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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THE PROBLEMS OF POVERTY 571 most woods for them to burn and destroy?, and when they have consumed it, then to another parish, and at last ’ become rogues and vagabonds, t6 the great discouragement of parishes to provide stocks, where it is liable to be devoured by strangers.” According to the preamble the statute was aimed at this vagrant class, and gave powers to remove a new-comer within forty days, if there was a danger of his becoming chargeable to a parish, to the place where he had last been legally settled. But like so many which pieces of social regulation it had most unforeseen effects, and imposed a measure, which had been intended to fix local responsibility i and check vagrancy, came in the succeeding century to have labouring ’ . . . poor. a most disastrous effect on the English artisan®. It inter- fered with the employment of the industrious, and it chained the unemployed to districts where no work could be obtained. In the course of the eighteenth century, when industry was migrating to new centres, it must have tended to the creation of a class of pauperised artisans® in addition to the half- vagrant cottagers on the commons. Though there seems to have been a considerable develop- ment of commerce, with a healthful reaction on industry, during the years which intervened between the Restoration and the Revolution, it is perfectly clear that the unemployed class was not absorbed by the increased opportunities of i The importance of woods as the chief source of fuel comes out in these discussions. One of the severest attacks of a socialistic kind, on the privileges of manorial lords, was a claim on the part of commoners to have their share in all wood grown on the commons. Declaration from the poor oppressed people of England (1649) (Brit. Mus. 1027. i. 16 (3)]. There were also complaints that rich men who put large flocks on the commons for a time, and ate them bare, gained at the expense of other commoners, Hartlib's Legacie, 54. The destruction of commons and need of enclosing in the interest of commoners comes out in regard to Herefordshire. 4 James IL. ¢. 11. 2 Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations, pp. 57-59, 191. 8 Massie noticed a general course of migration, “from Rural Parishes to Market Towns, and from both of them to the Capital City; so that great Multi- tudes of People, who were born in Rural Parishes are continually acquiring Settlements in Cities or Towns, more especially in those towns where considerable manufacturies are carried on; and as Trade is not only of a fluctuating Nature, but many Towns in England carry on Manufacturies of the same Kind, and are always gaining or losing with respect to each other, although there be an encrease of Manufacturies upon the Whole ; it must necessarily follow, that there will be frequent Ebbings in the Manufacturies of one or other of our Trading Towns.” Massie, 4 Plan for the Establishment of Charity Houses. p. 99.

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