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of the national state." Within the nation it tended to make trade free.

It was characteristic of the mercantile system, too, to interfere in the conduct of internal trade. Prices, wages, and the rules of apprenticeship were fixed by public authority. The quality of goods was inspected by public officials. Patents of monopoly on the sale of certain commodities, such as gunpowder, matches, and playing cards, were extensively granted by royal authority to favored individuals or companies, ostensibly to foster new industries.

"At the Council of York, Charles was obliged to declare many of the industrial patents void; but enough remained to call forth an indignant declamation from Sir J. Colepepper in the Long Parliament: 'I have but one Grievance more to offer unto you; but this one compriseth many; it is a nest of wasps, or swarm of vermin, which have overcrept the land, I mean the monopoler and polers of the people. These like the frogs of Egypt, have got possession of our dwellings, and we have scarce a room free from them; they sip in our cup, they dip in our dish, they sit by our fire; we find them in the dye-vat, wash-bowl, and powdery tub; they share with the butler in his box, they have marked us and sealed us from head to foot. Mr. Speaker, they will not bate us a pin; we may not buy our own cloaths without their brokage. These are the leeches that have sucked the commonwealth so hard that it is almost become hectical. And some of these are ashamed of their right names; they have a vizard to hide the brand made by that good law in the last Parliament of King James; they shelter themselves under the name of a corporation; they make bye-laws which serve their turns to squeeze us and to fill their purses; unface these and they will prove as bad curs as any in the pack. These are not petty chapmen, but wholesale men.'

1

A full account of this stage in English history would deal with (1) the regulation of labor, including the Statute of Artificers passed in the reign of Elizabeth, which provided that all ablebodied men might be compelled to serve as agricultural laborers, and that all artificers, rural or urban, should undergo an apprenticeship of at least seven years. In this same reign provision was made for the assessment of wages by the Justices of the Peace. Every year in each locality the justices were to assemble, and, "calling to them such discreet and grave persons . . . as they

1 Cunningham, English Commerce and Industry, Modern Times, Part I. pp. 307-8.

shall think meet, and conferring together respecting the plenty or scarcity of the time," they were to fix the wages for every kind of manual labor, skilled or unskilled, by the year, week, or day, and with or without allowance of food. (2) The stage would deal further with the development of systematic poor relief by civil authority; (3) the encouragement of shipping and of (4) the immigration of foreign artisans to introduce new industries; (5) the regulation of the corn trade; (6) the establishing of plantations in the colonies; (7) the regulation of the coinage; (8) the development of banking, insurance, and foreign commerce, and the decay of the old notions regarding the sinfulness of interest taking.

V. THE INDUSTRIAL STAGE

In the latter part of the eighteenth century, the slow-going methods of the handicraft stage were radically changed by the Industrial Revolution. The fundamental feature of this change is the introduction of power manufacture. The industrial revolution and the chief features of the Industrial stage will be discussed in the following chapter.

Before proceeding to the consideration of the last stage, it may be well to notice some of the other views which have been expressed concerning the periods of economic development. The German economist, Hildebrand, has taken as his principle of classification the method of exchanging goods, and from this standpoint he gets the following three stages: (1) barter, (2) money, and (3) credit. All three methods of exchanging, to be sure, are in use at the present time, but the extensive use of credit is the new and characteristic thing about present-day exchange. It has been objected that the period before the use of money became prominent is characterized not so much by the barter of goods as by the fact that exchange itself is unimportant.

Another writer (Bücher) has divided economic history according to the length of time which elapses between the production and the consumption of commodities, as follows:

1. The independent domestic economy.

2. The town economy.

3. The national economy.

In the first stage the interval between the production and consumption is small. Things are produced where they are consumed, as in the village communities of the early middle ages. In the town economy the interval is somewhat greater. The artisans in the town produce for the consumption of other persons, for the most part in the immediate neighborhood, so that the producer meets the consumer without intermediaries. In the third stage, production is for a national market, so that goods may pass through many hands before reaching the consumer. Possibly, according to this view, a fourth stage might be added, that of a world economy.

Again, we might pay attention chiefly to the condition of labor. Beginning with a condition where there is no distinct laboring class, we pass through slavery and serfdom to free labor, regulated at first by law and custom, and then the free laborer arranges

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the conditions of work by individual contract, and finally to an increasing extent by group contract or collective bargaining.

These various classifications are not contradictory; on the contrary, they supplement each other. Still other divisions are possible. In the preceding table these various points of view are correlated and applied to the history of England.

QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES

1. Write a description of the economic life of a tribe in one of the first two stages.

2. What are the theories concerning the origin of cannibalism?

3. What is the extent of slavery in Africa at the present time?

4. Sketch the development of the woolen industry in England to 1760. 5. Give an account of the origin of the Bank of England.

6. Summarize the history of poor relief in England.

REFERENCES

ANDREWS, C. M. The Old English Manor.

ASHLEY, W. J.

English Economic History, Vol. I.

BÜCHER, KARL.
CHEYNEY, E. P.

Industrial Evolution (trans. by S. M. Wickett).

Industrial and Social History of England, Chaps. I to VII. CUNNINGHAM, W. Growth of English Industry and Commerce, Vol. I (Middle Ages) and Vol. II (Mercantile System).

ELY, R. T. Evolution of Industrial Society, Part I, Chap. III.

LUBBOCK, SIR JOHN.

Prehistoric Times, Chap. I.

MORGAN, L. H. Ancient Society, Chap. I.

PRICE, L. L. A Short History of English Commerce and Industry, Chaps. I to VIII.

PRICE, W. H. English Patents of Monopoly.

RATZEL, F. History of Mankind (trans. by A. J. Butler), 3 vols.

SCHMOLLER, G. The Mercantile System (Economic Classics, edited by W. J.

Ashley).

SEEBOHM, F. The English Village Community.

STANLEY, H. M. In Darkest Africa, Vol. I, Chap. XXIII.

WALLACE, A. R.

Russia (edition of 1905), Chap. VIII.

WARNER, T. Landmarks in English Industrial History, Chaps. I to XIV.

CHAPTER IV

THE EVOLUTION OF ECONOMIC SOCIETY (Continued)

The Industrial Revolution. The passage from the handicraft to the industrial stage in England is generally known as the Industrial Revolution. It has been objected that this term is misleading because the introduction of the modern factory system required many years and was but the working out of conditions that had been long maturing. It is true that the growth in the division of labor, the expansion of commerce, and the technical progress of former ages were necessary preliminaries to the industrial revolution, but there is little danger of overemphasizing the importance or the rapidity of the change. The period from 1770 to 1840, the span of a single life, is, after all, a short period from the standpoint of the historian. Yet the changes of this period swept away the inefficient methods that had been used for centuries, and caused profound modifications in social structure. To understand the nature of this movement, we must review the condition of things before it began.

England in 1760. England was at this time largely self-sufficing in its economic life, producing for itself its food and other articles of ordinary consumption, although compared with mediæval days there had been a marked expansion of international and colonial trade. Woolen goods were the most important export. The imports consisted largely of wines, spirits, rice, sugar, coffee, oil, and furs, and some wool, hemp, silk, and linen yarn. Within the nation, too, there was not such a degree of specialization of industry in particular localities as is found at the present day, although the beginning of such localization had clearly been made in the textile and iron industries. On the whole, however, the commerce between the different sections of the country was

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