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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562 PARLIAMENTARY COLBERTISM rates for ten years to come equal to the pressure which they have experienced during the last ten years, that so useful and respectable a set of men must necessarily be exterminated entirely ip many districts of the kingdom, and many re- spectable fathers and mothers of families would themselves become objects of that charity which they had been ruined to support; their farms would, on the first vacancy, be purchased by neighbouring gentlemen or by opulent farmers; and eventually, by the entire suppression of small occu- pations, every hope would be taken away from the labouring poor of ever bettering their condition by renting and culti- vating a few acres for their own comfort and advantage.” The progress of agricultural improvements left its mark by drawing hard and fast lines of cleavage between the classes in rural society!; the smaller farmer who had succumbed in the struggle was all the more to be pitied, because the labouring class in which he had been merged was entering on a terrible period of privation and degradation? 236. The development of manufacturing had done much The to stimulate agricultural production, but it also had serious pressure of results in imposing fresh burdens on the proprietors of the Palin forth 50113. In many places the wage-earning population had no discussions 1 oang of support to fall back upon, in times of bad trade; the pressure of the poor rates was occasionally a very heavy burden, and prudent men were desirous of avoiding the risk of being exposed to it. Changed circumstances gave rise to new social problems, and there were some alterations in the administration of the Elizabethan system of poor relief; it was also supplemented by Private Bill legislation®, Still A.D. 1689 —1776. 1 Compare H. Levy, op. cit. p. 48 on the bitterness this change engendered. t See below pp. 713—715. 1 «This clothworking I have named a commodity of this country, and so is it generally taken to be and I suppose you conceive it is 80; and so it is a great use to the kingdom. But I may tell you secretly in council not so much for this country (some few excepted), to whom it is more burdensome than profitable; for having engrossed 80 great a trade it hath made the towns and country so populous that notwithstanding all their best endeavours in husbandry, yet yields hardly sufficient of bread, beer and victual to feed itself....And in every rumour of war or contagious sickness (hindering the sale of those commodities), makes a multitude of the poorer sort chargeable to their neighbours, who are bound to maintain them.” Westcote, 4 view of Devonshire in MDOXXX. On the inability of Devonshire to feed its large manufacturing population in 1620. see Giles. Parl. Hist. 1. 1196. 4 Clifford. Private Bill Legislation. 1. 266°. There were more than 150 local

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