper but steadier. The Chartists seemed baffled and 
 beaten, yet as time went on certain portions of the Charter 
 srere realised. The result of the repeal of the Corn-Laws and 
 jf Free-Trade was to restore material prosperity to the people, 
 while the repeal of other duties, such as the stamp-duty on news- 
 papers, and the paper duties, for which Watson and Heatherington 
 struggled, brought knowledge within the reach of the masses. The 
 working men obtained the suffrage in 1867, and it is noticeable 
 bhat as soon as they exercised it, many of those laws which pressed 
 most heavily on their class, and which were most iniquitous, were 
 repealed. The law which made Trade-Unions illegal was repealed 
 in 1871, and the cruel law of conspiracy in 1875. And mark the 
 effect on the relations between workmen and employers. The 
 workmen, ceasing to look upon the employers as the authors of 
 unjust laws, are prepared to treat with them, and the employers, 
 forced by granting the workmen the suffrage to recognise their 
 independence, are in their turn prepared to meet them as equal 
 citizens of a free State, and the consequence is that, with vary- 
 ing success. Boards of Conciliation and Arbitration have taken 
 the place of tbe brute method of settling trade disputes by lock- 
 outs and strikes. The further points of the Charter which have 
 been obtained are the ballot and the abolition of property qualifica- 
 tion ; some points still remain to be carried out. We have yet to 
 assimilate the borough and county franchise, and to obtain free- 
 
2 12 Are Radicals Socialists ? 
 
 trade in land. We have yet to consider the reform of the Ho 
 of Lords, or, some prefer to say, its abolition, and not far off loc 
 the possibility of universal suffrage. 
 
 But while such measures as free-trade and the extension of 
 franchise are generally esteemed great and solid gains to the cc 
 munity, while the improvement and prosperity to which I hi 
 alluded is generally acknowledged, there are men who watch 
 course of events and draw different conclusions from them. Th 
 are not fanatics nor Socialists. They are thinking men, and n 
 learned in the economic history of England ; and they see in i 
 history of the country for the last forty years nothing but a p 
 paration for revolution. They confront us with the declarati 
 that the very things of which I speak, Pree-Trade and Demoera 
 are bringing society to the verge of it. They point out that Fr 
 Trade, whilst it has made some things cheaper, has also led to 
 concentration of wealth into fewer and fewer hands, and they s 
 " While you have been doing this you have had the extraordim 
 audacity to diffuse political power." Wealth is in the hands 
 the few rich, the suffrage in the hands of the many poor ; in 1 
 concentration of wealth and the diffusion of political power lies 1 
 great danger of modern society. The danger becomes every d 
 greater, and democracy, which seemed to save society, is rea 
 destined to overturn it. 
 
 Men like Karl Marx and Lassalle, the German Socialists, c( 
 tend that it is impossible for working men under the press 
 conditions of private property and competition, to raise themseb 
 above the level of bare subsistence, and they say that Mr. Gli 
 stone, the present Prime Minister, has expressed the same opini' 
 Mr. Gladstone, in his Budget speech of 1864, after having dw 
 on the enormous growth of wealth in the country, said, speaki 
 of the distress of the working classes in the large towns, " Wl 
 is human life, in the great majority of instances, but a mi 
 struggle for existence?" There are some who point to this c( 
 tradiction with grim satisfaction, who, whilst ridiculing wl 
 they call political democracy, yet see in the diffusion of politi 
 power a means by which a social revolution can be achiev 
 Without this, they say, the workman can never better his c( 
 dition, he is a slave to " the brazen law of wages." They ( 
 scribe vividly the gradual rolling together of huge masses 
 
Are Radicals Socialists? 213 
 
 capital, whilst at its feet lie masses of workmen living in penury 
 though in nominal independence. In the end, they say, the people 
 will arise, and the present social system with its slavery be swept 
 away. Some declare that the ground beneath us is ah'eady under- 
 mined. Nay, some go further, and whisper that the catastrophe, 
 if we did but know it, is at hand. I am reminded of an incident 
 in the siege of Sebastopol. One calm moonlight night the senti- 
 nels of the allied armies suddenly saw a vast column of smoke 
 shoot high into the air from the Mamelon Tower, spread over the 
 heavens, and cast acres of black shadow over the sleeping camps. 
 Another minute, and those slumbering hosts were aroused by the 
 roar and thunder of a great explosion. So some keen-eyed watchers 
 believe that they can see the shadow of a great convulsion stealing 
 over the sleeping nations, soon to be awakened by a crash that 
 wUl shake all Europe. 
 
 Is the conclusion of the German Socialists a correct one ? We 
 in England smile at all this as a mere dream, so remote does 
 revolution seem from our slow course of even progress. But if it 
 is remote, it is because we in England have taken steps to modify 
 the conditions which make revolutions imminent. If we can rightly 
 smUe at such pictures it is because we have developed among 
 artisans and labourers vast voluntary societies wielding masses of 
 capital, and have partially realised the Socialist programme. There 
 are two great agencies which have been at work in England to 
 produce that result : First, those voluntary agencies, the result of 
 the self-help in which Eadicals believe ; and secondly, the action 
 of the State in which Socialists believe. 
 
 Let us see how far the efforts of the people themselves have 
 been sufficient to mitigate that inequality of conditions and of 
 material wealth of which the Socialists spteak. Let us see what the 
 working classes, oppressed as they are described to be, have been 
 able to save. In the savings banks last year there was £78,000,000, 
 not wholly, but for the most part deposited by the working classes ; 
 in friendly societies, exclusively working class savings, £12,000,000 ; 
 building society investments amounted to £31,000,000 ; and in co- 
 operative societies there was £6,500,000. Allowing for other 
 savings of which I can obtain no estimate this makes a total of 
 about £128,000,000, — a very large sum to have been saved by men 
 " struggling for existence." I contend that if the workmen were 
 
214 ^^^ Radicals Socialists ^ 
 
 only able to obtain a bare subsistence they would not have bee 
 able to save. Again, there are the Trades-Unions formed for th 
 purpose of confronting the power of these ever-increasing accumi; 
 lations of capital, and these too are possessed of great fundi 
 AU this has been done by self-help ; and when we come to coe 
 sider what has been done by the State, we find curiously enoug 
 that some of the things the Socialists of Germany and Trance ar 
 now working for, we have had since 1834. The new Poor La^ 
 was based upon a recognition of the principle that the poor had 
 right to relief from the State, a doctrine attacked by the Radicals 
 but which others say has saved England from revolution ; and ou 
 Factory Acts are also Socialism. They interfere to protect the weal 
 and not only women and children but also men, regulating no 
 only the sanitary conditions of factories but also the workin 
 hours. 
 
 Now, who really initiated these movements, and who oppose 
 them ? Robert Owen was the founder of co-operation, and let u 
 be candid and confess that the Radicals of that time derided ii 
 The same was the fact as regards Trades-Unions. The Radical 
 had an exclusive belief in individual enterprise, and these move 
 ments they considered as infringements upon individual righ 
 As an instance, Richard Cobden spoke very strongly against Trades 
 Unions as likely to become tyrannous. These are his words 
 " Depend upon it, nothing can be got by fraternising with Trades 
 Unions. They are founded upon principles of brutal tyranny an 
 monopoly. I would rather live under a Dey of Algiers than 
 Trades Committee !" Dr. Arnold called them " gangs of conspiK 
 tors;" but while some at home have thus condemned them 8 
 agents of revolution, foreign writers, like Lange and Brentam 
 have hailed them as averters of revolution. 
 
 Again, who passed the factory legislation ? Not the Radicals 
 it was due to Owen, Oastler, Sadler, Fielden, and Lord Shaftesbur 
 to Tory-Socialists and to landowners. And let us recognise tl 
 fact plainly, that it is because there has been a ruling aristocrac 
 in England that we have had a great Socialist programme cavrie 
 out. This may seem a paradox, but it is not. The explanation : 
 simple. The landowners always have — when their own interest 
 were not concerned— attempted, in a rough and blind sort of wa; 
 to do justice to the people; and factory legislation harmonise 
 
Are Radicals Socialists ? 215 
 
 more with their notions of the people's dependence than with the 
 Eadical manufacturers' idea of the people's independence. Next, 
 from their position, they had a stronger feeling about protecting 
 the people than these manufacturers ever had ; they had an idea 
 of duty connected with their position. The claim made once 
 by Lord John Manners to this effect is not altogether false. The 
 landowners, like all men possessed of power for a long period, 
 have had noble traditions as to its exercise, and where their 
 own interests were not touched, they tried to use their power 
 for the good of the people. They believed not only that the 
 poor were, but ought to be, in a state of dependence ; but they 
 recognised at the same time their consequent duties towards 
 the poor. Cobden was right : the supremacy of the landowners, 
 which has been the cause of so much injustice and suffering, has 
 also been the means of averting revolution. If they robbed the 
 peasant of his land, they gave him ihe right to relief from the 
 land ; if they passed the Corn-Laws, they also secured the passing 
 of the Factory Acts. I tremble to think what this country would 
 have been without the Factory Acts. Let us do justice to the 
 landowners of England even if there mingled in their action an 
 unworthy motive — that of taking their revenge upon the capitalists 
 and millowners of Lancashire for their repeal of the Corn-Laws. 
 And abroad, these Acts, passed by Tory country gentlemen, are 
 looked upon as Socialistic. 
 
 Let us now come to the last and most startling piece of Social- 
 istic legislation — the Irish Land Bill of 1881. When we examine 
 the debates on this bill we find that the Eadicals and Tories have 
 completely changed places. The reason for it is this : the Tories 
 felt that the whole basis of their power was being touched when 
 the land was meddled with; before it was only a question of 
 capital, now it was a question of land. It is a striking fact that 
 many of the arguments used in the House of Commons by members 
 of the Government in support of the Land Bill are almost exactly 
 parallel to the arguments formerly used by men like Mr. Sadler in 
 favour of the Factory Laws. They even used some of the illustra- 
 tions employed in discussing the Poor Laws, dwelling upon the 
 fundamental principle that there is no freedom of contract between 
 men who are unequal. " The boasted freedom of our labourers in 
 many pursuits," said Mr. Sadler in 1832, "will, in a just view of 
 
2 1 6 Are Radicals Socialists f 
 
 their condition, l)e found little more than nominal." "People 
 forget the condition of society, the unequal division of property, or 
 rather its total monopoly by the few; leaving the many nothing 
 whatever but what they can obtain by their daily labour ; which 
 very labour cannot become available for the purpose of daily subsist- 
 ence without the consent of those who own the property of this 
 community, all the materials, elements, call them what you please, 
 on which labour is bestowed, being in their possession." The 
 Eadicals now use arguments like Sadler's, and they are right. Let 
 me insist that the principle of the Irish Land Act is not retrograde 
 but progressive. That Act marks not only an epoch in the history 
 of Ireland, but also in the history of democracy. It means — I say 
 it advisedly — that the Eadical party has committed itself to a 
 Socialist programme. I do not mean the Socialism of the Tory 
 Socialists ; I do not mean the Socialism of Eobert Owen ; but I 
 mean that the Eadicals have finally accepted and recognised the 
 fact, which has far-reaching applications, a fact which is the funda- 
 mental principle of Socialism, that between men who are unequal 
 in material wealth there can be no freedom of contract. 
 
 The material inequality of men under the present social condi- 
 tions is a fact. The) Poor Law, factory legislation, Trades-Unions, 
 may lessen the pressure of the strong upon the weak; savings 
 banks, building societies, co-operation, may lessen the inequality of 
 wealth ; the power of the stronger may never be fully exercised, but 
 be modified by custom, by public opinion, by benevolence — it is well 
 not to forget the noble generosity of English landowners, and Irish, 
 in the times of the Famine; econoinic causes, such as the faU of 
 interest and of rent, may be at work to mitigate the inequality 
 of condition ; yet, notwithstanding all, this fact remains, and the 
 maxims which Eadical Socialists have founded on this fact are 
 these : First, that where individual rights conflict with the interests 
 of the community, there the State ought to interfere ; and second, 
 that where the people are unable to provide a thing for themselves, 
 and that thing is of primary social importance, then again the 
 State should interfere and provide it for them. 
 
 Having definitely accepted this principle, we may now ask 
 what further application of it is necessary ? I have no intention 
 to sketch a new Eadical programme, but in order to bring the 
 principle to a definite issue, I will apply it to one matter of urgent 
 
Are Radicals Socialists ? 217 
 
 importance — the dwellings of the people, a subject upon which it 
 is difficult to understand why so little is said.^ The importance of 
 the 'home, it is impossible to exaggerate. What is liberty without it ? 
 What is education in schools without it ? The greatness of no 
 nation can be secure that is not based upon a pure home life. But 
 is a pure home life possible under present conditions for the 
 bulk of the labouring class ? I answer, No. I do not deny that 
 artisans have good dwellings in many towns, but I assert that the 
 dwellings of the great mass of the people are a danger to our 
 civilisation. It is not necessary to describe what has been so often 
 described before ; the dark dens into which the sun can never pene- 
 trate, -the noisome air, the rotten floors, the broken roof through 
 which the rain beats and the wind, — we know them all too well. 
 Why do we sit stUl and quietly behold degradation worse than that 
 from which we have rescued women and children in mines and 
 factories ? Why are we content to see the sources of national life 
 poisoned ? I believe it is because we think this condition of things 
 inevitable. But if only we had the courage to stamp it out, I be- 
 lieve it is not so. People have no idea of the universality of the 
 evil. It is recognised perhaps in such great cities as London or 
 Liverpool, but take ia quiet cathedral town in the south of Eng- 
 land, and listen to some of the facts about dwellings there. Per- 
 haps the description of one house will suffice : it has four rooms, 
 the largest 11 ft. by 9 ft., and 8 ft. by 5 ft. 10 in. At the time 
 to which my report refers, the drain undergroimd was stopped up ; 
 there was a perceptibly offensive smell; the upper rooms let in 
 the rain ; the staircase was rotten ; one child had died recently, and 
 the woman had been ill ever since she was in the house. The land- 
 lord had been complained to, and had made improvements, — that 
 is, had pasted paper over the holes in the door. The medical 
 officer had ordered drainage, but of this nothing had been done. 
 Eent, 3s. 6d. a week. The gentleman from whom my information 
 is derived purchased the house, and found that the former owner 
 had made nearly fifty pef cent, per annum on his purchase-money. 
 No wonder that a Pair Eent Society has been founded among 
 householders. 
 
 What means have we of grappling with the problem ? First, 
 
 ^ This was spoken more than a year before the discussion of the question in 
 the public press, and the consequent action taken. — Ed. 
 
2i8 Are Radicals Socialists f 
 
 we might reform our local government. "We have now inequali 
 of local taxatiop, and sanitary laws and Building Acts are not e; 
 forced, because sanitary of&cers are not independent, and becaui 
 local authorities would have to bear the expense. Further, tl 
 representation of workmen upon all Boards and Town-Counci 
 should be insisted on. Next, we know what can be done by priva 
 enterprise. Building societies are stated to have investments ■ 
 the amount of £31,000,000. Mr. T. M. Sadler, the Eegistrar, tel 
 me that, in 1881, 237 were registered. The Artisan's Dwelling 
 Company in ISTewcastle had, in 1879, 108 tenements. In Londo 
 after forty years' efforts, improved industrial dwellings have bee 
 provided for 60,000 people. But, notwithstanding all such volui 
 tary agencies, the evidence is clear that it is scarcely possible 1 
 furnish decent dwellings for the very poor at a remunerative pric 
 The average weekly wage of the occupants of the Peabody builc 
 ings is £1, 3s. lOd. ; that of the occupants of the houses of tl 
 Improved Industrial Dwellings' Company, 28s., of a whole famil; 
 35s. to 40s. The circumstances of different localities differ, and 
 am perfectly aware that, in some manufacturing towns, artisai 
 have often been able to buy houses and provide for themselve 
 but it was distinctly admitted by the Home Secretary that nothii 
 could be done for the poorest class without State assistance ; ai 
 the witnesses examined before the Committee on the Artisan 
 Dwellings Act of 1875 nearly all declared that the great mass ( 
 labourers cannot be provided with decent houses at a remuneri 
 tive price. 
 
 Well, what are we to do ? I do not hesitate to say the cor 
 munity must step in and give the necessary aid. These laboure; 
 cannot obtain dwellings for themselves ; municipalities, or tl 
 State in some form, should have power to buy up land and let 
 below the market value for the erection of decent dwellings, 
 will be objected, " Why, this is rank Socialism ! " Yes, it is. M 
 Waddy was denounced as a Communist for making such a sugge 
 tion once in the House. But the principle is only the principle > 
 the Poor Law, and, if we look closely into the matter, we shall fir 
 that, as usual in England — where practice always precedes theoi 
 —the thing is already done. In London, the Peabody Trustei 
 keep their interest at three per cent, gross, thirty or forty per cer 
 below that of other companies, and house 10,000 people. Lan( 
 
Are Radicals Socialists ? 219 
 
 owners in the country building cottages, will tell you that no 
 cottage pays more than two per cent. ^ Here are examples of 
 houses let below market value, and without the demoralisation of 
 their occupants. I believe we could make no better investment 
 of national capital. A higher standard of comfort would be 
 reached, and improved habits of Jiving established among the 
 people ; a great diminution in pauperism, drunkenness, and crime, 
 would inevitably follow. 
 
 But would not this be class legislation which Eadicals have 
 always opposed ? No, because it would be in the interest of the 
 whole community. We cannot call ourselves safe until all citizens 
 have the chance of living decent lives ; the poorest class need to 
 be raised in the interest of all classes. But would it not diminish 
 self-reliance ? No, I conceive of it as a help towards doing with- 
 out help. It is doing for the people what they cannot do for 
 themselves, that they may thus gain a position in which they shall 
 not need assistance. Eadicals are as keenly alive as ever to the 
 necessity for self-reliance; I would say, abolish outdoor relief 
 under the Poor Law, because outdoor relief lowers wages, degrades 
 the recipient, and diminishes self-reliance ; I would have this 
 done with workmen themselves sitting as Poor-Law guardians. 
 
 In conclusion, I would ask what is the difference between 
 the Socialism of which I have spoken, Tory Socialism, and the 
 Socialism of the Continent ? The Eadical creed, as I understand 
 it, is this : We have not abandoned our old belief in liberty, 
 justice, and self-help, but we say that under certain conditions the 
 people cannot help themselves, and that then they should be 
 helped by the State representing directly the whole people. In 
 giving this State help, we make three conditions : first, the matter 
 must be one of primary social importance ; next, it must be proved 
 to be practicable ; thirdly, the State interference must not diminish 
 self-reliance. Even if the chance should arise of removing a great 
 social evil, nothing must be done to weaken those habits of indi- 
 vidual self-reliance and voluntary association which have built up 
 the greatness of the English people. But — to take an example of 
 the State doing for a section of the people what they could not do 
 for themselves — I am not aware that the Merchant Shipping Act 
 has diminished the self-reliance of the British sailor. We differ from 
 Tory Socialism in so far as we are in favour, not of paternal, but 
 
220 Are Radicals Socialists ? 
 
 of fraternal government, and we differ from Continental Socialism 
 because we accept the principle of private property, and repudiate 
 confiscation and violence. With Mazzini, we say the worst feature 
 in Continental Socialism is its materialism. It is this indeed which 
 utterly separates English Eadical Socialists from Continental 
 Socialists — our abhorrence aud detestation of their materialistic 
 ideal. To a reluctant admission of the necessity for State action, 
 we join a burning belief in duty, and a deep spiritual ideal of life. 
 And we have more than an abstract belief in duty, we do not 
 hesitate to unite the advocacy of social reform with an appeal to 
 the various classes who compose society to perform those duties 
 without which all social reform must be merely delusive. 
 
 To the capitalists we appeal to use their wealth, as many of 
 their order already do, as a great national trust, and not for selfish 
 purposes alone. We exhort them to aid in the completion of the 
 work they have well begun, and, having admitted the workmen to 
 political independence, not to shrink from accepting laws and 
 carrying out plans of social reform directed to secure his material 
 independence. 
 
 To the workman we appeal by the memory and traditions of 
 his own sufferings and wrongs to be vigilant to avoid the great 
 guilt of inflicting upon his fellow- citizens the injustice from which 
 he has himself escaped. We call upon him to reform his own 
 social and domestic life, — to put down drunkenness and brutal 
 violence. Decent habitations and high wages are not ends to be 
 sought for their own sake. High wages — now at least — are often 
 a cause of crime. Material prosperity, without faith in God and 
 love to our fellow-men, is as little use to man as earth to the plants 
 without the sun. 
 
 I repeat, we demand increased material welfare for those who 
 labour with their hands, not that they may seize upon a few more 
 coarse enjoyments, but that they may enter upon a purer and a 
 higher life. We demand it also that the English workman may 
 take his part worthily in the government of this country. We 
 demand it in order that he may have the intelligence and the wiU 
 to administer the great trust which fatje has committed to his 
 charge ; for it is not only his own home and his own country that 
 he has to govern, but a vast empire — a duty unparalleled in the 
 annals of democracy. We ' demand it, I say, in order that he, a 
 
Are Radicals Socialists ? 221 
 
 citizen of this inclement island, washed by dark northern seas, 
 may learn to rule righteously the dim multitudes of peasants who 
 toil under the fierce light of tropical suns, in the distant continent 
 of India. We demand that the material condition of those who 
 labour shall be bettered, in order that, every source of weakness 
 being removed at home, we, this English nation, may bring to the 
 tasks which God has assigned us, the irresistible strength of a 
 prosperous and united people. 
 
THE EDUCATION OE CO-OPERATOES.i 
 
 All co-operators follow their great founder in denouncing in- 
 dividualism and the principle of competition ; but I have recently 
 observed among some social reformers a certain impatience and 
 distrust of that opposite principle of association to which co- 
 operators have so long looked for the ultimate regeneration of our 
 social system. Though we may not attach much importance to 
 this feeling, we cannot deny its existence. We recognise it ia 
 sarcastic descriptions of the motley throng of societies which jostle 
 each other in modern civilisation, from societies for the salvation 
 of souls and the spread of the gospel among the heathen, down 
 to associations for the reform of bread, the promotion of early 
 rising, and the burial of dead cats ! It is hinted in these descrip- 
 tions that most modern societies are trivial and ridiculous, or mere 
 vexatious impediments to healthy individual action ; and a com- 
 parison is sometimes instituted between them and the mediaeval 
 guilds, much to their disadvantage. The criticism is not entirely 
 undeserved, nor the contrast entirely false. Putting aside great 
 commercial companies, which are avowedly associations of capital 
 trading for profit, we must, I think, admit that a large number of 
 modern organisations are simply aggregates of money, with trivial or 
 transient objects, instead of being, like the mediaeval guilds, living 
 groups of men animated by common principles of religious and 
 industrial faith, and united for the satisfaction of the great per- 
 manent needs of human life. 
 
 I shall not here pause to consider the reason of this difference, 
 but the comparison and the criticism will be of value if they lead 
 us to ask what is the real function of the innumerable associations 
 of the present age. A careful examination wiU prove that though 
 not a few are useless and ridiculous, the majority of them are the 
 legitimate products of the extraordinary variety of men's wants 
 
 1 This paper was read before the Co-operative Congress held at Oxford in 
 May 1882. 
 
The Education of Co-operators. 223 
 
 and aims, which, under the complex conditions of modern social 
 life, it is beyond the power of the individual to satisfy or achieve. 
 The Animals Necropolis Company, to which I have alluded, seems 
 at first sight te he properly included under those societies which 
 are foolish and useless, but it is in reality a fair if quaint illustra- 
 tion of the truth of the assertion I have just made. The tender- 
 ness for animals as companions, the crowding together of dwellings 
 in great cities without a foot of vacant space, the strictness of 
 modern sanitary regulations, are facts which explain and justify 
 the existence of a society so apparently repugnant to common 
 sense. I must resist the temptation which here presents itself to 
 trace the genesis of other forms of existing associations, and content 
 myself with drawing your attention to one singular fact, viz., that a 
 considerable number of them are the direct creation of that State 
 interference against which many co-operators entertain a generous 
 prejudice. For this activity of modern legislation, which some 
 co-operators censure, has strengthened, and not weakened the 
 sense of moral responsibility and habits of voluntary co-operation. 
 For example, the laws which punish the adulteration of food 
 called into existence societies of master bakers, and of vendors of 
 milk, to enforce the penalties against fraudulent tradesmen, and 
 the laws which punish cruelty to animals gave birth to a society 
 for the prosecution of offenders, thus rendering possible the effec- 
 tive expression of a moral sentiment which would otherwise have 
 fretted in impotence. 
 
 If now we turn from modern associations in general to the 
 consideration of workmen's societies, we shall find that though 
 their aims cannot be described as transient or trivial, yet they too 
 are in character usually aggregates of money limited to a single 
 object, and making no attempt to embrace the whole of human 
 life. Building societies facilitate the purchase of dwellings. 
 Friendly societies make provision for sickness and death. Trades- 
 Unions have rather a wider scope, and seem more nearly to 
 resemble mediaeval guilds in character and purpose. To the out- 
 ward eye co-operative societies are smaller things than Trades- 
 Unions and of slighter significance. Their aims — the promotion 
 of thrift and the reduction of the cost of living — appear narrow 
 and uninteresting; their energies seem entirely absorbed in the 
 purchase of chests of tea and sacks of flour, and the ordinary 
 
2 24 The Education of Co-operators. 
 
 coarse necessaries of daily life. Nor are their members (I fchii 
 ia such close contact as those of a Union ; the majority of th 
 are often as unknown to each other as the shareholders in a gi 
 railway, and there are few opportunities of intercourse besi 
 the quarterly meetings or the managing committee. A dee 
 scrutiny, however, shows that though not endowed with 
 fervent united life of the mediaeval guilds, co-operative societies, 
 the possession of large ideals, approach nearer to them in real 
 than do Trades-Unions, which have a closer outward resemblar 
 I do not mean to disparage Trades-Unions, nor to assert that tl 
 have not moral aims because they have not large ideals; bu' 
 am inclined to think that the spirit which breathes in the f 
 inscription on the banner of the Glovers of Perth in the sevi 
 teenth century, " The perfect honour of a craft or beauty of a tr; 
 is not in wealthe but in moral worth, whereby virtue ga 
 renowne," is more characteristic of co-operative societies than 
 any association formed in any particular modern trade. Trad 
 Unions which accept the facts of the present industrial syste 
 and are engaged in a hand-to-hand fight with capitalists, have 
 time to indulge in dreams that are natural to bodies of n 
 whose aim is the radical transformation of the entire conditions 
 industrial life. 
 
 For we know that, however seemingly immersed in the pe 
 business of the shop co-operators may be, their real aim £ 
 their real determination is to put an end to competition £ 
 the division of men into capitalists and labourers — an aim e 
 determination which again remind us of the mediaeval guiJ 
 where labour and capital were associated, and competition held 
 abhorrence. It is this large spirit, this resolute refusal to ace 
 the present state of society as final, which marks off co-operat 
 from all other movements, and gives to it an interest whicli 
 unique. I know it is said that " the one loud and universal sh 
 of social regeneration," raised by Eobert Owen, has, not only to 
 undiscerning ear but in reality, sunk into a mere debate ab 
 dividends ; but this we will not allow to be true. The ideal 
 Eobert Owen had to run the course of other ideals ; it had to 
 that it might live. " That which thou sowest is not quicke: 
 except it die ;" the co operative ideal had to be cast into the soi 
 material prosperitj', in order that it might spring up into a i 
 
The Education of Co-operators. 225 
 
 and more powerful life. The very fact that the subject I have to 
 discuss to-day is the subject of education shows that the ideal is 
 quickened, and is taking practical shape. 
 
 It may, however, be fairly asked why I have devoted so much 
 time to the discussion of the general aim of co-operation, and the 
 difference between mediaeval and modern societies, instead of pro- 
 ceeding at once to consider the subject assigned to me ? I reply 
 that, as a matter of fact, directly I began to deal with that subject 
 I foimd myself forced to determine what the exact work of co- 
 operative societies is among the crowd of associations that catch 
 our eye on every side ; and my inquiry at least brought out one 
 point very clearly, namely, that though they differ from other 
 societies by the possession of an ideal aim, yet they do not attempt 
 to cover the whole range of human life. Now if this be true, it is 
 obvious that co-operation can only claim a part of education as its 
 province, and that my business is to ascertain what that part 
 should be. 
 
 The absence of any definite conception on this point will per- 
 haps explain the hesitating and uncertain action of co-operators 
 in regard to education and the small fraction of money they have 
 hitherto devoted to it. Seeing that education is the function, not 
 of one but of many associations, co-operators have had difficulties 
 in deciding what their exact relation to it ought to be. Ele- 
 mentary education is provided by the State; intermediate edu- 
 cation is met by the old foundations in their reformed character, 
 and by the new high schools ; what is called the higher education 
 will be one of the principal functions of the university colleges 
 which are springing up in the great towns. No one proposes that 
 co-operators should venture to grapple with the seven times heated 
 problem of religious education: that task must be abandoned to 
 the Churches ; but the fact that it is impossible for co-operators to 
 adopt a distinct religious creed is again a point of difference 
 between them and the mediaeval guilds which is oi deep signifi- 
 cance. As regards technical education, it at first sight might seem 
 admirably fitted for co-operators to undertake, but I believe it will 
 be found that technical schools established by employers or by 
 Government for each particular trade will do the work far better 
 than could societies whose members are drawn from every trade. . 
 
 What part of education then is left for co-operators to appro- 
 
 p 
 
2 26 The Education of Co-operators. 
 
 priate ? The answer I would give is, the education of the citizen. 
 By this I mean the education of each member of the community, 
 as regards the relation in which he stands to other individual 
 citizens, and to the community as a whole. But why should co- 
 operators, more than any one else, take up this part of education? 
 Because co-operators, if they would carry out their avowed aims, 
 are more absolutely in need of such an education than any other 
 persons, and because if we look at the origin of the co-operative 
 movement we shall see that this is the work in education most 
 thoroughly in harmony with its ideal purpose. 
 
 We all know what the circumstances were under which co- 
 operation arose, and a hurried glance at the main features of the 
 great industrial revolution of a hundred years ago will be sufScient 
 to remind us of the nature of the problem with which Eobert Owen 
 had to grapple. The slowly dissolving framework of mediaeval 
 industrial life was suddenly broken in pieces by the mighty 
 blows of the steam-engine and the power-loom. With it disap- 
 peared, like a dream, those ancient habits of social union and 
 personal affection which had lingered on in the quiet homesteads 
 where master and apprentice worked side by side at the loom and 
 in the forge. Industry was dragged from cottages into factories 
 and cities ; the operative who laboured in the mUl was parted from 
 the capitalist who owned it ; and the struggle for the wealth which 
 machinery promised withered the old bonds of mutual trust, and 
 made competition seem a new and terrible force. Of the innumer- 
 able evils which prevailed in this age of confusion, Owen fixed his 
 eyes on two — isolation and competition : and to restore the ideas 
 of brotherhood and citizenship, which had been trampled under 
 foot, he proposed the formation of self-complete communities, with 
 property in common, and based upon the principle of equal associa- 
 tion and the pursuit of a moral life. The societies actually formed 
 were not successful, but the aim of their founder is still the aim of 
 the co-operative societies of the present day. Their task, however, 
 is a more difficult one than Owen's, for whilst he bade men retire 
 from the world and regain the idea of brotherhood in the life of 
 small independent communities, co-operators are content that men 
 should remain in the world, and seek to make them good citizens 
 of the great community of the English people. Owen, in fact, 
 would have replaced the isolation of individuals by the isolation 
 
The Education of Co-operators. 227 
 
 of groups, ■which was to go back instead of to advance. The com- 
 pact, close-knit life of the towns and guilds of the middle ages had 
 to be broken up in order that the inhabitants of this island might 
 , become one nation. A great writer who brooded over the same 
 problem that filled the mind of Eobert Owen has cast a glance of 
 regret upon the life of which the mediaeval castle was the centre ; 
 but the isolation typified by the mediaeval castle was infinitely 
 greater than that suggested by the long rows of artisans' dwellings 
 upon which its ruins look down, for it was the isolation of men 
 united in close bonds by the spirit of aggression and the fear of 
 violence ; and it is the disappearance of the evils that produced 
 •union in the past which makes possible the seeming estrangement 
 in which men now live. That estrangement is the price we have 
 paid for national life and for individual independence ; the problem 
 for us is not to re-create union at the cost of national life, but to 
 reconcile the union of individuals with national life ; not to pro- 
 duce union at the cost of independence, but to reconcile union with 
 independence. 
 
 Further, the workman is now not only independent, he shares 
 likewise in the government of the State ; yet at the very time that 
 this responsibility is laid upon him he has entered upon conditions 
 of industrial life which seem to exhaust his energies and dull his 
 intelligence. A law of political development has slowly raised 
 him from the position of a serf to that of a citizen ; a law of 
 industrial development has degraded him, by division of labour, 
 from a man into a machine. These are the difficulties we have to 
 face: the complicated character of modern citizenship and the 
 deadening effect of minute subdivision of labour ; and these it is 
 which make the education of which I speak, the education of the 
 citizen in his duties as a citizen, indispensable. 
 
 I shall draw, only in outline, a scheme for such citizen-educa- 
 tion, it being my desire to prove to co-operators that they should 
 undertake this work, rather than to discuss in detail what such 
 education should be. The following is a sketch of the principal 
 subjects which ought to be dealt with : — 
 
 I. Political Education. — 1. A description of existing political 
 institutions in England, loca,l and central. 2. The history of these 
 political institutions in England. 3. The history of political ideas, 
 as found in -the great writers, such as Burke or De Tocqueville. 
 
2 28 The Education of Co-operators. 
 
 4. The political relations of England to other countries and to her 
 colonies. 
 
 II. Industrial Education. — 1. A description of the present in- 
 dustrial system in England, and the main causes of the production 
 and distribution of wealth. 2. A history of industrial institutions, 
 e.g. the mediaeval guilds, the Poor-Law, and Trades-Unions. 3. A 
 history of the material condition of the working classes. 4. The 
 history of social ideas, and of schemes of social reform. 
 
 III. Sanitary Education. — The duties of citizens in relation to 
 the prevention of the spread of disease. 
 
 You wiU observe that the whole scheme is framed, not with 
 reference to the education of the individual man, but of the citizen, 
 with a view of showing what are his duties to his fellow-men, and 
 in what way union with them is possible. The mere vague impulse 
 in a man to do his duty is barren without the knowledge which 
 enables him to perceive what his duties are, and how to perform 
 them ; and it seems to me that only through associations like yours 
 can an efi&cient citizen-education be given to the great masses of 
 the working people. Men who still dream of the reconstruction of 
 industrial life by the union of capital and labour will recognise at 
 once that this education is the necessary preliminary to any such 
 attempt. 
 
 Several objections to the proposal will, however, occur to every 
 one. Is there not a danger of political science being made a vehicle 
 of partisan virulence ? Is there not a danger that the attempt to 
 deal with the perilous passing questions of the hour may sow divi- 
 sion amongst co-operators? I answer that it is no doubt difficult to 
 handle the sensitive living interests of human beings in the same 
 neutral and disinterested spirit in which it is so easy to approach 
 the facts of physical science. But just because" the matter requires 
 a larger spirit than that of men swayed by the ordinary petty con- 
 siderations of a party or a class, is it one which co-operators, who 
 seek to win such a spirit, should be eager to undertake. It is for 
 them, above all others, to prove that men's deepest interests are 
 not the peculiar possession of factions and parties, but the rightful 
 inheritance of every citizen. 
 
 But again, it may be objected, that even if co-operators were 
 willing to adopt such subjects as part of their education, there are 
 few teachers with the requisite impartiality of mind and width of 
 
The Education of Co-operators. 229 
 
 knowledge. I do not think this objection a weighty one. In the 
 ranks of co-operators themselves, and in the Universities, there are, 
 I am convinced, persons who have studied political and social 
 questions with all the keenness of partisans, but without their 
 prejudice. The fact that these men will often, of course, have 
 reached definite practical conclusions will not destroy their influence 
 as scientific teachers. Another objection is that the expense of 
 providing lecturers of this stamp would be greater than co-operators 
 would be willing to incur. I do not deny that the cost might be 
 considerable, but I think that if you adopt the suggestion thrown 
 out by Professor Stuart, in his address at Gloucester (p. 23), that 
 a Central Board should appoint lecturers to certain districts within 
 which they should move from town to town, you would reduce the 
 cost to a sum which co-operators ought not to grudge. 
 
 The greatest obstacle, in my opinion, to the success of the plan 
 would not be the difficulty of finding competent teachers nor the 
 greatness of the expense, but the apathy of co-operators themselves 
 in the acquisition of knowledge. The difficulty of persuading 
 workmen to listen to anything which does not concern pleasure or 
 profit has long been acknowledged, and is, I think, even stronger 
 than it used to be. Let me give you an example from the writings 
 of one who was himself a workman, and spent the best years of his 
 life in ardent and daring advocacy of the workman's cause. 
 Speaking of the eager groups of artisans who could be seen 
 discussing political questions forty years ago, Thomas Cooper 
 remarks, with bitterness, in his autobiography : " Now you will see 
 no such groups in Lancashire. But you will hear well-dressed 
 working men talking, as they walk with their hands in their 
 pockets, of 'co-ops.,' and their shares in them, or in building 
 societies. And you will see others, like idiots, leading small 
 greyhound dogs, covered with cloth, in a string ! They are about 
 to race, and they are betting money as they go ! And yonder 
 comes another clamorous dozen of men, cursing and swearing, and 
 betting upon a few pigeons they are about to let fly ! As for their 
 betting on horses — like their masters ! — it is perfect madness. . . . 
 Working men had ceased to think, and wanted to hear no 
 thoughtful talk; at least, it was so with the greater number of 
 them." We may, perhaps, allow something for the disposition of 
 an old man to praise the generation to which he belonged but I 
 
230 The Education of Co-operators. 
 
 am sure that there are many workmen who could give similar 
 evidence. Of course one explanation is, that workmen are less 
 eager now about political and social questions, because they are 
 more prosperous, and this is the danger co-operators have to meet 
 — the danger that material comfort may diminish spiritual energy. 
 We ought, moreover, in fairness, to recognise that it is not 
 unnatural for men wearied by long hours of monotonous toil to 
 indulge in sports and coarse amusements ; that for them to devote 
 their scanty leisure to intellectual exertion requires extraordinary 
 efforts. But if political progress is not to end in political 
 degradation, the efforts must be made. Languor can only be 
 conquered by enthusiasm, and enthusiasm can only be kindled by 
 two things : an ideal which takes the imagination by storm, and a 
 definite intelligible plan for carrying out that ideal into practice. 
 The plan I have ventured to hint at in this paper ; the ideal is 
 yours by inheritance — it is nothing less than that of brotherhood 
 and a perfect citizenship. We have abandoned, and rightly 
 abandoned, the attempt to realise citizenship by separating 
 ourselves from society ; we will never abandon the belief that it 
 is yet to be won amid the press and confusion of the ordinary 
 world in which we move. If, however, this great task is to be 
 accomplished, if co-operators are to arrive at a correct solution of 
 the social problems which are every day becoming more grave, if 
 workmen are to rightly exercise the unparalleled political power of 
 which they have become possessed, then they must receive a social 
 and political education such as no other institutions have offered, 
 and which I believe co-operative societies, by their origin and 
 their aims, are bound to provide. 
 
THE IDEAL EELATION OF CHUECH AND STATE. ^ 
 
 . The State and Freedom. — Plato's Eepublic is the ideal of a 
 Greek state. In this ideal Plato does not introduce the distinction 
 of Church and State ; for to him Church and State are one. Let 
 us try and see, in the modern world, what the State is, what the 
 Church is, and what are their relations. 
 
 Man has two wants — freedom and religion. What is freedom ? 
 The power to do what I like. How do mankind obtain freedom ? 
 By the State, the organised power of the people. The visible 
 embodiment of the State are judges, magistrates, courts of law, 
 officers of justice, armed men. The primary function of the State 
 is to secure freedom by compulsion. 
 
 If we think for a moment of a great nation we shall under- 
 stand this. What is the picture which rises in the mind? A 
 picture of myriads of separate living beings spread over the face 
 of the land — thronging the streets of cities, tending sheep on 
 lonely hills, going down to the sea in ships, hewing coal in mines, 
 pondering in inner chambers, praying in churches — crossing eaqh 
 other's paths iq ceaseless motion — a picture of millions of men, each 
 doing what is right in his own eyes — thinking, preaching, sowing, 
 reaping, weaving. What makes this possible? The State. To 
 the eye of the senses these countless human beings move without 
 restraint : to the eye of the mind they move within a network of 
 compulsion. A web is cast around them within which they move, 
 without which they could not move. Break that web and the 
 picture vanishes; tumult unspeakable and bewilderment appear. 
 The order of motion ceases, the plough is left untouched in the 
 furrow, the sheep untended on the hills, the student closes his- 
 books, factories are ruined, arts and learning lost. That wonderful 
 
 ' Notes of an Address delivered at a private meeting in Balliol College in 
 the spring of 1879. 
 
232 The Ideal Relation 
 
 web of restraint is woven by the State ; within its meshes man 
 is safe, on breaking it he loses all. The primary function of the 
 State now is to secure freedom by compulsion. To Plato the 
 primary function of the State was io pu,t every man into his place; 
 to us it is freedom — to enable every man to find his place. There 
 is no mention of freedom in Plato's ideal State ; but the whole 
 history of Western Europe is the history of the effort to obtain it. 
 Freedom — the power to do what we like — a little thing it seems, 
 but it has been bought with a great price. Only to-day has free- 
 dom ceased to be the gospel of English life ; slowly has it been 
 realised. For long the State, instead of the guardian, was the 
 oppressor of freedom ; only to-day do we see a just and transfigured 
 State securing freedom for all. 
 
 II. 
 
 Religion. — But this moving life-pageant that we behold, what 
 does it mean ? "What is the end of this freedom] slowly won 
 with tears? Eeligion alone gives the answer — religion the end 
 and bond of life. Man loved freedom that he might love God ; the 
 right use of freedom is religion. But what, cries man, is religion? 
 "What is the right use of freedom ? The ancient answer was — to 
 love God. But to love God, I must have faith in God — how shall 
 I have faith in God ? The beginning of religion is the cry of man 
 for a law of life to restrain his freedom. The consciousness of an 
 ideal self which includes the good of all, the consciousness of this 
 ideal enshrined within the temple of the mind gives the answer to 
 that cry. "When a man is aware of the presence of this ideal, the 
 first stage of faifh has come. The consciousness of an ideal is the 
 first stage, the recognition of this ideal as the shadow of God, the 
 beginning and end of all things, the eternal spirit of the universe, 
 is the second stage. Faith is complete when a man beholds this 
 ideal as the reflection of God within and without him, as God in 
 the unexplored depths of his own soul, as God in the unrevealed 
 secrets of the physical universe. 
 
 After faith comes knowledge — how shall we know God ? How 
 detain this ideal that hovers like winged light within the mind ? 
 To know God man must seek to become God — life is the ceaseless 
 endeavour to become like God ; to enact God in our own souls and 
 
of Church and State. 233 
 
 in the world ; and though men must needs fail, failure here is the 
 only success. 
 
 Thus by growth towards God within himself a man knows God; 
 and he knows Him in yet a second way. He scans the human 
 world, he learns how the civilisation he lives in was built up by 
 the blind working of human instincts ascending out of the wild 
 disorder of the primeval conflict ; how institutions, laws, and 
 knowledge, slowly formed in the lapse of ages, make possible his 
 love of God. He wanders through the physical world, searches 
 for the laws of wind and rain, and for the forces that move the 
 heavens and make the corn to grow ; and gathering up his 
 knowledge, adapts to it his life, and learns how to transform 
 the world. And though the procession of natural events treads 
 man down, though he cannot transform the physical world as he 
 transforms the human by faith and love and knowledge, yet both 
 the physical world and the human are to him the awful veil of a 
 personal God who inhabits eternity. God is a person — how else 
 could man love and worship God ? What personality is we only 
 faintly ' apprehend — who has withdrawn the impenetrable veil 
 which hides our own personality from us ? God is a father — ^but 
 who has explained a father's love ? 
 
 There is limitation to man's knowledge, and he is disposed to 
 cry out. Why this impassable barrier ? He knows he is limited, 
 why he is limited he knows not. Only by some image does he 
 strive to approach the mystery. The sea, he may say, had no 
 voice until it ceased to be supreme on the globe ; there, where its 
 dominion ended and its limits began, on the edge of the land, it 
 broke silence. Man would have had no toiigue had he been merely 
 infinite ; where he feels his limits, where the infinite spirit within 
 him touches the shore of his finite life, there he too breaks silence. 
 After faith and knowledge come prayer and worship. The actual 
 communion with the image of God within our own souls is prayer ; 
 worship is the adoration of God without us, thanksgiving for the 
 human pity that seeks out suffering, for the labour of our fellow- 
 men, for the ripened corn. Action is the realisation of our ideal, 
 the love not of ourselves but of our fellow-men, the removal of 
 sin and pain, the increase of knowledge and beauty, the binding 
 together of the whole world in the bond of peace. 
 
234 The Ideal Relation 
 
 III. 
 
 The Church. — How does man maintain this religion which I 
 have tried to define ? By the Church — the organised expression 
 of the Spirit of God working through the whole people. As we 
 call the people and the organised power of the people together 
 the State, so we call the people and their religious organisation 
 the Church. The visible embodiments of the Church are sacred 
 buildings, sacred books, and ministers; the primary function of 
 the Church is to secure the right use of freedom by persuasion. 
 It is an organisation to keep alive in the hearts of men faith in 
 God. Its ministers seek to cleanse the spiritual vision of men, to 
 exalt men to the highest deeds they are capable of, by pubhc 
 worship, by public prayer, by exhortation. If we looked now once 
 more at that picture of the human world, we should behold no 
 longer myriads of isolated beings pursuing their own way, we 
 should see the freedom which seems to sever men binding them 
 together ; we should see a vision of all men drawn together by the 
 silken cords of persuasion, living no longer as divided beings but 
 in the unity of the Spirit. Men separate in order to re-unite ; sin 
 is separation, faith is union. 
 
 Eeligion, the desire to do what is right ! A great thing this ! 
 The whole of Plato's Republic is the attempt to draw men to do 
 what is right. If it has taken man centuries to win liberty, how 
 many more centuries must pass away before he learns the right use 
 of liberty ! E"ay, what has not come down to us in the name of-^ 
 religion itself? — division, bigotry, persecution. If the State has 
 oppressed and stamped out freedom, the Church has misguided men 
 and stamped out religion. Picture the Founder of our religion sit- 
 ting on that mountain on which the ancient prophet bowed his head 
 in expectation of the rain-cloud, sitting vsith His face towards the 
 western sea, what a world of spiritual ruin and calamity would He 
 behold ! If men were slow in buUding up a power to enable them 
 to do what they Uke, how much slower in building up a power to 
 enable them to do what is right ! We are disposed to say the true 
 Church is not yet come. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Edation of Church and State. — The State secures freedom by 
 compulsion ; the Church teaches the right use of freedom by per- 
 
of Church and State. 235 
 
 suasion. Our next question is, What is the relation between 
 X Church and State ? We have seen that an ideal end is proposed 
 for man's life, which we may shortly define as inward and outward 
 purity, and religion organised in the Church seeks to attain it ; but 
 what has the State to do with this ideal end ? Now religion 
 organised in the Church has in times past pursued two lines of 
 action — First, it has secluded itself from the world, gone out of the 
 world, that is, of the State ; and, secondly, it has striven to re- 
 enter the world as a conqueror, to dominate the world, and thus to 
 spiritualise the world through the organ of the world, the State. 
 Framing a certain definite conception of the nature of man's 
 destiny and of his relation to God, it has sought to impose this 
 conception on the world through the State, to mould the whole 
 world after its own ideal. The Church is an organisation which 
 has sought to mould the world on an ideal, as Plato sought to 
 mould it in the construction of his model State. In his State the 
 whole power of the community is used to fashion life in the" light 
 of the conceptions discovered by philosophy. We need not pause 
 over this attempt ; but the history of the Christian Church is the 
 history of an actual attempt to accomplish the same end that Plato 
 only dreamed of. Here, then, we have the recognition of an ideal 
 end and an organisation devoted to the accomplishment of this 
 end ; but we have by its side other organisations, and above 'all, 
 the State. To find out what is the relation of the State to this 
 ideal end, we must ask the question. What is the end of the 
 State ? And here two conceptions meet us which are funda- 
 mentally opposed. First, that the State is the organised power 
 of the community to promote the material ends of life ; as such 
 it is subordinate to the Church, which seeks to promote the 
 spiritual ends of Hfe. Second, that the State has the same end 
 as the Church, the promotion of the highest form of life In 
 this case the Church is nothing more than the State in its spiritual 
 aspect, instead of, say, its industrial or its intellectual aspect. 
 According to this view, the State provides a spiritual organisation 
 as it provides an industrial organisation for the people, and this 
 spiritual organisation is the Church. 
 
 Here are two root ideas opposed to each other at every point. 
 These two will struggle for mastery in the future. The conflict is 
 between those who maintain the secular character of the State and 
 
236 The Ideal Relation 
 
 those who maintain the spiritual character of the State. The first 
 look on the Church as a light shining in darkness, as an institu- 
 tion separate from aU other institutions in character and aim, an 
 institution which, standing outside the world, seeks to re-enter it 
 and spiritualise it. In this view, having been forced to abandon 
 its claim to supremacy, the Church now seeks to establish its 
 claim to independence. The attempt of the State to impose a 
 creed or an organisation on it wiU be resisted to the death; a 
 drunkard might as well administer the Sacraments. It is an 
 institution not created by the world, but one which entered the 
 world, and is at war with it to the end of time. The second con- 
 ception, on the other hand, makes no sharp separation between 
 the Church and the State ; it asserts that the aims of both are 
 the same, but it recognises that a special organisation is necessary 
 to the right fulfilment of the spiritual objects of life. It points 
 out that from the beginning of civilisation the two organisations 
 have been bound up together. It admits that a war between light 
 and darkness is going on in the world, but it declares that light is 
 found in the world as well as in the Church. It asserts that the 
 State is competent to impose certain restrictions on, and to exer- 
 cise control over the Church, because their aims are the same. 
 We must choose between the two conceptions, and we choose the 
 second. 
 
 But the problem may be approached in another way. Which 
 will provide the more efficient organisation for the spiritualisation 
 of life : freedom, or the State ? Should freedom not only clothe 
 and feed men, but also teach them how to live ? The passionate 
 discussion of to-day is, whether freedom ought to satisfy the 
 spiritual wants, as it satisfies the physical wants of the people ? 
 My answer is, Freedom should provide for the physical wants of 
 men, because by freedom every man is clothed and fed in the best 
 way with the least effort. Men's physical wants are satisfied in 
 the best way by the outward pressure of competition ; but men's 
 spiritual wants are satisfied in the best way only by the inward 
 pressure of the love of God. To satisfy men's physical wants you 
 must be dependent, to satisfy men's spiritual wants you must be 
 independent. The grower of corn and the weaver of wool satisfies 
 men's wants as he finds them ; the spiritual teacher does not seek 
 to satisfy men's wants as he finds them, he seeks to give men 
 
of Church and State. 237 
 
 higher wants. How can he whose mission it is to cleanse men's 
 spiritual vision be supported by those who are convinced that 
 their vision is perfect — how can he whose mission it is " to raise 
 men to the highest deeds they are capable of" be maintained by 
 those who are convinced that their morality is perfect 1 Where 
 the want is greatest it is the least felt. To teach the people the 
 ministers of religion must be independent of the people, to lead 
 the people they must be in advance of the people. Individual 
 interests are not always public interests. It is the public interest 
 that a country should be taught a pure and spiritual religion, it 
 is the interest of religions teachers to teach that which will be 
 acceptable at the moment. It is for the public interest that 
 reHgion should be universal, that it should be a bond of union, 
 that it should be progressive. The State, and not the individual, 
 is best calculated to provide such a religion. We saw before that 
 freedom being obtained, it was religion that was to weld free but 
 isolated beings into a loving interdependent whole. Which is the 
 more likely to do this : a religion wise and rational, comprehen- 
 sive and universal, recognising a progressive revelation of God, 
 such as the State may provide, or a religion provided by indi- 
 vidual interests which is liable to become what is popular at the 
 moment, which accentuates and multiplies divisions, which per- 
 petuates obsolete forms, and has no assurance of universality of 
 teaching ? . It is scarcely too much to say that as an independent 
 producer can only live by satisfying physical wants in the best 
 way, the independent sect or independent minister can only live 
 by satisfying spiritual wants in the worst way. If I thought that 
 Disestablishment were best for the spiritual interests of the people 
 I would advocate it, but only on such a principle can it be 
 justified, and my argument is that spiritual evil, not good, would 
 attend it. 
 
 What is really required is a body of independent ministers in 
 contact at once with the continuous revelation of God in man and 
 in natiu-e, and with the religious life of the people. The State 
 alone can establish such a Church organisation as shall insure the 
 independence of the minister, by securing him his livelihood and 
 protecting him from the spiritual despotism of the people. I 
 believe the argument holds good for religion as for education, that 
 it is of such importance to the State itself, to the whole com- 
 
238 The Ideal Relation 
 
 munity collectively, that it behoves the State not to leave it to 
 individual effort, which, as in the case of education, either does not 
 satisfy spiritual wants at all, or does not satisfy them in the best 
 way. If I chose to particularise, I might here add that the con- 
 nection of religion with the State is the most effective cheek to 
 sacerdotalism in all its different forms, and sacerdotalism is the 
 form of religion which can become fundamentally dangerous to the 
 State. It injures the State spiritually by alienating the greatest 
 number and the most intellectual of the members of the State 
 from religion altogether, it injures the State temporally by creating 
 an antagonism between Church and State — a great national 
 calamity from which we are now entirely free. 
 
 But what religion is the State to accept ? It must accept the 
 historical religion of the people, and impose certain conditions such 
 as shall prevent a development inconsistent with its own existence, 
 which shall secure a religion universal, progressive with the 
 people's life and thought, and such as shall be a bond of union 
 thrown around them. The ideal Church is the State. As the 
 nation is a spiritual and secular community, so is the State a 
 spiritual and secular power. In the pathetic words of Cardinal 
 Newman, Christianity is no longer the law of the land; but I 
 answer, True, yet by the very removal in such a church as I 
 contemplate of those restrictions, which seemed to create an arti- 
 ficial identity between the Church and the nation, you have 
 created a new and living unity through which the spirit of Christ 
 breathes as it never breathed before. The outward and compulsory 
 bonds of the older union are fast disappearing in modern society ; 
 they are to be replaced by better and stronger bonds, namely, 
 spiritual ones. But as the State of old recognised and enforced 
 those past artificial and temporary bonds, so should it recognise 
 and identify itself with the new spiritual and eternal bond. 
 Christianity as a theological system may cease to be the law of 
 the land, but Christianity as a disposition of the mind lives in the 
 hearts of the people. We recognise now that divine truth is not 
 the jealously guarded treasure of a sect, but the common heritage 
 of mankind, not a light held up by priests before a forsaken 
 multitude, but that inner light which illumines the face of the 
 whole people. The State alone, we believe, can secure this purer 
 religion whose bond shall be, not rigid dogmas, but worship and 
 
of Church and State. 239 
 
 prayer, union in liturgy not in articles, whose sole object shall be 
 the spiritualisation of life. To all free organisations of religion it 
 will grant protection, while it seeks slowly to remove by per- 
 suasion what it will not sweep away by force. 
 
 For the spirit of God dwells not here and not there, not in this 
 sect or that, but in the whole people. When we behold the 
 desolation, the sin, the deformity of the world, how can we believe 
 it ? Nevertheless, God is there. An ancient Italian city is built 
 upon a mountain torrent, and those who ascend the encircling hills 
 hear the voice of the torrent above the hum and traffic of the streets. 
 So it is with those who pause a moment to listen in the midst of the 
 world — they hear, above the din and uproar of human life, the voice 
 of the stream of God flowing from beneath the eternal throne. 
 
 Conclusion. — I have considered some ideal relations of the 
 modern State as Plato considered the ideal relations of the 
 ancient State. The actual relations of religion and the State, so 
 difficult, so perplexed by a long history and by party politics, I 
 have left urrtouched. But the ideal I have hinted at has a 
 bearing on the solution of the problem of our time. The discus- 
 sion of that problem awaits us in the immediate future. By the 
 discussion of principles we get the most effective education for 
 practice. I would further insist especially on the present import- 
 ance of principles, because this is an age of transition. The con- 
 structive positive stage which is to follow it will lay tasks upon us 
 splendid though difficult. While the struggle for a free State lies 
 behind us in the past, the struggle for a pure Church lies before us 
 in the future. A pure Church, so far from being won, dwells as 
 yet only in the imaginations of men. Enough for us to-night to 
 remember that the spring of all civilisation is the yearning for a 
 deeper, wider personal life ; that freedom and religion, both not one 
 alone, .are the conditions of that yearning. Before another genera- 
 tion is in the grave politics as a struggle for liberty will have 
 faded away ; but religion and a pure Church are not only not yet 
 won for us, they are threatened as they never were before by 
 intolerance and indifference. The struggle for religion will be a 
 struggle beside which the struggle for freedom wiU seem a little 
 thing, and upon us, who recognise every man as a priest of the 
 Most High God, lies the burden of pressing forward to secure to 
 the nation the religion by which it may live. 
 
NOTES AND JOTTINGS. 
 
NOTES AND JOTTINGS. 
 
 Religion. 
 
 The basis of religion is independent of science. Theology, not 
 religion, is the antithesis to science. 
 
 It is vain to chafe at mystery — it is as appropriate to conscious- 
 ness as clearness to the intellect. We are very near the fount of 
 all things when we feel that there is mystery. Often standing by 
 the sea lulled by the monotonous roar of waves have we thrilled 
 with the sudden sense of revelation in mystery ; or moving swiftly 
 through crowded streets, startled, awe-stricken, and henceforth 
 lived for ever conscious of the mystery in human faces. So in the 
 old days that were before us, ofttimes has the secret of things been 
 unveiled to poets or prophets in a flash of consciousness that might 
 not be translated into thoughts. But whence flashed the revelation ? 
 Immemorially has there been linked with the consciousness of 
 the " not ourselves " the sense of right and wrong. If we abstract 
 the two things and keep them apart, we ask in wonder what can 
 be the connection between the sense of right and wrong, and the 
 perception of wind and cloud, mountain, river, and sunshine ? 
 And yet in all ages they have been bound together in religion, 
 whispering the spiritual communion of all things ; a communion, 
 says Bacon, that links the smile upon the human face with the 
 rippling of waters ; which we feel in outer things, in the sweet 
 identifying of the wind-ranged clouds of heaven, and the wave- 
 worn wrinkles on the sand, the moving of the breeze among the 
 pines, and the falling of breakers upon the beach. Are there not 
 moments when we stand before what lies without us, as on rising 
 ground, the eye dilated, arm outstretched, our ears tingling with 
 expectancy of coming sound, as of the heart of the wide world 
 heating like our own ? In those seconds we seem one with the "not 
 ourselves ; " we live, and it too lives within us ; and only in hail- 
 
244 Notes and Jottings. 
 
 ing it as a being like ourselves can we chant our oneness with it.. 
 It is a form of speech, but it is the speech within us which has 
 communion with the universe. 
 
 Many are the forms in which man has sought revelation of the 
 great fact without him; for he could grasp it only as expressed, 
 revealed. Under the dome of St. Paul's, we are awed by the feeling 
 of vastness, of space — it is the infinite made finite ; under the 
 canopy of heaven the sense is lost in infinitude. And temporary, 
 fading and passing as are the myriad expressions that have been, 
 there is one form of immemorial age, the truest of all — the per- 
 sonal. For seeking sympathy of the universe face to face, has not 
 man bitterly upbraided the changeless stars for shining coldly 
 down upon his tragedies of passion ? What language, in moments 
 of unsearchable agony, can he grasp but the human, the personal ? 
 How can creation thriU him with sympathy and inspire him with 
 strength, but as a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief? 
 For most of us Christ is the expression of God, i.e. the eternal 
 fact within and without us : In time of peril, of failing, and of 
 falsehood the one power that enables us to transcend weakness is 
 the feeling of the communion of the two eternal facts through 
 Christ.! 
 
 Any attempt to preach a purer religion must go along with 
 attempts at social reform. 
 
 It is a good thing that our religion is not bound up with all 
 our creeds and institutions — progress would be impossible. But 
 progress wiU never be organic until the religious spirit breathes 
 through every act and institution. 
 
 Evidently the starting-point of religion and philosophy is the 
 same. It is the faith that the end of life is righteousness, and that 
 the world is so ordered that righteousness is possible through 
 human will ; that the end for which the universe came into exist- 
 ence is also its cause ; that the idea of good is God, the Creator of 
 the universe. Philosophy tries to show how this idea made the 
 
 1 The above passages are from an essay on " The Objective Basis of Religion," 
 dated February 5th, 1874; those which follow are from note-books, and of 
 various dates. 
 
Religion. 245 
 
 world ; religion believes it simply, and asks no more. Philosophy ■. 
 is the proof of the end, religion is the assertion of the end. 
 
 Just as there was a stage in the history of thought, when 
 abstract terms did not exist, when men spoke of natural events 
 in terms of their own personality, so was there a time when men 
 could conceive no other way of expressing the majesty of God 
 except by miracles, by representing Him as moulding nature to 
 His will. What they cared for was not the truth oi facts, but the 
 truth of feeling and thought : miracles and mythology in their 
 beginnings were language. 
 
 The conception of a Fall is the conception of a possibility of 
 good not realised — self-conscious man recognised an ideal which 
 he had not reached, but which he felt he ought to reach, and had 
 therefore fallen from. 
 
 The assertion, " I can alter my life and break the chain of 
 habit," is an echo of the eternal act of creation. 
 
 The indestructible sense that somehow in realising our own 
 idea of perfection, we are rescuing the sad world from a misery we 
 cannot directly alleviate, is projected in the idea of the crucifixion 
 of Christ for the whole human race. 
 
 It is not when we are resisting temptation that we feel at our 
 best, but in some still moment of passionate vision or contem- 
 plation. 0ur idea of good has a full and positive meaning apart 
 from the existence of evil either as a distinct force or negation. 
 
 Observe — man is placed at the centre of the religious and moral 
 systems when he has ceased to be the centre of the physical 
 universe. 
 
 Two mighty opposites have to be reconciled, the energy of 
 spiritu9,l affirmation that breathes in the Hebrew and Christian 
 Scriptures, and the inquisitive search for truth of Greek philosophy. 
 The two spirits cannot be better contrasted than by placing side 
 by side two sentences, one from the Gospel of St. John, " I am the 
 way, the truth, and the life ; " the other from the Eepublic of Plato : 
 " Let us follow the argument whithersoever it leads us." 
 
246 Notes and Jottings. 
 
 Had liberal theologians in England combined more often with 
 their undoubted courage and warmth definite philosophic views, 
 religious liberalism would not now be condemned as offering 
 nothing more than a mere sentiment of vague benevolence. 
 Earnest and thoughtful people are willing to encounter the difB- 
 culty of mastering some unfamiliar phrases of technical language 
 when they find they are in possession of a sharply defined intel- 
 lectual position upon which their religious faith may rest. 
 
 Note how English communistic ideas come from the New 
 Testament ; French from the Eoman " law natural " extended to 
 a "state of nature." Note also the enormous gulf between the 
 abstract intellectual conceptions of the French, and their practical 
 life before the Eevolution — an intellectual idea thoroughly realised 
 by all in abstract, continually denied and ignored in practice. 
 Compare the intellectual acknowledgment of Christian morality 
 elsewhere and its denial in practice. 
 
 Immortality and the Und of Idfe. 
 
 A moral consciousness implies two things — ^God and immor- 
 tality. I mean that God and immortality are the logical conditions 
 of it. Tentatively one may say, (1.) All moral action implies an 
 ideal and actual order and end=God. (2.) All moral action 
 im'plies permanence of relations = Immortality. 
 
 We do believe it would be irrational to try to be good if the 
 course of the world were not ordered for holiness and justice. 
 
 If an astronomer show that the earth within a limited time 
 must be destroyed, and the race with it, where is our hope of the 
 happiness and perfectibility of the race? "We want an eternal end; 
 and this cannot be found in the good of the human race. 
 
 The horror of thinking an impure thought is quite out of propor- 
 tion to its possible effect upon the character, and therefore upon the 
 
Immortality and the End of Life. 247 
 
 race ; the horror at the wrong done in the face of a divine self 
 transcending the limits of our personality, the feeling that it is 
 wrong in the sight of a pure God, is to many the secret of God's 
 existence, and the secret, that the end of life is to live to God. 
 
 Humanity is an abstraction manufactured by the intellect, and 
 can never be the object of religion; for religion in every form 
 demands something that lives and is not made. It is the vision 
 of a living Being that makes the Psalmist cry, "As the hart 
 panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, 
 God." 
 
 Is there a difference in seeking happiness for self and seek- 
 ing it for the race ? Yes, undoubtedly. The latter involves the 
 fundamental conception of living for an end other than self. The 
 error consists in aiming at a lower good for the race than for the 
 individual. What end, then, should the individual seek ? Should 
 he seek the righteousness of the race 1 Yes and no. Yes> for the 
 end of life is righteousness ; yet not a righteousness dependent on 
 the existence of the human race, but eternal. The human race 
 may pass away as the individual passes away, but righteousness 
 shall not cease. Action and life demand an eternal end to rest in ; 
 happiness which each individual iinds Unreal, the human race, an 
 aggregate of individuals, must find unreal ; it cannot be the eternal, 
 unchangeable end either for the individual or the race. The race 
 may, nay, will vanish ; what a pitiful end then must the happiness 
 of it be — ^the unreal existence of a transient shadow! And if 
 righteousness were inseparably bound up with the existence of the 
 race, it, too, would be but an unreal, unsubstantial end. But the 
 righteousness which the individual seeks, and which results in the 
 happiness of the race, as the condition of the search after righteous- 
 ness in this world, is eternal and unchangeable; the end and 
 maker of all things, the rest the soul ever seeks, the divine peace. 
 
 There is, first, the selfishness of each man for himself; and, 
 second, of all men for aU men and each other. The true glory of 
 life is the devotion of all men to an eternal principle. 
 
 What is immortality ? Is the self-conscious self immortal ? 
 
248 Notes and Jottings. 
 
 Is the desire of immortality a mere shrinking from death ? or a 
 vain conceit of the dignity of human existence ? What is the funda- 
 mental idea involved in the beliefs about immortality ? This — 
 that duty, passion, and pain have no meaning except in relation 
 to an eternal something. All life is a search for the real : man 
 seeks reality from the moment he feels and thinks upon his 
 feelings ; he rests not till he unveils the secret of existence. 
 
 The belief in immortality is the expression of the gradual con- 
 sciousness of man of the order implicit in his history. 
 
 Most terrible is the effect of the Eeign of Law on the belief 
 in immortality. Fever and despair come upon action, and the 
 assertion that this world is all in all, narrows and perverts the 
 world of ethical science. And indeed it is very awful, that great 
 contrast of the Divine Fate of the world pacing on resistless and 
 merciless, and our passionate individuality with its hopes, and 
 loves, and fears ; that vision of our warm, throbbing personal life 
 quenched for ever in the stern sweep of Time. But it is but a 
 passing picture of the mind ; soon the great thought dawns upon the 
 soul : " It is I, this living, feeling man, that thinks of fate and 
 oblivion ; I cannot reach the stars with my hands, but I pierce 
 . beyond them with my thoughts, and if things go on in the illimit- 
 able depth of the skies which would shrivel up the imagination 
 like a dead leaf, I am greater than they, for I ask ' why,' and look 
 before and after, and draw all things into the tumult of my personal 
 life — the stars in their courses, and the whole past and future of 
 the universe, all things as they move in their eternal paths, even 
 as the tiniest pool reflects the sun and the everlasting lulls." 
 
 Like all great intellectual revolutions, the effect of the Eeign of 
 Law upon ethical temper has been harassing and disturbing ; but 
 as every great intellectual movement has in the end raised and 
 ennobled the moral character of man through the purification of 
 his beliefs, so will this great conception leave us the belief in God 
 and the belief in immortality purified and elevated, strengthening 
 through them the spirit of unselfishness which it is already 
 beginning to intensify and which makes us turn our faces to the 
 future with an ever-growing hope. 
 
 It is a little strange that the belief in universal order should 
 
Church and State. 249 
 
 have resulted in a conviction that there is no absolute end, that the 
 fact of things must for ever remain unknown. The mood is due to 
 the imagination rather than to the reason ; for the conception of 
 order without an end is contradictory ; and if man is related to the 
 world through his intellect, it is rational to suppose that he is re- 
 lated to it through the highest feelings of his nature. The men of 
 science have forgotten the deep saying of him who first imagined 
 modern science, that there are some things which can only be 
 known rightly under conditions of emotion, and because they have 
 reached all the results of their knowledge by a rigid elimination of 
 emotion, they reject it as the interpreter of life and outer things, 
 no longer daring to believe in that kinship of man and nature 
 which makes the cry of a child, heard breaking the stillness of the 
 open land, seem the voice of the whole world. Such emotions will 
 some day find adequate expression in Eeason ; and man will learn 
 that the mystery of life comes from his own infinity, and not 
 .because the truth of God can never be known. 
 
 Church and State. 
 
 The State divorced from religion becomes Antichrist in reality. 
 All the most powerful emotions of society are enlisted against it. 
 
 It is said that the State ought to be secular, because history 
 proves that the connection between Church and State has debased 
 religion and injured the people. Answer: History proves that 
 State interference with industry was bad ; that is no reason for the 
 State leaving industry alone altogether. So with religion — the 
 most delicate and precious of all human interests. And a demo- 
 cratic State differs from a monarchical or aristocratic State. A 
 State cannot found or initiate religion, but it can support and 
 sustain religion. 
 
 -'&'■ 
 
 Feudalism in the Church will be destroyed by the growth of 
 democracy and the reformation of the land system. If we destroy 
 feudalism, we must take care to substitute other personal moral 
 relations between classes. Let us destroy feudalism, but let lis 
 institute a divine democracy. 
 
250 Notes and yottings. 
 
 Competition, 
 Competition, or the unimpeded pressure of individual on indi- 
 vidual, has been from the beginning a great force in societies ; but 
 of old it was hindered and controlled by custom ; in the future, 
 like the other great physical forces of society, it will be controlled 
 by morality. 
 
 Competition has brought about two great opposing opinions ; 
 one that Government should do nothing, the other that it should 
 do everything. The first arises from the contemplation of the 
 immense wealth heaped up under a system of unimpeded indi- 
 vidual auction, and of the extraordinary folly and selfishness of the 
 customs and legislation that controlled such action in the past. 
 The second arises from the sufferings which unimpeded indivi- 
 dualism has brought upon the working classes, who cry out that 
 Government is bound to protect them from misery and starvation. 
 Competition has been most successful in increasing the ef&ciency 
 of production; distribution has lost perhaps more than it has 
 gained by it. And the problem of distribution is the true problem 
 of Political Economy at the present time. 
 
 Cannot the principle of self destroy as well as found society ? 
 Yes ; -self-interest must be followed by self-sacrifice, or society will 
 dissolve. Through the principle of self-interest society comes into 
 being ; through its annihilation will it endure. 
 
 Individualism and Socialism. 
 
 There is an undoubted connection between the break-up of the 
 old system of industry, the system of small manufacturers, and the 
 growth of individualism, — a connection, that is, between the rise 
 of factories and the development of individual liberty, 
 
 The law of human movement in historical times is from natural 
 groups to individualism, and from individualism to moral groups. 
 The primitive blood associations re-appear after a stage of indi- 
 vidualism in moral guilds. "Association is the watchword of 
 the future." The problem of the genuine Socialist is to lay down 
 
Individualism and Socialism. 251 
 
 the conditions of union and its purposes. In the past, all 
 associations had their origin in unconscious physical motives ; in 
 the future, all associations will have their" origin in conscious 
 ethical motives. Here, as in many other things, the latest and 
 most perfect development of society seems to be anticipated in its 
 outward form hy the most primitive; but the inner life of th& 
 form has changed. 
 
 The differentiation of functions should promote the unity of 
 spirit. Differentiation only takes place in order that a higher 
 unity may be reached. Differentiation of functions and not 
 differentiation of spirit is what we desire. The unity of spirit 
 is the cause of the separation of functions; the separation of 
 functions has for its end the unity of the spiritual universe. 
 
 The woman is only emancipated from the man that they may 
 reunite in a higher communion of life and purpose. The workman 
 is only emancipated from the employer that they may re-unite in a 
 higher communion of life and purpose. The individual is only 
 emancipated from the control of the community that he may con- 
 sciously devote himself to more intimate union with the community. 
 
 The end and law of progress is the unity of the human spirit. 
 This can only be attained through separation of functions. In the 
 industrial world there is separation of functions — its ideal is unity 
 of iadustrial purpose. This unity can only be attained through 
 association ; but association implies a higher unity than the in- 
 dustrial one. It implies a unity of the ethical spirit. 
 
 Differentiation is wrong where it produces division of spirit ; 
 it is right where it produces unity of spirit. Art, in order to 
 progress, had to separate from religion ; but the noblest works of art 
 were created in the service of religion, the noblest buildings, the 
 noblest statues ; art, in order to be great once more, will be united, 
 not to religion, but to the religious spirit breathing through the 
 communities. 
 
 Certain Fallacies. 
 
 If justice in its beginning was the compromise between the 
 many weak against the few strong, it is inferred that this is the 
 character of justice now. This is due to want of historic sense. 
 The nature of a thing is always more than its origin tells of 
 
252 Notes and Jottings. 
 
 Take note of two supreme fallacies: (1.) The confusion of 
 definiteness with definition — because you can't define a thing, you 
 haven't a definite idea of it— e.^'. self, God, emotion. (2.) That 
 to explain a thing is to explain it away — e.g. as if a man who was 
 told that the seat of sensation is in the brain, not in the tip of the 
 finger pricked, were to believe that he did not feel pain at the end 
 of the finger. 
 
 Adam Smith generalised his laws of Political Economy from the 
 assumption that all human beings were selfish; disregarding the 
 fact of disinterestedness and the Hke, which make the science much 
 more difScult, perhaps impossible. So scientific men have made 
 their discoveries by looking upon nature as absolute and objective, 
 by eliminating man and his interpretation of it in terms of his own 
 experience. We are now in danger of forgetting the humanity of 
 nature ; we are all beginning to look upon nature as men of science 
 look at it, to laugh to scorn the old ideas of man which found him- 
 self there. 
 
 It is in the Greek world that the action of the law of symbolism 
 comes out most clearly. Under the impulse to interpret, man 
 creates a symbolism, the reflex of himself, which in after genera- 
 tions, its original meaning forgotten, grows into a distinct world, 
 veiling and transforming the real world, and seeking explanation 
 for itself. From the ages when the Greek mythology rose like a 
 bright exhalation in the morning out of the metaphors of the 
 natural world to answer the first pulsations of man's spiritual life, 
 to the later ages of modern history, the real world has remained 
 almost unknown. 
 
 The Individual. 
 
 Philosophy can explain the world if it looks upon man as 
 nothing more than a drop of acid or a bit of mineral ; but the 
 individual is the cross light which confuses the broad light of 
 explanation. 
 
 The individual in physical science is nothing ; in human science 
 everything. 
 
Expression and Sentiment. . 253 
 
 Exfnssion. 
 How strange it is to put out one's most sacred and fullest 
 feelings in carefully chosen words and set them before the world ! 
 How strange the contrast between the panic mood of utmost pain 
 in which the feeling flashed upon one as a torment, and the quiet 
 diligence with which one elaborates it in expression, thrusting it 
 from one with cool deliberation, weighing word against word, and 
 sucking in intensest pleasure out of the memory of deathly pain. 
 Is it that our own feelings are not our own, our own agony not for 
 ourselves, that God demands them for Himself, drawing from us 
 what would madden if left within us ? And yet, ah me ! how cold 
 and hard the soul seems when it dwells even on its own pain in the 
 past, how the warm flush of feeling for the sufferer dies in the 
 cunning working of the thing for God ! Who shall bridge the chasm 
 and be for ever impassioned and sincere ? 
 
 Blank verse is upheld in tragedy as in fact more nearly ap- 
 proaching the language of men deeply and passionately stirred. 
 Passion expresses itself in rhythmical language. This may be said 
 of the language of all the great sailors of Elizabeth's time, indeed 
 of all the prose writing of the time, more or less. Look at Gilbert, 
 Ealeigh, Spenser (on Ireland), Hooker, how the great passion 
 thrilling the nation makes itself felt in their noble poetical 
 language. 
 
 Sentiment. 
 The English Eebellion and the French Eevolution have often 
 been compared, but I do not know whether what seems their most 
 marked and essential difference has ever been noted. The first was 
 distinguished by an entire devotion to God and an absence of all 
 sentiment ; the second by an entire appeal to sentiment and in- 
 difference to God. 
 
 In no great religious movement has philanthropy been very 
 strong, or rather sentiment or pity — ^the consciousness of sin has 
 been too strong. 
 
 Some natures are intensely sensitive without being sympathetic. 
 In these natures feeling is sentiment; for sympathy is feeling 
 
2 54 Notes and Jottings. 
 
 related to an object, whilst sentiment is the same feeling seeking 
 itself alone. 
 
 Utilitarianism is a cause of sentiment in making the end of 
 action the happiness or pleasure of human beings ; sympathy with 
 fain alone, is sentiment. 
 
 Mere sensuous images cannot bring back love and sympathy 
 in absence ; the mighty conception of duty can. 
 
 Various Aphorisms. 
 
 The organisation of the world is not for happiness ; from this 
 fact are drawn the ordinary arguments against design; it is for 
 something else. 
 
 Man first interpreted the outer world by himself— now himself 
 by the outer world. 
 
 Man seeks pleasure and self — great unforeseen results follow : 
 man seeks God a.nd others — and there follows pleasure. 
 
 The secret of progress, the perpetual satisfying of wants 
 followed by the springing up of new wants, is the secret of indi- 
 vidual unrest and disappointment. 
 
 To the ancients the intellect was the most enduring part of 
 man — to us the emotions. 
 
 Beauty and holiness are both indefinable ; the belief in a 
 perfect holiness is like Columbus's belief in a new world — some 
 day we shall find it on the other side the ocean of existence. 
 There are things in man which the eye of the mind can never 
 see in life, as the eye of the body can never see the heart alive ; 
 life flies the surgeon's knife. 
 
 The sense of beauty is the greatest restraint upon fanaticism 
 
 The soul demands not a refuge, but a resting-place. 
 
Images. 255 
 
 Images. 
 
 A figure standing in relief against a cloudless sky-line is a 
 solemn thing ; it is man in the embrace of the infinite. 
 
 Some people's minds are like a place of public meeting — all 
 kinds of opinions appear there in turn, and leave it just as they 
 found it, empty and open to every comer. 
 
 We ascend the hill-tops of philosophy, not to gaze up at the 
 ever-visible heavens, but to embrace in one grand view the human 
 world beneath us. 
 
 It is upon the noblest natures that the greatest weight of sorrow 
 falls ; as the broad branches of the cedar are broken by the snow, 
 which falls away from other trees. 
 
 A wonderful image of life — a fierce wind blowing at evening 
 from a. cloudless sky, rocking the great firs to and fro, and roaring 
 amongst their branches, whilst upon their tall stems rests the 
 quiet light of the declining sun. 
 
 After all, a learned man is often not much better off than a 
 man who knows a great many commonplace people. 
 
 To make a politic speech is like being carried up a flight of 
 steps by the pressure of a crowd. 
 
 It is well that the beaten ways of the world get trodden into 
 mud : we are thus forced to seek new paths and pick out new lines 
 of life. 
 
 A city lying in a wave of sunshine, with its spires and domes 
 pale and unsubstantial as in a fairy's dream ; the wave flows on 
 and shadows follow, spires and domes are dark and clear, every 
 detail is seen and marked — sorrow makes life and aU things dark 
 and real ; spiritual joy makes the world a dreamland. 
 
 To sit in an old church, with the birds twittering in the eaves, 
 looking through the open door at the far-off land and winding river, 
 half curtained by the green glancing leafy boughs that overhang 
 
256 Notes and Jottings. 
 
 the porch — oh God ! how sweet an image of those still moments 
 of passion that steal like evening shadows over the fret and uproar 
 of existence ! 
 
 Those laughing bells, those melancholy sobbing bells, how like 
 our life — ^they fade and ebb, they swing in faintest waves of dying 
 sound, and then the strained ear is left forlorn — ^but the unheard 
 motion flows through the infinite for ever, and fills the heavens 
 with joy. 
 
 Our delicate, impalpable sorrows, our keen, aching, darling 
 emotions, how strange, almost unreal they seem by the side of the 
 gross mass of filthy misery that clogs the life of great cities ! 
 
 What an odd thing this personality is with its strange vistas of. 
 complicated memory and association ; how bleak and empty is the 
 world outside it ! 
 
 Oh! Time, hast thou no memory? The bright pictures of 
 glancing life, are they gone with those dead ones, who clasped 
 hands and shouted ? or not without a smile dost thou remember 
 them, dreaming ? 
 
 Man is but a snowflake ; he falls from the bosom of the clouds, 
 a tiny separate thing blown and driven by bitter winds, and drops 
 to earth at last, extinguished and trodden out by Fate or Time. 
 
 Huddled together on our little earth we gaze with frightened 
 eyes into the dark universe. 
 
 Man lifts his head for one moment above the waves, gives one 
 wild glance around, and perishes. But that glance, was it for 
 nothing ? 
 
 JRIKTED BY T. AND A. CONSTABLE, PRINTERS TO HER MAJESTY, 
 AT THE EDINBURGH UNIVERSITY PRESS. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Acts of Parliament, see Statutes. 
 
 Adulteration Acts, 83. 
 
 Agriculture in 1760, 38-46, 180; 
 
 changes in 1 8th and 1 9th centuries, 
 
 88-90, 191. 
 Agricultural Labourer, condition in 
 
 18th century, 67-71, 125. 
 Agricultural Labourers' Union, 70. 
 Allowance system, 103-5. 
 America, trade with, 57; commercial 
 
 policy towards, 81 ; strikes in, 
 
 173. 
 Anderson, James, 12, 131. 
 Apprentices, Statute of, 73. 
 Arbitration, 75, 173, 174. 
 Arkwright, water-frame, 90. 
 Annies, connection with mercantile 
 
 system, 76. 
 Arnold, Dr., 193, 214. 
 
 Bagehot, Walter, quoted, 6, 106 
 
 nbte 1, 107, 128. 
 Baines, Edward, 51. 
 Bakewell, 44. 
 Balance of Trade, 77. 
 Banking, 55. 
 Beaeonsfield, Sybil, 209. 
 Benevolence, must be made scientific, 
 
 94. 
 Bentham, on Ricardo, 3. 
 Bolton, the " siege " of, 205. 
 Braasey, Sir Thomas, 164, 168. 
 Brentano, Lujo, 96. 
 Building societies, 218. 
 Burke quoted, 102 note. 
 
 Cairnes, J. E., 11, 23, 128, 139. 
 Calico, 8. 
 Canals, 52, 91. 
 
 Capitalist, his function to advance 
 wages, 122. 
 
 Capitalist system, growth of, in 
 manufactures, 53, 64, 190. 
 
 Carlyle, 209 ; on cash-payment, 24, 
 148 ; Past and Present (1843), 
 , 193-5. 
 
 Carpenters' wages 1839 to 1876, 139. 
 
 Carron Ironworks, 188. 
 
 Cartwright, power-loom, 90. 
 
 "Cash-nexus," 25, 93, 148, 194, 199. 
 
 Chamberlayne, John, Present State 
 of Great Britain, 60, 68 note 5. 
 
 Chartists, 195, 196, 206-7; Tory, 
 208. 
 
 Child labour, 110. 
 
 Child, Sir Josiah, A New Discourse of 
 Trade (1693), 73. 
 
 Classes, change in relative position, 
 71, 92. 
 
 Cloth, fine, 47, 48. 
 
 Clothiers around Halifax, 53 ; Leeds, 
 181. 
 
 Clover, introduction of, 43. 
 
 Cobbett, William, 89, 92, 185, 191. 
 
 Cobden, Richard, 206, 214. 
 
 Coleridge, on Political Economy, 24. 
 
 Colonies, trade with, 57 ; com- 
 mercial policy towards, 81. 
 
 Combination of labourers, its neces- 
 sity not seen by Adam Smith, 17 ; 
 laws against, 74, 170, 185, 187, 
 195, 196. 
 
 Common-fields, 39 ; badly tilled, 39, 
 40, 89. 
 
 Common-rights, value of, 69. 
 
 Commons and wastes, enclosure of, 
 101. 
 
 Communications in 18th century, 
 182-3. 
 
 Communism, 150. 
 
 Companies, trading, Adam Smith's 
 arguments against, 75. 
 
 Competition, postulate of Bicardo, 
 
!58 
 
 Index. 
 
 5 ; of unequal industrial units, 
 16 ; neither good nor evil, 20, 87 ; 
 can be controlled, not destroyed, 
 19-20 ; like a stream, 20, 87 ; 
 supposed beneficial results, 83 ; 
 all not struggle for existence, 86 ; 
 civilisation means interference 
 vifith, 86 ; causes progress, 87 ; 
 difference between production and 
 distribution, 89 ; controlled by- 
 custom and morality, 250. 
 
 Comte, 31 note, 149. 
 
 Conciliation, Boards of, 84, 149, 173, 
 174, 198, 201. 
 
 Consolidation of farms, 89 ; increased 
 pauperism, 100-1. 
 
 Conspiracy, law of, 196. 
 
 Consumers, need protection, 83 ; 
 word "consumer" misleading, 166. 
 
 Contract, regulated and unregulated, 
 30-31, 129. 
 
 Cooper, Thomas, 192, 207. 
 
 Co-operation, 145, 147, 214, 223-4. 
 
 Corn-laws, 134, 207. 
 
 Cbrporations, supervision of indus- 
 try by, 73. 
 
 Cottages, " open war against," 69, 
 104 ; rise in rents, 125. 
 
 Cotton industry in 1760, 49, 180; 
 qharacter altered by four inven- 
 tions, 90, 189-190. 
 
 Crape, 48. 
 
 Crompton's mule, 90. 
 
 CuUey, 44. 
 
 Darwin and Malthus, 109. 
 
 Deductive method, why adopted by 
 Ricardo, 6 ; value, 2, 28 ; misuse, 
 29 ; as used by fiicardo, 128. 
 
 Defoe, Daniel, Tour through Eng- 
 
 ' land, 34, 47, 48 ; on small manu- 
 factures, 53, 60, 63 ; drill hus- 
 bandry, 45. 
 
 Democracy makes it possible to 
 preach duty, 200. 
 
 Density of population, 88, 345. 
 
 De Quincey, on Ricardo, 2. 
 
 Diminishing returns, law of, 106. 
 
 Distribution, 25 ; under system of 
 competition, 86, 87 ; changes 
 owing to altered conditions, 92 ; 
 the problem of the present, 136, 
 250. 
 
 Division of labour, 52. 
 
 Domestic system of industry, 53 ; 
 definition of, 181 ; relations be- 
 tween classes, 183-4, 191 ; 
 replaced by factory system, 90; 
 "essential difference" from factory 
 system, 91 ; influence of its de- 
 struction on agriculture, 65. 
 
 Doubleday, 107. 
 
 Drill-husbandry, 45. 
 
 Dutch, rivalry with, 78. 
 
 East India Company and export of 
 bullion, 77. 
 
 Economics, relation to morality, 25 ; 
 development in England, 85-6 ; 
 distinction between theoretical 
 and practical, 157, 177 ; economics 
 and the working classes, 160, 177. 
 
 Eden, State of the Poor, quoted, 68, 
 74, 89 ; on increase of pauperism 
 by eviction and enclosure, 100-1, 
 110 note 1. 
 
 Elizabeth, Statute of Apprentices, 
 73. 
 
 Emigration, 112. 
 
 Employer, functions of, 161-2. 
 
 Enclosures, 38 ; of 16th century, 
 40-1 ; of 18th, carried out un- 
 fairly, 64-5, 102 ; BiUs, 41 ; bring 
 about scientific culture, 89 ; cause 
 increase of pauperism, 100, 125. 
 
 Engineers, 71, 145. 
 
 Eure, Department of the, 113. 
 
 Eviction and pauperism, 100. 
 
 Exchange, system of, in 1760, 54. 
 
 Exports, growth in 18th century, 
 56 ; of grain, 46 ; bounty on, 79. 
 
 Factoey legislation, 87 ; opposed by 
 
 Ricardo, 130, 144-5 ; passed by 
 
 landowners, 214-5. 
 Factory system, introduction of, 
 
 90-1. 
 Fairs, 54-5. 
 Farmers, change in relation to 
 
 labourers, 71, 92, 110. 
 Finlaison, estimate of population, 
 
 33. 
 Fluctuations of trade, 71, 93, 102. 
 Fly-shuttle, 51. 
 Foreign trade, influence on home 
 
 industry, 56. 
 
Index. 
 
 259 
 
 Freedom of labour, doctrine of, 
 taught by Smith, 15 ; and Turgot, 
 16; weapon against labourers, 16. 
 
 Freedom, political and material, 99. 
 
 Free trade, 31 ; may result in mono- 
 poly, 83 ; in corn, results, 124-5 ; 
 causes greater steadiness in in- 
 dustry, 144. 
 
 Future of the working classes, 146, 
 147. 
 
 Geobge, Mr. Henry, Progress and 
 Poverty, on Malthus, 108, 109 ; 
 on interest, 123 ; a pupil of Ri- 
 oardo, 130-1 ; theory of economic 
 progress examined, 142. 
 
 Gladstone, Mr., Budget speech 1864, 
 212. 
 
 Glasgow, 14. 
 
 Godwin, 105-6. 
 
 Gold and silver, importance in mer- 
 cantile theory, 76-7, 
 
 Grand Junction Canal, 91. 
 
 Grey-coats of Kent, 60, 65. 
 
 Groundrents, 135 ; taxes on, the 
 least objectionable, 143. 
 
 Guardians of poor, 3. 
 
 Guilds, 95, 98 ; compared with co- 
 operative societies, 224. 
 
 Hardware trade, 50. 
 
 Hargreaves' spinning-jenny, 90. 
 
 Harmony of interests, in distribution 
 a figment, 84. 
 
 Harrison, Mr. Frederick, 149. 
 
 Hat manufactureinAmericachecked, 
 81. 
 
 Historical method, shows relative 
 character of economic laws, 25, 
 31 ; and influence of institutions, 
 29 ; seeks to discover laws of de- 
 velopment, 30 ; not always con- 
 servative, 57-8 ; its danger, 128. 
 
 History, its relation to political 
 economy, 28, 31-2. 
 
 Holland, trade with, 56. 
 
 Hops, introduction of, 43. 
 
 Hosiery trade, 50. 
 
 Housing of labourers, 151, 217-18. 
 
 Hewlett, estimate of population, 33. 
 
 Human nature pliable, 175-6. 
 
 Hume, Joseph, 4 ; on combinations, 
 17 ; on Factory Acts, 18. 
 
 Importation of labour, 171. 
 Individualism, in political economy, 
 23 ; characterises Adam Smith, 
 
 83 ; place in historical growth, 
 
 250. 
 Industrial partnership, 150. 
 Ingram, Mr., 129. 
 Interest, Ricardo on, 141. 
 Interference by the State, principles 
 
 of, 216, 219. 
 Invention and population, 113. 
 Ireland, commercial policy towards, 
 
 80-1. 
 Iron, American, import prohibited, 
 
 80. 
 Iron industry in 1760, 49, 180 ; 
 
 change due to smelting by pit- 
 coal, ,91. 
 
 Jbvons, W. Stanley, 31, 112. 
 Joint-stock companies, can buy the 
 
 best brains, 75. 
 Journeymen, condition of, in 18th 
 
 century, 184. 
 Jurandes, 16. 
 Justices of Peace, regulate wages, 
 
 74, 87 ; give poor relief, 99, 111. 
 
 Kay's fly-shuttle, 51. 
 King, Gregory, 37, 59. 
 
 Labour, efficiency of, 163; differ- 
 ence from other commodities, 
 169. 
 
 Labour question, revived the 
 method of observation, 10. 
 
 Labourer, agricultural, condition in 
 18th century, 67-71 ; alienated 
 from farmer, 92-3 ; in manu- 
 factures, condition in the 18th 
 century, 71 ; alienated from em- 
 ployer, 93 ; wages and cost of 
 living 1839 and 1875, 138. 
 
 Laissez-faire, 20, 21 ; untrue as- 
 sumptions, 83 ; breaks down as 
 to wages, 84. 
 
 Lancashire, growth of capitalist 
 employer in, 54. 
 
 Land Act (Ireland) of 1870, 138; 
 of 1881, 215. 
 
 Land, movement from collective to 
 individual ownership, 129. 
 
 Landed property, its distribution 
 
26o 
 
 Index. 
 
 influenced by form of govern- 
 ment, 59, 66. 
 
 Landowners, results of their political 
 power in the 18tli century, 64 ; 
 in 19th century, 215 ; interested 
 in protection, 79. 
 
 Lassalle adopts Kioardo's law of 
 wages, 117, 130; his Communism, 
 150. 
 
 Laurence, Duty of a Steward {V111), 
 45, 64, 89. 
 
 Law, distinction between physical 
 and social, 22, 156, 158. 
 
 Leases, Young on, 43 and note 2. 
 
 Leeds Cloth HaU, 54. 
 
 Leslie, Clifl'e, 29, 107, 119 and 
 note 2, 128. 
 
 Linen manufacture, 50. 
 
 Live stock, management and breed- 
 ing in 1760, 43-4; import from 
 Ireland prohibited, 80. 
 
 Machinery, influence on population, 
 110; good and evil effects, 163. 
 
 M'CuUoeh, on Ricardo, 8. 
 
 Maine, Sir Henry, 0, 30, 129. 
 
 Malthus, Essay on Population, 1798, 
 prompted by Godwin's Inquirer, 
 105 ; its doctrine, 106 ; how 
 modified in 2d edition, ibid. ; on 
 " positive " and " preventive 
 checks," ihid. ; its premises, 106- 
 107 ; and object, 107; criticism by 
 Herbert Spencer, ihid.j and Henry 
 George, 108 ; ambiguity of phrase, 
 108-9 ; explains growth of popu- 
 lation, 109 ; proposes abolition 
 of Poor Law, 111; and contributes 
 to its reform, 94, 104 ; despises 
 emigration, 112; is the author of 
 the wage-fund theory, 22, 118 ; on 
 the beneficial working of self- 
 interest, 12 ; appearance of idea 
 of invariable law, 22 ; his rela- 
 tion to Adam Smith, 27, 85 ; on 
 rent, 132 ; on effects on rent of 
 improvements, 133 ; his criticism 
 of Ricardo, 7. 
 Manchester, condition before repeal 
 
 of Corn Laws, 206. 
 Manor, 95. 
 
 Market, for commodities and 
 labour, 169-171. 
 
 " Marrying into the city for money," 
 
 63. 
 Marshall, Rural Economy of York- 
 shire, quoted, 62 note 4. 
 Marx, Karl, Das Kapital (1867), 
 
 61, 127 ; theory of value, 130. 
 Mazzini, Duties of Man, 200, 220. 
 Mercantile system, 76-81 ; refuta- 
 tion by Adam Smith, 82. 
 Merchants, position in 18th century, 
 
 62. 
 Mill, James, influence on Bicardo, 
 
 3, 127. 
 MUl, John Stuart, Logic (1843), on 
 the deductive science of society, 
 31, note 1. Principles of Political 
 Economy (1848), its spirit, 86; 
 distinction between laws of pro- 
 duction and distribution, 86, 
 158 ; on population, 146 ; stan- 
 dard of comfort, 117; co-opera- 
 tion, 118 ; Dissertations and Dis- 
 cussions (1875), statement of wage- 
 fund theory, 115, 158; proposes 
 confiscation of unearned incre- 
 ment, 129. 
 Mobility of labour and capital 
 
 unequal, 170. 
 Monasteries, results of their dissolu- 
 tion, 97. 
 Money, view of mercantilists, 76. 
 Honied interest, influence of, 62. 
 Monopoly and free trade, 83-4, 
 
 121. 
 Morality, must be united with 
 
 economics, 25. 
 Mun, England's Treasure by Foreign 
 
 Trade (1664), 82. 
 Mulhall, Mr., 141. 
 Mundella, Mr., 174, 198-9. 
 Municipalities, possible future work, 
 151, 218. 
 
 Nail manufacture, 54. 
 
 Napoleon, on economists, 24. 
 
 Napoleonic war, economic results in 
 England, 104. 
 
 Nasmyth, 171. 
 
 Nasse, 40. 
 
 Nationalisation of land, 136. 
 
 Nationalism, connection with mer- 
 cantile system, 76. 
 
 Navigation, Acts, 77-78. 
 
Index. 
 
 261 
 
 Newspapers, against the workmen, 
 
 173. 
 Norfolk, agriculture in, 42-3. 
 Norway, 110. 
 Norwich, 47. 
 Nottingham, 198. 
 
 Oastlbk, Richard, 207. 
 
 Out-door relief. 111; should be 
 
 abolished, 219. 
 Over-production, 92, 182. 
 Overseers of the poor, appointed, 
 
 97, 99. 
 Owen, Robert, 210, 214, 224, 226. 
 
 Parliamentary Reports, quoted; 
 Committee on woollen petitions 
 (1808), 5 ; on Labourers' wages 
 (1824), 93, 110, 126; on Trades 
 Unions (1867), 120 note. 
 
 Partnership, industrial, 150. 
 
 Pasture, increase in 16th century, 
 97 ; broken up during the French 
 war, 90. 
 
 Pauperism, during 17th and 18th 
 centuries, 100 ; causes, 100-1 ; 
 increase 1760-1818, 94 ; decrease 
 after 1834, 111 ; the price of 
 freedom, 95-6. 
 
 Peabody Buildings, 218. 
 
 Peel, the elder, quoted, 88 note 1, 
 187. 
 
 Pennsylvania, coal-mines, 84; labour 
 war of 1877, 157. 
 
 Physiocrats, 13. 
 
 Pitt, William, 82. 
 
 Place, Francis, 147. 
 
 Political conditions, their economic 
 influence, 59, 66, 186, 211. 
 
 Political economy, see Economics. 
 
 Poor, " impotent and able-bodied," 
 
 s 96, 99. 
 
 Poor Laws, their history, 95-99, 
 186 ; maladministration, 103 ; 
 Malthus on. 111 ; reform in 
 1834, 111. 
 
 Population, number in 1750 and 
 1801, 33 ; rate of increase, 87-8 ; 
 distribution, 34-5 ; increase in 
 towns, 36 ; proportion of rural 
 to urban, ihid. ; according to 
 occupations, 37 ; decline of agri- 
 cultural population, 88 ; Mal- 
 
 thus' law, 106 ; place in the 
 wage-fund theory, 115; not a 
 purely economic question, 114. 
 
 Porter, Progress of the Nation, 
 quoted, 123. 
 
 Portugal, trade with, 56. 
 
 Fositivist solution of social ques- 
 tion, 149. 
 
 Potato famine 1 847, effect on prices, 
 82. 
 
 Precepts and laws, 22-3, 29. 
 
 Price, Dr., estimate of population, 
 33. 
 
 Price, how determined, 64-7 ; divi- 
 sion of, 167. 
 
 Production, 25. 
 
 Profit, 168. 
 
 Property, idea of, needs modifica- 
 tion, 26 ; in land, 129. 
 
 Protection, 77 ; arguments for and 
 against, 78-9 ; cannot succeed 
 in a republic, 80 ; effects in 
 America, 120. 
 
 Radicals, their old principles, 204-5, 
 210 ; their present attitude, 216, 
 219. 
 
 Railways, 91. 
 
 Rent, historical origin, 133 ; rise 
 between 1790 and 1833, 92; 
 causes of the rise, 134 ; theory of 
 rent, its history, 131-2 ; Ricardo's 
 assumptions, 131 ; ultimate 
 causes of rent, 132 ; its relation 
 to price, 5, 134 ; to wages, 5, 
 137 ; often comes from' the 
 labourer's pocket, 126, 137-8; 
 can it be abolished ? 135. 
 
 Reports, see. Parliamentary. 
 
 Reserve price, as to labour, 170. 
 
 Revolution of 1688, its economic 
 effects, 61. 
 
 Ricardo, Principles of Political 
 Economy and Taxation (1817), 
 immediate influence, 1-2 ; logical 
 power, 3 ; economic assumptions, 
 5-6 ; circumstances of the time, 
 5 ; deductive method, 6, 128 ; 
 philosophical assumptions, 11 ; 
 idea of natural law, 22, 130 ; 
 relation to Adam Smith, 4, 11, 
 82, 127 ; " the prop and menace 
 of the middle classes," 127, 130 ; 
 
262 
 
 Index. 
 
 his doctrines adopted by the 
 Socialists, 130 ; on price, 5 ; on 
 interest and profit, 141 ; on rent, 
 132 I controversy as to rent with 
 Malthus, 133, 135; law of indus- 
 trial development, 128, 137 ; 
 based on assumptions, 131 ; his 
 life, 127 ; influence on legislation, 
 -4, 127, 129-130; brought about 
 resumption of cash payments, 
 127. 
 
 Rings, 84, 121, 166. 
 
 Rivers, made navigable, 52. 
 
 Roads, 91. 
 
 Rockingham, Marquis of, his agri- 
 cultural improvements, 42 and 
 note 2. 
 
 Roebuck, Mr., 159. 
 
 Roesler, 131. 
 
 Rogers, Prof. Thordld, on Ricardian 
 doctrine of rent, 132-3. 
 
 Rotation of crops, 89. 
 
 Sadlbb, Michael Thomas, 207 ; on 
 inequality of employer and em- 
 ployed, 19. 
 
 Savings banks, 213. 
 
 Savings of working-classes, 140. 
 
 Senior, Nassau, 9, 31. 
 
 Settlement, law of, 96, 99, 111. 
 
 Shipping, 57, 78. 
 
 Sismondi, quoted, 56 and note 3. 
 
 Smith, Adam, Wealth of Nations 
 (1776) ; a handbook for statesmen, 
 81 ; merits and defects, 81-2 ; 
 two main conceptions, 11 ; cos- 
 mopolitanism, 82 ; individualism, 
 83 ; the gospel of industrial free- 
 dom, 12-14, 188; "French 
 principles," 13 ; combines (i priori 
 and inductive reasoning, 75 ; 
 teaches that wages tend to 
 equality, 70 ; attacks restrictions 
 on labour, 15 ; but coodemns 
 combination, 17 ; on apprentice- 
 ship, 74; on regulation of wages by 
 Justices, ihxd.; on chartered com- 
 panies, 75 ; on Navigation Acts, 
 77 ; on the mercantile system, 79- 
 81; " the sneaking arts of under 
 ling tradesmen," 79 ; "a nation of 
 shopkeepers," 81 ; sec also 67, 
 73, 107, 131, 156, 183, 252, 
 
 Socialism, due to competition, 85 ; 
 influence on J. S. Mill, 86, 87, 
 117, 175, 212-3 ; examples in 
 England, 151, 214 ; taught by 
 Owen, 210 ; Tory, 103, 208. 
 
 Speenhamland Act of Parliament, 
 104 and note 4. 
 
 Spencer, Mr. Herbert, 107. 
 
 Standard of comfort, 117, 138. 
 
 State, function of, 31, 72, 230-1. 
 
 State interference, principles of, 216, 
 219. 
 
 "Status to contract," criticised, 
 30-1, 129. 
 
 Statutes, of Labourers, 96 ; Appren- 
 tices, 73 ; 1388, 96 ; 1601, 99 ; 
 1662, 99; 1795, 99; Gilbert's 
 Act 1782, 103 ; Employers' 
 Liability Act, 151 ; Irish Land 
 Act 1870, 138; Irish Land Act 
 1881, 215; statute of George i. 
 against combinations and truck, 
 187. 
 
 Steam-engine, in cotton-mills, 90; 
 in iron industry, 91. 
 
 Stephens, Joseph Raynor, 207-8. 
 
 Stocking-makers of Leicester, 192. 
 
 Stourbridge; fair of, 54. 
 
 "Struggle for existence," 86. 
 
 Stubbs, Prof., Constitutional History, 
 quoted, 95. 
 
 Supply and demand, "that hateful 
 phrase," 167-9. 
 
 Tabiff, wars of, 77. 
 
 Taxation, readjustment of, 151. 
 
 Taylor, Mr. Sedley, 150. 
 
 Ten Hours' Bill, 209. 
 
 Thompson, Colonel, 205. 
 
 Thornton, on reserved prices, 10. 
 
 Times, The, its economics, 157, 173, 
 204. 
 
 Tory Socialism, 103, 208, 
 
 Towns, increase of population, 
 36. 
 
 Trades unions, good results, 145, 
 149, 170 ; organise competition, 
 172, 175; arguments against, 
 115-7; where successful in raising 
 wages, 122 ; destroy personal tie 
 between employer and employed, 
 196-7 ; relation to boards of con- 
 ciliation, 201 ; compared with 
 
Index. 
 
 263 
 
 co-operative societies, 224 ; see, 
 
 also 87, 93, 148, 168, 172, 196. 
 Truck, 125, 174, 187. 
 Tucker, Bean, 13. 
 Tull, Jethro, and drill husbandry, 
 
 45. 
 Turgot, 14 ; dissolution of Jurandes, 
 
 16. 
 Turnips, first mention as a field 
 
 crop, 42. 
 
 Unions, see Trades Unions. 
 Unions of Parishes, 111. 
 
 Vagrancy, 97 ; legislation against, 
 
 Wages, history of ; of agricultural 
 labourers in 18th century, 67, 
 69 ; comparison of north and 
 south, 69; inequality in same 
 county, 74 ; of artisans in 1 8th 
 century and 19th century, 71 ; 
 regulated by Justices, 74 ; causes 
 of fall 1790-1820, 123-126 ; rise 
 since 1846, 139. 
 
 Wages, theory of ; supposed tend- 
 ency to equality, 29, 70 ; Ric- 
 ardo's law, 138 ; wage-fund 
 theory, as stated by MiU, 115-7 ; 
 
 " are labourers' share of produce, 
 119 ; causes affecting wages, 161; 
 how determined, 162-174; limits 
 in a particular trade, ] 22 ; possi- 
 bility and probable results of a 
 general rise, 123, 165-7 ; explana- 
 tion of high wages in America, 
 120, 174 ; and of difference be- 
 tween England and Continent, 
 121; "fair wages," 169; com- 
 petition not the sole cause of 
 rate, 174-5. 
 
 Wage-fund theory, originated with 
 Malthus, 22, 114; statement by 
 MiU, 115 ; conclusions drawn from 
 it, 115 ; its untrue premises. 
 
 116-7 ; causes of its origin, 118 ; 
 substitute for it, 119, 122, 161 ; 
 cause of unpopularity of political 
 economy, 160. 
 
 Walker, Francis, distinguishes em- 
 ployer from capitalist, 11. 
 
 Walker, Amasa, on population in 
 Massachusetts, 107. 
 
 Wars of tariff, 77. 
 
 Waste, enclosure of, 40. 
 
 Watt, James, 14, 15, 188 ; steam- 
 engine, 90. 
 
 West Riding, 48. 
 
 West, Sir Edward, 132. 
 
 Wheat, average produce 1760,45; 
 price, 1782-1801, 101. 
 
 Wheaten bread, 68. 
 
 WooUen manufacture, 46-9, 181 ; 
 districts where carried on, 47 ; 
 processes, 51 ; struggle with 
 cotton trade, 80 ; importation 
 from Ireland and America pro- 
 hibited, 80, 81. 
 
 Wordsworth, 182. , 
 
 Workhouse-test, 99, 103, 111. 
 
 Worsted, 48 ; method of manufac- 
 ture, 181. 
 
 Wyatt, John, 51. 
 
 Ybomanby, decay of, 58-66 ; want 
 of political initiative, 60. 
 
 Young, Arthur, estimate of popula- 
 tion, 33, 37 ; on bad cultivation 
 of common fields, 39 and note 3 ; 
 on agriculture in Kent, 41 ; and 
 in Norfolk, 42-3 ; on agriculture 
 1700-1760, 42, 45 ; advantage of 
 long leases, 43 and note 2 ; 
 turnips and clover, 43 ; encour- 
 agement to farmers, by high rents, 
 44 ; condition of roads, 52 ; 
 beginnings of factory system, 
 53 ; disappearance of yeomanry, 
 62 ; small farmers, 65 ; consump- 
 tion of tea, meat, and cheese, 68 ; 
 enclosures, 101. 
 
 PRINTED BY T. AND A. CONSTABLE, PRINTERS TO HEK MAJESTY, 
 AT THE EDINBURGBI UNIVEESITY PRESS.