The Industrial Revolution

Bibliographic data

Monograph

Identifikator:: 1027928145

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-159926

Document type:: Monograph

Author:: Cunningham, William http://d-nb.info/gnd/128907487

Title:: The Industrial Revolution

Place of publication:: Cambridge

Publisher:: The University Press

Year of publication:: 1922

Scope:: xxii S., S. 404-886

Digitisation:: 2021

Collection:: Economics Books

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478 PARLIAMENTARY COLBERTISM trade, and the importance attached to it, are a sufficient illustration of the manner in which English merchants were ready to push their commerce at the time; but it is worth ands of notice that subsequent events raised a doubt as to whether economic the trade had after all proved beneficial even on the lowest sdvaniage: grounds’. The labour, which was supplied by English ships to the plantations, enabled the foreign planters, as it was said, to develop more rapidly than they could otherwise have done; it was held that by carrying on this traffic, England had, after all, only succeeded in raising up competitors with whom we found it hard to cope. The There is, as might be expected, a great conflict of evidence Te in a8 to the manner of treatment which the slaves received. The ve Wot most favourable statement, as to the action of the planters, is that the negro race as a whole distinctly improved under the care of their masters®, physically, intellectually, and morally. The most serious evil in the condition of the West Indian slaves was imposed by a British Act of Parlia- ment, and in the interest of the British creditors of the planters’. In accordance with this Act, the home of the negro, who had lived for years on an estate, might be suddenly broken up, he himself sold to the continent, and his wife and children scattered. This was a matter of frequent occurrence, and could not be excused as an ex- ceptional outrage, like an occasional case of severe flogging. Those who held that, on the whole, the position of the slaves would not be improved by suddenly giving them freedom and ruining their masters, argued for such an alteration in by astrict- their legal condition that they should be astricted to the soil, oo eat and only sold as part of the estate; and this was effected by states. 4 Bill introduced by Mr Edwards in 1797¢, The West Indian islands had been highly prized on political grounds in the seventeenth century, as they might A.D. 1639 —1776. 1 Hochstetter, Die wirthschaftlichen und politischen Motive fiir die Abschaf- fung des britischen Sklavenhandels, 59. 2 Against this must be set the fact of the insurrection of the slaves in Jamaica in 1760 (Macpherson, ox. 329). The alleged attempts to incite to insurrection in southern colonies, during the American War of Independence, show that in common opinion the slaves were not at all contented with their condition. Burke, Parl. Hist. x1x. 698. 85 Geo. IT. c. 7. 4 87 Geo. IIL. ¢. 119: Edwards, op. cit. 11. 184 n.; Parl. Hist. xxx111. 831.

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