532 PARLIAMENTARY COLBERTISM 
1 D.1689 deeply indebted to their masters, and thus sank to a position 
—1776. 
prepa of absolute dependence’. In other cases the system of 
yo apprenticeship operated so as to produce similar results. 
toe. « Here,” said the commissioners in Staffordshire, in 1842, 
«is a slavery in the middle of England as reprehensible as 
ever was the slavery in the West Indies, which justice and 
humanity alike demand should no longer be endured?” The 
publicity thus given appears to have been of advantage? and 
a considerable improvement took place within the next few 
years. 
The sm- 932. The increased demand for coal as fuel and the 
nal prospect of opening up new beds so as to obtain a profit- 
water co, able return was the direct motive for the first serious 
attempt to improve internal communication by water. The 
Duke of Bridgewater, with the help of James Brindley, 
embarked on a great scheme for connecting Worsley with 
Manchester by a canal, so as to effect a saving in the cost 
of carting coal from his pits to the growing city. The 
success which attended his achievement led to its being 
imitated in many other places, with the result that in the 
course of a few years England was covered with a net-work 
of canals. 
The fact that it was possible to sink money in such large 
and expensive undertakings is in itself an indication thab 
sapital was more readily available. Many of the schemes 
which were now carried out had been mooted more than a 
hundred years before. In Holland the facilities for water 
communication were obvious to every passing traveller, and 
an immense amount had been done under Henri IV. to 
improve the rivers and construct canals in France®. There 
were plenty of models for Englishmen to copy; but they 
had not the means of effecting such costly improvements. 
Varranton Was a writer who argued that the problem of 
providing an adequate food supply for London and other 
kad often 
been 
projected, 
189 Geo. III. c. 56, § 6. This measure seems to have proved effective. 
Reports, etc., 1844, XVI. 9. 
2 Reports, etc., 1842, Xv. 54, printed pag. 42. 8 Reports, 1844, xv1. 56. 
1 See the third instruction to the Commission of 1650. Parl. or Const. Hist. 
t1x. 315. Also 16 and 17 Charles 11. ce. 6, 11, 12 (private). 
5 Faoniez. Economie sociale de la France sous Henri IV., p. 188.