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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ECONOMIC EXPERTS 739 National interests seemed to be involved! in giving play to Ad, 176 the captains of industry to manage their own affairs without let or hindrance. Those who regarded freedom for enterprise as an ideal, were inclined to insist that it was a natural right which had been preserved by constitutional safeguards? A Committee of the House of Commons gave a new reading of the rights of Englishmen. “The right of every man to Te vigour employ the Capital he inherits or has acquired according to they in- his own discretion without molestation or obstruction, so long ee as he does not infringe on the rights or property of others is Por one of those privileges which the free and happy Constitution of this Country has long accustomed every Briton to consider as his birth-right2” The body to whom these words were addressed had definitely adopted the standpoint of the economic experts of the day, and they in turn constituted themselves the apologists of the enterprising capitalists. In looking back we can see that, while it was necessary to sweep away the barriers to industrial progress, something might have been done to mitigate the evils by which the change was accompanied. But the House of Commons came to believe that all attempts at interference with the free play of enter- amd ~ prise were mischievous, and the language adopted by economic rraditional experts accentuated the differences and widened the breach oe between the various elements in the community. The prac- tical partisanship of such classical writers as Ricardo, Malthus, and Mill, together with the pronouncements of the Manchester School, comes out in the attitude they took towards those who laid stress on elements other than capital in national prosperity. In the early part of the nineteenth century, the as to the working classes continued to hold to the Elizabethan view of Ti the the duty of the State to foster a busy and prosperous work- “rer ing class; and economic experts denounced them for their ignorance, and solemnly warned as to the consequences of andithe their shortsighted folly. The landed interest, who adhered to spiny the traditional principle as to the necessity of protecting and Hos encouraging agriculture, in order to maintain the food supply Jo 1 On the fact that the promotion of national economic interests must always favour the interests of certain classes to the disadvantage of others, see above, p. 16. % On the tradition of freedom in economic matters, see above, p. 286. Quoted by 8S. and B. Webb from Reports. 1806. mx. 12. 17 __ 9

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