England took the lead in utilizing all these remarkable new inventions, and with their aid became, by the middle of the nineteenth century, the manufacturing center of the world. Gradually the new machinery was introduced on the continent, and since 1850 countries having the necessary coal, such as Germany and Belgium, have developed manufacturing industries which now rival those of Great Britain.
Some results of the industrial revolution of the nineteenth century.
Rapid growth of the towns.
280. The industrial revolution, as the changes above referred to are usually called, could not but have a profound influence upon the life and government of Europe. For example, the population of Europe appears to have nearly doubled during the nineteenth century. One of the most startling tendencies of recent times has been the growth of the towns. In 1800 London had a population of less than one million; it now contains over four million five hundred thousand inhabitants. Paris, at the opening of the French Revolution, contained less than seven hundred thousand inhabitants; it now has over two and a half millions. Berlin has grown in a hundred years from one hundred and seventy-two thousand to nearly two millions. In England a quarter of the whole population live in towns having over two hundred and fifty thousand inhabitants, and less than a quarter still remain in the country. Our modern life is dominated by the great cities, which not only are the center of commerce and manufacturing, but are the homes of the artist and man of letters.
Reasons for the growth of the towns.
There are two obvious reasons for the growth of the towns since the industrial revolution. In the first place, factories are established in places where there is an abundant supply of coal, or where conditions are otherwise favorable; and this brings a large number of people together. In the second place, there is no limit set to the growth of cities, as was formerly the case, by the difficulty of procuring food from a distance. Paris, in the time of Louis XVI, was not a large city in the modern sense of the word; still the government found it very difficult to secure a regular supply of food in the markets. Now grain and even meat and fruit are easily carried any distance. England imports a large amount of her meat from Australia, on the other side of the globe, and even her butter and eggs she gets largely from the continent.
Abolition of most of the restrictions on trade and industry.
281. Before the nineteenth century the European governments had been accustomed to regulate trade, industry, and commerce by a great variety of laws, which were supposed to be necessary for the protection of the public. Of this we find examples in the English Navigation Acts;[466] in the guilds, which under the protection of the government enjoyed a monopoly of their industries in their particular districts; in the regulations issued by Colbert[467] and in the grain laws in both France and England, which limited the free importation and even the exportation of grain.
The French and English economists in the eighteenth century, like Turgot and Adam Smith, advocated the abolition of all restrictions, which they believed did far more harm than good. The expediency of this laissez faire,[468] or free-trade policy, has now been recognized by most European powers. England abolished her grain laws (the so-called Corn Laws) in 1846, and since then has adopted the policy of free trade, except so far as she raises a revenue from customs duties imposed upon a very few commodities, like liquor and tobacco. Low import duties are collected by most of the European powers on goods entering their territories, but all export duties have been abolished as well as all customs barriers within the countries.
Government regulations protecting the laborer.