the Industrial Revolution

INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION, THE. When we say of a society that it has passed through the industrial revolution we have in mind a definite picture of its life and power. We are thinking of a society that makes great use of machinery, con ducts its operations in industry and commerce on a large scale, and supplies the needs of its simplest members by an elaborate series of world-wide exchanges. The creation of any such society must be in some respects a gradual development. Certain features of our modern economic life can be traced back to the days when Columbus and the great sailors of his time put Europe in touch with the New World and the Far East; others to the history of the Crusades, when a brisk trade was conducted by the chief Italian cities in the rich textiles of Syria; others to the earlier history of Europe when classical Greece, the successors of Alex ander the Great, and the Roman empire in turn exploited the wealth of the Mediterranean basin. There was large capital in vested in industry as well as in commerce before the i8th century, and even so modern a phenomenon as mass-production was not altogether unknown before the industrial revolution. No people and no age could pass directly from a primitive and simple econ omy to a life so complicated as that of modern Britain or modern Germany. Some critics, surveying these earlier tendencies, doubt whether the term "industrial revolution" is appropriate, arguing that revolution implies sudden and catastrophic change. But a closer examination shows that the great inventions which dis tinguished the 18th and i9th centuries played so decisive a part in creating the new kind of society that the term industrial revo lution, invented by a Frenchman and made familiar by Arnold Toynbee, is not too violent a description of the changes they pro duced. It is now an established phrase, like the Renaissance, or the middle ages, with a well-understood meaning and content.

England the Pioneer.

We mean, then, by the industrial rev olution the change that transforms a people with peasant occupa tions and local markets into an industrial society with world-wide connections. This change has come to different peoples at differ ent times. There are parts of the world, like China, where it did not begin till the loth century began. It came first in England because the English people had favourable political. institutions, internal free trade, advantages of climate and geographical posi tion, considerable experience of foreign trading, special connections with the New World and abundance of coal. In the first phases of the revolution coal mattered much less than it did afterwards, for the first great mechanical inventions in the textile industries were worked by water-power, and rapid industrial development was possible at this stage without coal. This explains why France made such rapid progress as an industrial nation before the French Revolution. France had great inventors like Jacquard and Vaucanson, and she had a richer foreign trade than Great Brit ain. But when a series of inventions had made coal the chief source of economic power, France was at a great disadvantage. As late as 1847 she produced only 5,000,000 tons of coal, whereas the English production so early as i800 was io,000,000 tons, and from 1845 it was over 34,000,000. If France had kept the fron tiers established by the Treaty of Amiens, her history would have been very different, for that treaty left her with the Belgian coal-fields.

The Revolution in Iron.

The inventions which gave this predominant importance to coal began with the discoveries by the two Abraham Darbys and by Henry Cort of methods of using coal instead of charcoal in blast furnaces and forges. Before these discoveries iron manufacture depended on charcoal. It was therefore carried on mainly in counties like Sussex with ex tensive woodlands. But by the early 18th century the industry was in great difficulties, for the supplies of fuel were giving out. When the Darbys, Cort, John Wilkinson and James Watt had revolutionized the industry the difficulties vanished, coal took the place of charcoal, and the iron manufacturer could set up his plant in the neighbourhood of coal-fields. So the industrial revo lution created the black country, and enabled England to turn to account the good fortune which had given her abundance of coal, and coal conveniently placed near her ports. Between 172o and 1788 the production of pig-iron in England grew from 25,000 to 68,000 tons; between 1788 and 1839 it grew from 68,000 to tons.

The Textile Revolution.

The revolution in the manufac ture of iron which created the black country was accompanied by a revolution in the textile industries which transformed Lan cashire and the West Riding. This revolution was started by a series of inventions in the i8th century. The flying shuttle was in vented by John Kay in ; the spinning jenny was patented by James Hargreaves in 17 7o ; a roller spinning frame, worked by water-power was patented by Richard Arkwright in 1769 and the mule which enabled English mills to match the delicate muslins produced by Indian fingers was invented by Samuel Crompton in 1779. The cotton industry established by these discoveries was conducted at first by water-power, but before the end of the century its progress and its power received a great stimulus from the most important of all the discoveries of the industrial revolution.

Steam Power.

Profiting by the earlier pioneer work of Thomas Savery and Thomas Newcomen, Watt learnt how to make steam the servant of man's will. By his invention of the separate condenser, patented in 1769, he produced a new type of engine. In his early engines steam was used to force a piston up and down, and they were mainly used for pumping water in mines, but Watt went on to devise a method by which steam could be applied to rotary movements as well, and this was in some respects the most important of his discoveries. From that time there was scarcely any limit to the range of the invention, which revolutionized one industry after another. In the textiles the new power was first applied to spinning ; later it was used for weaving, as the result of a series of inventions, beginning with the imperfect power-loom patented by the Rev. Edmund Cartwright in 1785. The effect was to give new freedom to the industry, which was now inde pendent of water-power, just as the iron industry was independ ent of woodland. The growth of the cotton industry was the most sensational event of the early revolution. In 1764 England imported 4,000,000 lb. of cotton wool, in 1833 she imported 300, 000,000 pounds. A table drawn up by the Chamber of Commerce at Mulhouse in 1835 shows that in that year England produced over 6o% of the cotton goods consumed in the world ; France 16 % ; the United States 7 % ; Switzerland, Saxony, Prussia and Belgium between them a little less.

This expansion of the industry involved, of course, a great increase in the demand for raw cotton. When first the industry began to grow England and France competed for a deficient sup ply. At that time the West Indian islands provided more cot ton than the continent of America. The United States had a great deal of short stapled cotton, which could not be exported profit ably, because the cotton adhered so closely to the seeds that it was difficult and costly to prepare it for export. But in Eli Whitney invented a saw-gin which enabled this cotton to be cleansed, and from that time the United States became the chief source of supply. This invention led incidentally to a great exten sion of slavery in the southern States, for slaves were especially suitable for growing cotton in the river beds.

The woollen and worsted industries were older than the cotton industry, and in their case these technical improvements were in troduced more gradually. They led to the concentration of both industries in the West Riding, the worsted industry declining in the eastern counties, and the woollen in the south-west.

Canals.—It is important to notice that the cotton industry was established on a large scale while England was still depending on canals and roads for transport. There had been a great devel opment of road making and canal making in the i8th century, in consequence, partly, of the agrarian revolution. This revolution, which increased rapidly the system of large tenant farming, with landlords applying their capital to improvement, made farming much more productive. It was effected partly by Enclosure Acts which were passed through parliament, setting up commissioners to enclose the common fields and the common wastes. Under the old system individual freedom was limited by the rights of the commoners. By this change enterprising landlords could apply the lessons taught by Jethro Tull and other agricultural pioneers, who had discovered how to improve crops and stock. But the roads were in a very bad state, much worse than in contemporary France, and it was necessary to construct new roads and recon struct old ones, in order to enable corn and other agricultural products to be taken to the towns. So the governing class threw itself into road development, and turnpike trusts were set up all over the country for that purpose. Similar motives led to canal building. The most famous of the inventors in this field was James Brindley, who was commissioned by the duke of Bridge water to make a canal to connect his coal-field with Manchester. His success gave a stimulus to the movement, and the industrial districts of the north and the midlands were rapidly connected with each other and with the ports by a network of waterways. Railways.—But man's new servant, steam, was soon brought Into use for the purpose of transport. The first steam locomotive was tried at the Merthyr Tydfyl iron works in the early days of the i9th century. The founder of the British railway system was George Stephenson, the engineer of the Stockton and Darling ton railway, opened in 1825, and the designer of the engine which won the prize in the competition held at Rainhill in 1829. The success of the Liverpool and Manchester railway opened in 183o led to an age of feverish activity in railway building, and by 1848 nearly 5,000m. of railway line had been laid in Great Britain. This in its turn had a powerful influence on the metal industries. Sea transport changed more slowly; the first steamship crossed the Atlantic in 1819, and, by 1847, 6o or 7o steamships were turned out every year.

Engineering.—In some respects the most important of the results of Watt's discoveries was the use of machines for making machines. Mechanical engineering begins to be important in English history about 182o (the first textile machinery was made of wood), and with the rapidly growing demand for machinery from all parts of the world its importance grew at a rapid rate. The scope and power of the industry were increased by a series of inventions such as James Nasmyth's steam hammer in 1838, and by discoveries associated with the names of Henry Bessemer (1856), the brothers Siemens (1866) and Snelus (1879), which created the modern steel manufacture. All the metal industries were helped further by the chemical discoveries of which Michael Faraday had made a beginning in 1826, discoveries that created in their turn the successful chemical industries of Lancashire and Cheshire.

The effect of all this energy in scientific pursuits and industrial enterprises was to make England the leading representative of the new civilization : the workshop of the world. Her early progress was all important. For, as we have seen, England had an indus trial revolution before the railway era. In the two countries where industrial expansion was most rapid in the latter half of the 19th century, Germany and the United States, the industrial revolu tion began with the introduction of the railway. In earlier ages the chief obstacle to industrial development was the difficulty of land transport. In Germany and America this difficulty was re solved by the railways. In England, on the other hand, where the sea was nowhere very far distant, an industrial revolution was pos sible without the railways, because canals and roads could give access to the ports. It was mechanical engineering that received the greatest stimulus from the railways. Therefore, when the world wanted railways and docks, England was ready with the plant, the experience, the capital and the skill. Hence it was to English capital and English labour that the world turned for this task. But there was this difference between the early days of the revolution, when England sold piece goods all over the world, and the later, when she sold railways ; for the railways she sold were turning peasant into industrial societies, and it was certain that when this change had taken place, England's preponderant share in the trade of the world would decline. When the loth century opened England had powerful industrial rivals both in and out of Europe.

Electricity.—The 19th century was the century of steam. Before its close man had discovered in electricity an even more valuable servant. A new industrial revolution was thus set in train, a revolution of which we cannot yet forecast the conse quences. One effect is seen in the growth of motor industries in the home counties. The great industrial revolution concentrated industry in certain districts; Lancashire is the home of cotton, the West Riding of wool, Staffordshire of pottery, the great metal industries are found near the coal-fields. Electricity gives indus try again a wider choice, and the factory inspectors' reports for 1926 drew attention to the development of industries in the south of England. Transport is easier, and power can be made available in the country districts.

Social Results.—The conversion of a peasant to an industrial society brings with it great changes in a nation's habits and man ner of life. Of the changes that followed the first development of the new system, those that made the greatest impression on the thinkers and observers of the time were the great improve ment in production, and the opportunities this new world offered to individual talent and character. The great cheapening of com modities was illustrated in one of the publications of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, by the case of stockings. This little book, The Results of Machinery, put it thus : "Two centuries ago, not one person in a thousand wore stockings ; one century ago, not one person in five hundred wore them ; now, not one person in a thousand is without them." Life was in this sense easier, and the first impression made by this improvement led to a belief that the secret of progress was to allow every enterprising person to make what profit he could by any means that he chose. There was another way in which the early results of the revolu tion made enlightened persons suspicious of any attempt to inter fere with industry, or to control and direct the social life of the times. The revolution gave great opportunities to the workman who could save a little money and was shrewd and daring in in vesting it. Most of the early cotton spinners were men who had made their way. It might have been expected that the new indus trial capitalists would come from the class of merchant capitalists who financed the woollen industry, but in fact they came from men of small beginnings. Robert Owen, for example, one of the most successful of them, owed his success to a loan of II oo. The exhilarating atmosphere of a world in which men could make their own careers helps to explain the optimism of the time, and the disregard of evils which called for action.

Evils of the New Town Life.

For the industrial revolution had produced mischief of which the consequences still pursued the British people in the loth century. That revolution found Great Britain without any effective system of local government. The country districts were in the hands of the country gentlemen, acting as magistrates, and the towns were unorganized for any of the more important purposes of administration. Manchester, which had a population of a quarter of a million, was at the time of the Reform bill administratively a collection of villages governed by a court leet. It is not surprising, therefore, that the towns which sprang up so rapidly, as the textile and metal industries expanded, were quite unable to handle the new prob lems, and that their uncontrolled growth made the new town life hideous and squalid. In the 'forties, when parliament had been re formed, and a spirit of enquiry was active the state of the towns was examined by committees and commissions, such as the Health of Towns Commission, and their appalling condition was revealed. A first effort to reform those conditions was made by the Public Health Act of 1848, but the problem proved too difficult, and the several attempts that were made in the 19th century showed how fatal was the mischief done in the early days when there was no legislation to cope with the new conditions.

The Regulation of Factories.—The revolution had made this problem of town life acute and pressing. It created also new industrial relationships which soon caused strife and discontent. Before the textile industries passed into the factory, spinning and weaving were done either in the workers' homes or in the house of a small master. Spinning was woman's work and weaving man's work. In the mill, spinning was mainly men's work and weaving women's work, but both weavers and spinners depended on the help of children. The early mills had difficulty in getting labour, for they were built on streams in districts where there was little population. The difficulty was got over by the supply of children from the workhouses. The hardships of these children led to an agitation and it was made illegal to apprentice children 4om. from home. But by this time the use of steam-power had made it possible to put up factories in or near towns, and the apprentice children were no longer needed. The campaign against the long hours of children became a campaign against the long hours of the factory, for it proved in practice impossible to shorten the hours of children without restricting the hours of the factory, and this campaign was brought to success in 1847, when parlia ment passed the Ten Hours Act, for which Shaftesbury (then Lord Ashley) had fought since 1833. Factory legislation and factory inspection were gradually extended to other industries in the course of the century. In this department of government England has led the way.

Trade Unions.

Large-scale industry in engineering and min ing as well as in the factory created a different relationship be tween employer and employed than the sort of relationship which existed in the days of the craftsman. The place of the guild was taken by combinations of employers and employed. Strikes and combinations were not unknown before the industrial revolu tion, but the revolution gave a new importance and a new scope to trade unions. Their rights and their liabilities became one of the acute questions of politics. A fierce act against trade unions, called the Combination Act, was passed in I799, modified in 1800, and repealed in 1824. Next year a new act defined the powers of the trade unions in such a way as to make effective combination very difficult. Trade unions did not obtain full recognition until after the workmen had been enfranchised in 1867. After the World War they were given a new place in public life by the in stitution of Whitley councils and similar bodies, composed of representatives of organizations of employers and workpeople.

Unemployment.

Another result of the industrial revolution was periodic mass-unemployment, a consequence of mass-produc tion. The revolution made industries interdependent, and by bringing the whole world into close economic relationships it made the industries of one country dependent on the conditions in remote places. A coal strike hits the textile industries; a dead lock in engineering holds up shipbuilding. The poverty or the quarrels of the Continent affect all British export industries; a political or commercial crisis in America may throw the cotton industry of Lancashire or the engineering industries of Newcastle into distress. Unemployment was not a new thing at the industrial revolution, but it is evident that a nation which is involved in this world economy is subject to vicissitudes that do not affect a more primitive community. It is sometimes said that the in dustrial revolution has substituted unemployment for famine as the nightmare of mankind.

Problems of Industrial Civilization.

The industrial revo lution has not had exactly the same consequences in all countries. For those consequences depended partly on the conditions preced ing the revolution and those conditions varied. English experi ence has been peculiar in one important respect. In England peasant farming disappeared with the agrarian revolution that began in the i6th century and ended in the 19th century. In other countries the peasant survived. France, for example, possesses important industries, but her people are mainly rural. Germany, much more industrial than France, has still a large peasant popu lation. In England the old peasant type of life, in which agricul ture and village crafts were combined, has vanished, whereas something of it remains in other countries that have passed through the industrial revolution.

But the industrial revolution has produced certain results that are common to industrial civilization. Thus one country after another has been obliged to copy the example of England and to legislate for the control of factories. Asia has followed Europe. Provision against unemployment by State or municipal insurance was first made in certain Continental countries, notably Germany and Belgium. Just before the war England established a scheme for a few industries, and after the war this scheme was extended to cover almost every industry except agriculture. In almost every industrial country this problem has received attention. If we want to realize how much the industrial revolution has done to create common problems and to suggest common remedies we have only to glance at the publications of the International Labour Office of the League of Nations, or to consider what reforms it pursues by conference and convention. In every country the same problems and the same remedies are under discussion : unemploy ment insurance, factory acts, hours of work, minimum rates of wages, the rights of trade unions, family endowment. One effect of the all-embracing system which the revolution has established has been to standardize the occupations, the cares and even the amusements of man. The cinema is as much the mark of the modern world as the factory; the railway as the football or base ball field; the wireless talk as the trade union. It is by these in stitutions that the modern traveller is reminded, as the mediaeval traveller was reminded by cathedrals and monasteries. that he can leave his own country without passing into a wholly strange and separate world.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.-Arnold Toynbee, The Industrial Revolution of the Bibliography.-Arnold Toynbee, The Industrial Revolution of the i8th century in England (new ed., 1908) ; L. C. A. Knowles, The Industrial and Commercial Revolutions in Great Britain during the nineteenth century (rev. ed., 1922) ; J. A. Hobson, The Evolution of Modern Capitalism (rev. ed., 1926) ; J. H. Clapham, Economic His tory of Modern Britain: The Early Railway Age (1926) ; J. L. and Barbara Hammond, The Rise of Modern Industry (new ed., 1927) . Paul Mantoux, The Industrial Revolution in the Eighteenth Century (rev. ed. 1928) . (J. L. H.)