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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LAISSEZ FAIRE had been carried out, partly at Government expense, in the east of Cape Colony in 18201, The condition of affairs which had been brought about in England by the Industrial Revolution, predisposed several of the leading economists of the time to look favourably on emigration as the best remedy for existing evils. They made a careful diagnosis of the ills that affected society, and came to the conclusion that territorial expansion and emigration would afford the greatest measure of relief. The leading exponent of these new views was Mr E. G. Wakefield, and he succeeded in rallying round him a very remarkable group of men; expression was given to his views by Dr Hinds, the Dean of Carlisle, by Mr Charles Buller in the House of Commons, and most important of all by John Stuart Mill in his Principles of Political Economy. Mr Wakefield and his coadjutors were theorists; they arrived at their views on a question of practical political administration by reasoning based on accepted economic doctrines. Since the time of Malthus it had become a commonplace to maintain that there was a redundancy of population in as a means the country’; but the colonising school maintained that this i relieving : ’ ngland = Tedundancy was felt in every class of society, and not merely JI nt among the poorest’. They also urged that England was population gyffering from a plethora of capital; they argued that the glethonef steady formation of capital, while no new fields for enterprise capi v . . . “,. PH Were available, led in an ordinary way to feverish competition above, p. 845.) In this connection the following sentences are of interest. “Towards 1825, the year of the organization of the Canada Company, the reduced scale of the Army and Navy and the economy introduced into all departments, withdrew many sources of income. Manufactures and trade were only advantageous when carried on upon a large scale, with low profits upon 2xtensive capital. There remained only the learned professions, with clerkships In banks, insurance companies and similar establishments, For these pursuits an increased population, and the rapid growth of education, caused a keen com- petition. This secured for national purposes a great degree of talent; but the pressure on the middle classes grew yearly heavier. There were many who possessed small capital—from five hundred to one thousand pounds—but it was not everyone who possessed the judgment and industry required for a life in the bush.” Lizars, In the Days of the Canada Company, 19. 1 Egertgn, A Short History of British Colonial Policy, 272. 2 Emigration seems to have been looked on as the best means of relieving this country of paunperism (Reports 1826, Iv. 4), and an immense amount of attention was given to it. See the Index in Reports 1847, Lv. pl. 4. 3 Wakefield, A View of the Art of Colonisation, 66, 74. R58

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