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

Usage license:: Get license information via the feedback formular.

A.D. 1689 —1776. wing to the uctua- tions of trade, there was a reaction rgainst stringent wo ‘ration in 1789, PARLIAMENTARY COLBERTISM instead of Thieves, etc., is owing to the different Effects which Necessity produces in different People, according to their Turn of Mind, Time of Life, etc., and not to another Cause’.” The peasant with his own holding was rooted to the soil, the labourer who worked for wages was dependent apon trade. “The Real Strength” of a country, he says, “doth not consist in the Number of Men who live there, but in those who Defend it; and the Source of that astonishing Disparity between the One and the Other in England, is Removing multitudes of people from our natural and fixed Basis, Land, to the Artificial and Fluctuating Basis, Trade.” His insight was abundantly justified, in the evil days of the Industrial Revolution, and he gave axpression to a feeling which many people shared, and which sventually found expression in parliamentary enactments. The turn of the tide was marked by the passing of silbert’s Act in 1782 At the Restoration the parishes of Zngland had been armed with powers for defending them- selves against the poor*; on the eve of the Industrial Revo- lution, facilities were given for granting relief lavishly. The new Act Was an experimental measure, and did not apply to the whole country, but only to those parishes which decided bo adopt it, and to unite with others. In these new Incorpora- sions the practice of contracting for the labour of the poor was brought under strict supervision; able-bodied men were not set to tasks in the house, but were encouraged to take such employment as they could get in the district, and might have their wages supplemented by parochial allowances. The work- house test practically ceased to operate, since the houses in ‘he Gilbert Unions were employed for the reception of the impotent? rather than as Houses of Industry. At the same time, the responsibility for carrying out the provisions of the measure was transferred from the parochial officials to men of better social status, who,as guardians and justices of the peace, acted for the several parishes combined in a Union; in the dis- bricts where Gilbert's Act was adopted, the churchwardens and + 4 Plan, etc., 50. 2 Jb. p. 69. 8 22 Geo. ITI. c. 83. 1 Sir G. Coode, Report on the Law of Settlement, in Reports, 1851, XxVI. 251, orinted pag. 57. § Parl. Hist. xxi. 301. 8 T. Gilbert, Considerations on the bills for the better relief of the poor (1787),18 378

Access restriction

Copyright

fullscreen: The Industrial Revolution

Monograph

Table of contents

Download

Monograph

This page

Image fragment

Citation links

Citation recommendation