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industry was the "domestic factory." In this industrial organisation, if it deserves the name, the raw materials, the tools, and the power were owned by the head of the household. These little units made up a portion of the industrial structure of the nation, Originally the communities of labourers worked to satisfy their own needs; but as the functions of society grew more complex, division of labour began. If the domestic weaver could obtain materials to keep him busy at more profitable work than agriculture, he began naturally to concentrate his energies upon textiles, and bought his food stuffs. Thus the progress of industrial society has been marked by division of labour and separation of industry. At first the workman owned his own tools, and bought raw materials for his own use. However, the domestic worker could not escape from the necessity of the market. He was continually confronted with the difficulty of securing a continuous and adequate supply of materials. To obviate this difficulty, the middle man or manufacturer came in as a "factor" in the primitive industry. James says: "First the manufacturer had to travel on horseback to purchase his raw material among the farmers, or at the great fairs held in those old towns that had formerly been the exclusive markets, or, as they were called, 'staples' of wool. The wool, safely received, was handed over to the sorters, who rigorously applied their gauge of required length of staple, and mercilessly chopped off by shears or hatchet what did not reach the standard as wool fit for the clothing trade. The long wool thus passed into the hand of the combers, and, having been brought back to them in the combed state, was again carefully packed and strapped on the back

of the sturdy horse, to be taken into the country to be spun. Here at each village he had his agents, who received the wool, distributed it amongst the peasantry, and received it back as yarn. The machine employed was still the old one-thread wheel, and in summer weather on many a village green might be seen the housewives plying their busy trade, and furnishing to the poet the vision of contentment spinning at the cottage door. Returning in safety with his yarn, the manufacturer had now to seek out his weavers, who ultimately delivered to him his camblets or russels, or tammies or calimancoes (such were the leading names of the fibres) ready for sale to the merchant or delivery to the dyer." "In Lancashire," says Toynbee," 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." Thus the ownership of the raw materials passed to the manufacturer, even before the factory system supplanted domestic industry. However, we must not lose sight of the fact that the substitution of power-driven machinery for hand labour was necessary to complete the destruction of home industry. As late as 1775, Adam Smith considered that large aggregations of capital in Joint Stock Concerns could only be successfully worked in the

trades of banking, insurance, making and maintaining a navigable cut or canal, and bringing a water supply for a great city.

Sec. 12.-The Condition of the Workers in 1760 was, generally speaking, quite good. There is a great difficulty in the way of making satisfactory comparisons, for a large number of new trades employing thousands have sprung up since that time. So much depends upon the standard of life, which is by no means fixed or easily determined, that any generalisations about the condition of the workers, even if drawn from elaborate statistics, are almost meaningless. We may agree with Toynbee that the status of the artisan has distinctly improved since Adam Smith's time. However, the great manufacturing cities had not yet risen, and the workers were not crowded in dingy, ill-drained, poorlylighted tenements. Work was steadier, and there was less fluctuation in prices, because trade was "for the most part conducted on a small, steady basis, with known, regular customs." Food stuffs were reasonable in price, and the wages received secured to the workers the necessaries for a plain life. Life was simpler, and the struggle for existence not so keen as at the present time. There were not the hurry, rush, and uproar which machinery and increased competition bring. The cheap and simple tools required in the "manufacturing establishments" of those days could be secured without any great outlay of capital, so that labour was relatively more important than capital. This secured the freedom of the workers from the routine of the capitalist factory system and its attendant disadvantages, and allowed them to be, to a certain extent, their own masters. Though the workers had little chance of becoming rich

by thrift, industry, and especially by profits from the labour of others, they had still less chance of ending their days in the poorhouse.

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Sec. 13. The System of Transportation. In these days of rapid transit it is difficult to imagine the times when the products of mill, mine, and farm were laboriously and slowly dragged to markets in waggons, canal boats, or on horseback. A large portion of the traffic was carried on in 1760 at the markets and great_annual '. fairs. Buyers and sellers, with droves of pack-horses, went over the country buying raw material and selling manufactured stuffs. The roads were far from the best, adding to the difficulties of transportation. Arthur Young, in one of his travels, mentions one hundred and twentythree roads, fifty-three of which were good, twenty-seven vile, and forty-one indifferent. He frequently gives us bits of description as expressive as the following:-" To Wigan. I know not, in the whole range of language, terms sufficiently expressive to describe this infernal road. To look over the map, and perceive that it is a principal one, not only to some towns but even to whole counties, one would naturally conclude it to be at least decent; but let me most seriously caution all travellers who may accidentally purpose to travel this terrible country to avoid it as they would the devil; for a thousand to one but they break their necks or limbs by overthrows or breakings down. They will here meet with ruts which I actually measured four feet deep, and floating with mud from a wet summer; what, therefore, must it be after a winter?" There were, however, many excellent turnpikes which permitted of comparatively easy and rapid transportation. The problem of transportation received considerable attention toward the close of the

century. "The canal system was being rapidly developed throughout the country. In 1777 the Grand Trunk canal, ninety-six miles 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, ninety miles in length, made a water-way from London through Oxford to the chief midland towns. Some years afterwards the roads were greatly improved under Telford and Macadam." Though the rivers and canals afforded less expensive means of shipping, the effect of the cost on trade and industry can scarcely be estimated. The primitive system of transportation, combined with restrictions on apprentices and the Act of Settlement and general ignorance of opportunities open in various parts of the country, prevented that mobility of labour and capital which characterises modern industry.

Sec. 14.-Politics and Government. The study of history reveals that human progress has not been continuous and regular, but intermittent and spasmodic, often depending upon apparently accidental causes. It is difficult to get a cross-section view of society at any given stage. As Fustel de Coulanges has said of feudalism: "It is a body infinitely vast, with many organs, changing aspects, and complex life." Society, in progress, is like a stream of many different-coloured liquids, blending and mixing, stagnant, crystallising, and crystallised in places; dissolving, rushing, widening, deepening in others. It is easy to give statistics and classify the laws of certain periods, but so complex and labyrinthine are the problems of political and social development that the most careful and tentative descriptive phrase must be merely provisional. If we

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