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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A.D. 1689 —1776. Different ocalities competed in 1 national market 356 PARLIAMENTARY COLBERTISM of which so much complaint had been made in Tudor times, did not by any means cease when the profit on sheep-farming declined’. Some of the displaced population migrated to other commons, some to towns? and some appear to have emigrated?, The difficulty of following the effects of the change 18 greatly increased by the fact that substantial loss in certain districts must be set against the gain in others. By new methods of manuring it was possible to bring land into cultivation which had never been tilled before. The ex- hausted common fields could not compete against the produce is contrary to the interest of the nation (1732), Brit. Mus. T. 1856 (8). He argues that if inclosure became more general there would be less agricultural employ- ment, and that the by-employments of spinning and manufacturing wool would also decline as well as all the subsidiary village trades,—such as wheelwrights, smiths, etc. (pp. 3, 7, 8). See also the Enquiry into the reasons for and against Inclosing the open Fields (1767), Brit. Mus. 1959 (3), p- 29, where special reference is made to Leicestershire. In a reply to this pamphlet Pennington argues that if the processes of manufacture are included, the raising of wool affords far more opportunities of employment, before it is ready for the use of the consumer, than the raising of corn. [Reflections on the various advantages resulting from the draining, snclosing and allotting of large commons (1769), P. 19. The same line of argument had been taken by Homer (Essay on the Nature and Method of ascertaining the Specific shares of proprietors upon the Inclosure of Common Fields (1766), p. 85; he looked with complacency on the movement of the popu- lation from the villages. “There is a natural Transition of the Inhabitants of Villages, where the Labour of Agriculture is lessened, into Places of Trade, where onr Naval Superiority, as long as it lasts, will furnish Sources of perpetual Employment. Whether the hands, thus directed from Agriculture to Manu- facture, are not in that Station more useful to the Publick, than in their former, is an Enquiry which might perhaps be prosecuted with some Entertainment to the Reader.” 1 See above p. 101. Dyer writing in 1757 insists that enclosure is desirable in the interests of the quality of wool; but he is thinking of a flock in conjunction vith tillage. The Fleece: —Anderson—~Poets of Great Britain, 1%. 564. % Leonard, op. cit. 123. » « Inclosure with depopulation is a Canker to the Commonwealth. It needs no proof; woful experience shows how it unhouses thousands of people, till lesperate need thrusts them on the gallows. Long since had this land been sick of a plurisie of people, if not let blood in their Western Plantations.” Fuller, Holy State (1642), Bk. 11. ¢. 13. Also in the following century. Cursory Remarks on Enclosure by a Country Farmer, 1786, p. 6. ¢ “The Downs or Plains which are generally called Salisbury plain...were formerly left open to be fed by the large flocks of sheep so often mentioned ; but now so much of the Downs are ploughed up as has increased the Quantity of Corn produced in this country in a prodigions Manner and lessened their Quantity of Wool, as above; all which had been done by folding the sheep upon the plow'd ands, removing the fold every night to a fresh Place, till the whole Piece of Ground has been folded upon; this and this alone, has made these lands, which in ihemselves are poor, able to bear as good wheat as any of the richer lands in the

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