THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION.
The increasing call for coal both for manufacture and for fuel and the needs consequent on the growth of trade and the expansion of agriculture were met by greater facilities of transport. Roads, though they were gradually improved, could not have answered the demands for the conveyance of the ever-increasing bulk of heavy goods. A better method was found in the introduction of canals by the third Duke of Bridgewater. The canal between Worsley and Manchester, made by him and his engineer, Brindley, and opened in 1761, enabled the Manchester people to buy the duke's coal at 3½d. instead of 7d. a cwt.; its extension to Runcorn reduced the cost of carriage by water between Liverpool and Manchester from 12s. to 6s. a ton, while by road it was 40s.; and the Grand Trunk canal from Runcorn to the Trent brought the pottery of Etruria to Liverpool and carried other goods at a quarter of the old cost of transport. The success of these undertakings was so great that people went wild about canal-making, and between 1790 and 1794 eighty-one canal acts were obtained, many of them, of course, for superfluous projects.
The principal factor in the industrial revolution which began during the period under review was the substitution of machinery for hand labour in textile manufactures. In 1760 spinning and weaving were domestic industries, carried on, that is, in the homes of the workers. The women and children in farm-houses and cottages spent their spare time in spinning. The implements used in the cotton manufacture remained nearly as simple as those of the Homeric age, save that weaving had been facilitated by the use of the fly-shuttle. Since that invention the weaver found it difficult to obtain enough yarn for his loom, until, about 1767, a weaver named Hargreaves invented the spinning-jenny by which a child could work many spindles at once. Two years later Arkwright, who introduced many inventions into the textile manufacture, brought out a spinning machine worked by water-power. His water-frame spun automatically and produced a yarn strong enough for warp, so that for the first time pure cotton goods were manufactured in England, for until then the cotton weft was woven on a warp of linen. This machine was improved on by Crompton's mule, a cross between the jenny and the water-frame, which spun a finer yarn, and so started the manufacture of muslin in England; it was invented in 1775 and came into general use about ten years later. The supply of cotton from India, the Bahamas, and later from the southern states of America, was large, and the effect of the new machinery on the manufacture can be gauged by the increase in the import of cotton-wool from an average of 4,764,589 lbs. between 1771 and 1775 to 56,010,732 lbs. in 1800. The new labour-saving inventions were at first regarded with jealousy by the workmen. Hargreaves had his house gutted and his loom destroyed, and in 1799 a violent riot broke out about Blackburn; Arkwright's works were burnt, and many machines in the neighbourhood were broken to pieces. In and around Lancashire, where the manufacture was chiefly carried on, the carding and spinning of wool ceased to be domestic industries. Capitalists set up factories where water-power was available, in which children were largely employed, and factory villages grew up round them. From about 1790 steam-power began gradually to take the place of water-power; the change was slow, and as it went on the manufacture became increasingly centred in populous towns.
Cotton weaving remained a domestic industry, for Cartwright's power-loom did not come into general use until after 1800. The output of yarn was enormous, and for a time the weavers' earnings were very large, but the money which could be earned at the loom and the failure of domestic spinning caused so many to take to weaving that by 1800 wages had begun to decline, and gradually a period of distress set in. A machine for calico-printing further increased the profits of the capitalist and had a bad effect on labour, for it threw the calico-printer out of employment. Wool spinning was far more generally carried on in rural districts than cotton spinning, and more widely spread misery was caused by changes in the manufacture. It came under the dominion of machinery somewhat later. Machines for carding and combing took the place of manual labour after 1790, and enabled one man and a few children to do the work of many men. Spinning with the wheel lasted longer than in the cotton manufacture. From 1785 jennies were used, and wool spinning was gradually transferred to factories and became a separate business, instead of a by-employment which helped the small farmer to pay his rent and eked out the scanty wages of the labourer. The change was accelerated by the scarcity of wool during the revolutionary war, for by that time the trade had become largely dependent on importation from Spain, and it was not until about 1800 that sheep began to be bred for their wool in Australia. As in the cotton trade, the wages of weavers were high during the war, but the scarcity of material prevented all but the best workmen from finding employment and there was much distress among the rest. The failure of domestic spinning deeply affected all the rural districts of England.
AGRICULTURAL WAGES.
It was specially disastrous because it was accompanied by times of scarceness and by changes connected with a revolution in agriculture which pressed heavily on many of the poorer classes. A rapid increase in population during the latter part of the century was consequent on the stimulus given to manufacture; in 1760 the population of England and Wales is estimated at 6,479,700, and of Scotland in 1755 at about 1,265,300; in 1800 the estimate for England and Wales is 9,187,176, and for Scotland about 1,599,000. This increase implies a demand for a larger supply of food. Early in the reign wages were low except near great towns, and the law of settlement prevented the labourer from moving freely from one parish to another in order to better himself. While in 1769-70 labourers in Surrey earned on an average from 8s. to 10s. a week, in Wiltshire they received only 6s. 2d. to 5s. 3d., and in one district in Lancashire as little as 4s. 11d.[183] Wages, however, were then eked out by home industries and commonable rights. Yet the margin between income and expenditure was so small that a rise in the price of bread soon caused distress, and was often followed by riots. Bread made from rye or barley was still eaten in poor districts, but wheaten bread was more generally used than earlier in the century, which proves that the condition of the poor was bettered. In 1769 it cost 2d. a pound near London, and at a distance of 150 miles 1½d. Meat was about 3d. to 4d. a pound, rent and clothing were cheap, firing and candles very dear.
In 1760 England was still a corn-exporting country; importation was restrained, exportation encouraged by a bounty, and in times of scarcity the trade was regulated by temporary enactments. After some bad harvests an act was made in 1773 with the object of keeping the price steady at about 48s. the quarter; virtually free importation was allowed when it reached that limit, and exportation was forbidden when it reached 44s. Landowners and farmers were dissatisfied, and a general fear lest the country should become dependent on foreign corn led parliament in 1791 to adopt a policy of encouraging home production; it was enacted that for the future a bounty should be paid on exportation when the price was at 44s., that prohibitive duties should be placed on importation when it was below 50s., and virtually free importation only allowed above 54s. Nevertheless from about that date England definitely ceased to be able to feed her own people, except in good seasons. Her naval superiority during the revolutionary war prevented a stoppage in the supply of wheat from abroad; but it became uncertain, prices fluctuated violently with good or bad harvests; war acted as a protection to the corn-grower and bad harvests were followed by famine prices; in 1795 wheat averaged 81s. 6d. in Windsor market, and in 1800 reached 127s. Wages rose with the expansion of manufactures, but not in anything like proportion to the rise in prices.
THE AGRICULTURAL REVOLUTION.
Meanwhile efforts were made to meet the increased demand for food by improved agriculture. In 1760 about half the parishes in England were still in open fields; and the primitive two-field and three-field systems by which land was refreshed by lying fallow were, with some modifications, still in vogue. A new husbandry, however, had begun, and soon made rapid progress; it was promoted by many large landowners, such as Lord Townshend, the Dukes of Bedford and Grafton, and Lord Rockingham, and the king took a lively and practical interest in the movement. Its advantages were urged by Arthur Young, who did most valuable work as its apostle. Its leading feature was the introduction of a scientific rotation of crops founded on the use of clover and rye-grass and the more careful cultivation of turnips, which kept the land at once employed and in good heart, and afforded a supply of excellent fodder. Farmers, too, began to learn the profit to be derived from marling, manuring, and subsoil drainage, and to use better implements which did their work more thoroughly and with less labour of man and beast. The increased demand for meat caused sheep no longer to be valued chiefly for their wool, or oxen as beasts of draught. Improvements in the breeding and rearing of sheep and cattle were introduced by Bakewell, a Lincolnshire grazier, and carried on by others. The scraggy animals of earlier days disappeared; the average weight of beeves sold at Smithfield in 1710 was 370 lbs., in 1795 it was 800 lbs., and that of sheep had risen from 28 lbs. to 80 lbs. Capital was freely invested in land; open fields were increasingly enclosed, and commons and wastes along with them, and land until then beyond the margin of cultivation was taken in and ploughed. From 1760 to 1797 as many as 1,539 private enclosure acts were passed, and a general act was passed in 1801.
The new agriculture vastly increased the produce of the land. During the first half of our period rents were low, and the farmers who carried out the new system as a rule made enormous profits. Arthur Young tells us of one Norfolk farmer who, on a farm of 1,500 acres, made enough in thirty years to buy an estate of £1,700 a year. The improved agriculture, however, could not be carried out without enclosure and, unless an award was made by agreement, that meant a large initial expense, which was followed by the expense of actually enclosing the land. These expenses were often borne by the landlords. The small squires and yeomen who farmed their own land had neither the intelligence of the large farmers nor the money to spend on improvements, and both classes virtually disappeared. Nor could the small farmer either keep his place or take advantage of the new system. If his holding was unaffected by enclosure, the loss of domestic industries rendered him less able to pay his rent: if it was to be enclosed, he found himself with a diminished income at the very time when he most needed money; and if he managed to keep his land for a while, he was ruined by some violent fluctuation in the price of corn. Sooner or later he sank into the labouring class. The enormous profits of the large farmers did not continue, for about 1780 rents began to rise. Still the cultivation of good arable land remained highly profitable, if the farmer had capital enough to meet fluctuations of price. But war prices and parliamentary encouragement led farmers to cultivate inferior land; their profits diminished in proportion to the cost of cultivation, and though the supply of food was increased, its price was kept up. A sudden fall in prices would send the land back to its original wild state and was likely enough to ruin the farmer.