Again, we might pay attention chiefly to the condition of labor. Beginning with a condition where there is no distinct laboring class, we pass through slavery and serfdom to free labor, regulated at first by law and custom, then by individual contract, and finally in large measure by group contract or collective bargaining supplemented to an increasing extent by legal regulations of a new kind.

These various classifications are not contradictory; on the contrary, they supplement each other. Still other divisions are possible. In the preceding table these various points of view are roughly correlated and applied to the history of England. These divisions of time are in no sense accurate, and are intended merely to be suggestive.

QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES

1. Write a description of the economic life of a tribe in one of the first two stages.

2. What is the difference between slavery and serfdom?

3. Give an account of the East India Company.

4. Sketch the development of the woolen industry in England to 1760.

5. Give an account of the origin of the Bank of England.

6. Summarize the history of poor relief in England.

7. It has been held that because economic progress has been continuous, it is incorrect to divide it into "stages." Discuss this view.

REFERENCES

ASHLEY, W. J. English Economic History, Vol. i; and The Economic Organization of England, Chaps. i-v.

BÜCHER, KARL. Industrial Evolution (trans. by S. M. Wickett).

CHEYNEY, E. P. Industrial and Social History of England, Chaps. i to vii. CUNNINGHAM, WILLIAM. Growth of English Industry and Commerce, Vol. i. (Middle Ages) and Vol. ii (Mercantile System).

ELY, R. T. Evolution of Industrial Society, Part i, Chap. iii.

GONNER, E. C. K. Common Land and Inclosure.

HONE, N. J. The Manor and Manorial Records.

LIPSON, EPHRAIM. An Introduction to the Economic History of England,

Vol. i.

MEREDITH, H. O.

MORGAN, L. H.

PROTHERO, R. E.

Outlines of the Economic History of England.
Ancient Society, Chap. i.

English Farming, Past and Present, Chaps. iii, iv, vii, xi. RATZEL, FRIEDRICH. History of Mankind (trans. by A. J. Butler), 3 vols. Salzmann, L. F. English Industries of the Middle Ages.

Schmoller, GUSTAV. The Mercantile System (Economic Classics, edited by W. J. Ashley).

SEEBOHM, FREDERIC. The English Village Community.

STANLEY, H. M. In Darkest Africa, Vol. i, Chap. xxiii.

UNWIN, GEORGE. The Guilds and Companies of London.

VINOGRADOFF, PAUL. The Growth of the Manor.

WALLACE, A. R. Russia (edition of 1905), Chap. viii.

CHAPTER IV

THE EVOLUTION OF ECONOMIC SOCIETY (Continued)

The Industrial Revolution.

The passage from the handicraft to the industrial stage in England is generally known as the Industrial Revolution. It has been objected that this term is misleading because the introduction of the modern factory system required many years and was but the working out. of conditions that had been long maturing. It is true that the growth in the division of labor, the expansion of commerce, and the technical progress of former ages were necessary preliminaries to the industrial revolution, but there is little danger of overemphasizing the importance or the rapidity of the change. The period from 1770 to 1840, the span of a single life, is, after all, a short period from the standpoint of the historian. Yet the changes of this period swept away the inefficient methods that had been used for centuries, and caused profound modifications in social structure. To understand the nature of this movement, we must review the condition of things before it began.

England in 1760. England was at this time largely selfsufficing in its economic life, producing for itself its food and other articles of ordinary consumption, although compared with medieval days there had been a marked expansion of international and colonial trade. Woolen goods were the most important export. The imports consisted largely of wines, spirits, rice, sugar, coffee, oil, and furs, and some wool, hemp, silk, and linen yarn. Within the nation, too, there was not such a degree of specialization of industry in particular localities as is found at the present day, although the beginning of such localization had clearly been made in the textile and iron industries. On the whole, however, the commerce between the different sections

of the country was slight. The means of transportation were exceedingly poor, notwithstanding the growth of turnpike roads. The roads were described by a traveler as most execrably vile." Such was their condition that pack horses were still a common means of getting goods to market. Rivers were important highways, canal building having barely begun.

The system of hand manufacture was still in general operation. Although the workmen under the domestic system were no longer owners of the material upon which they worked, yet the tools they used were their property. The beginnings of certain features of the factory system, however, are to be seen long before the use of power machinery, for in some cases workmen were employed in large numbers in buildings owned by the employer, who also furnished the mechanical equipment. But to a large extent manufacturing was combined with agriculture, not only in the textile trades, but in other branches also. "At West Bromwich, a chief center of the metal trade, agriculture was still carried on as a subsidiary pursuit by the metal workers."

The medieval system of common field tillage was extensively used, a large part of the land being still uninclosed. The cultivation was exceedingly poor, but important experiments tending toward a new agriculture" were being made in the second quarter of the eighteenth century by Jethro Tull and " Turnip Townshend. Of the whole number of farms, approximately one half" were owned and occupied by the various classes of freeholders and copyholders; that is, by land-owning farmers."

The medieval notion of the relation of government to industry was still nominally in force. Detailed and special legislation was supposed to be the means of securing a wellordered trade, as explained in the preceding chapter. But a tremendous revolt had begun against this whole system. This revolt had its religious and political as well as its economic aspect. The same year that Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence, asserting that all men are by nature equal, Adam Smith published the Wealth of Nations, the most influential book ever written on economics.

“Every individual,” said Smith, “is continually exerting himself to find out the most advantageous employment for whatever capital he can command. It is his own advantage, indeed, and not that of the society, which he has in view. But the study of his own advantage, naturally, or rather necessarily, leads him to prefer that employment which is most advantageous to society. . . . What is the species of domestic industry which his capital can employ, and of whica the produce is likely to be of the greatest value, every individual, it is evident, can, in his local situation, judge much better than any statesman or lawgiver can for him." 1

The Mechanical Inventions. During the last half of the eighteenth century the progress of invention was exceptionally rapid. Kay's flying shuttle (1738) had facilitated the weaving process to such an extent that it became difficult to secure enough yarn from the spinners. Hand spinning was improved by Hargreave's "jenny" about 1767; Arkwright, in 1771, made a practical success of roller spinning (a method patented long before), using horse power, and later, water power. Crompton combined these two processes in 1779. After 1785 steam power was applied to cotton spinning, and then it was the weaving process that was felt to be too slow. Cartwright began his experiments in 1784, but the power loom did not come into general use until early in the nineteenth century.

The improvement in the steam engine also made possible great advances in the iron industry, of fundamental importance in an age of machinery. The production of English iron was over seventy-five times as great in 1840 as it had been in 1740.

The need for better transportation was met by improved roads, by the building of canals (especially 1790 to 1805), and by the development of steam locomotion. The germ of the modern railway is seen in the tramways used in the coal mines. Cast iron rails were used as early as 1738. The first tramway to be used for public purposes was chartered in 1801, the cars to be drawn by horse power. Trevithick made a locomotive in 1803 that was of practical use. In 1814 Stephenson constructed a locomotive that could draw a load of thirty tons at the rate of three miles an hour. The Stockton and Darlington road was opened in 1825 with a Stephenson locomotive that 1 A. Smith, Wealth of Nations, Book iv, Chap. ii.

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