4 Cunningham : " Growth of English Industry and Commerce in Modern Times," p. 593.
India Company were abolished, introducing a regime of free competition in the commerce of the East. Steam power was applied to The conclusions em bodied in the report of the Bullion Committee had been accepted, specie payments had been resumed, and the cur rency had thus been placed upon a stable The industrial revolution was complete, the new factory system having replaced the old system of domestic manu factures. The temporary distress caused by the loss of by-occupations for agricultural laborers had passed away, and the national industries had adjusted themselves to the new conditions. Agriculture itself had also undergone a revolution by which the modern system had replaced that which had prevailed with slight changes for centuries. By drainage, fertilization, and the better means of com munication, the productiveness of the land had been vastly increased at the very time when the division of labor had been brought about so that those who remained on the farm devoted their energies entirely, to farm In this process individuals undoubtedly suffered, but the nation at large greatly The wasteful system of common holdings had disappeared. The enclosures which 1 The expansion which has taken place in our foreign commerce was not so much due to the breaking down of [the] old monopolies as to the improvements in the physical means of communication. — Cunningham : " Growth of English Industry and Commerce in Modern Times," p. 596.
2 How great an effect a change of this kind in the monetary standard of value may have is sufficiently obvious to American students of the period since 1897.
Cunningham : " Growth of English Industry and Commerce in Modern Times," p. 657.
4 If things were very bad in 1821, they had begun to recover during the next decade, as the Parliamentary Committee of 1833 reported that the general condition of the agricultural laborer in full employment was better than at any former period, and that his money wages gave him a greater command over the comforts of life. — Cunningham : " Growth of English Industry and Commerce in Modern Times," p. 652.
Compare with this Marshall's account of the conditions at the begin ning of the century : The eighteenth century wore on to its close and the next century began ; year by year the condition of the working classes in England became more gloomy. An astonishing series of bad harvests,
a most exhausting war, a change in the methods of industry that dislo cated old ties, combined with an injudicious poor law to bring the working classes into the greatest misery they have ever suffered, at all events since the beginning of trustworthy records of English social history. " Principles of Economics," p. 233..
took place at the end of the eighteenth century and at the beginning of the nineteenth, while depriving the poor of rights which they had enjoyed, permitted the introduction of a more rational use of land, offering great contrasts to the enclosures which had been so fiercely denounced in the sixteenth century, and as a result of which grazing as a rule replaced Other changes were made in the first third of the nine teenth century, which, although of a different character, still exercised a marked influence upon the character of large elements of the population. In spite of the severe law against combinations of workingmen the trade-union movement then made its successful struggle for existence. Ten years before the Poor Law Commission entered upon its duties Parliament had passed a bill to repeal all the combination laws and to legalize trade societies. While the immediate effect of this repeal was the organization of a large number of unions, frequent strikes and serious disturbances, this effect again was temporary ; and by the time which especially concerns us the trade-union move ment had become a means of strengthening the position of the laborer and increasing his wages, and especially had become a recognized means of preventing the possibility of shifting to wages the temporary burdens of hard It had been anticipated by those who had been most active in carrying this reform that the repeal of the laws against combinations, and the consequent stopping of the perse cutions which such laws had made possible, would result in the virtual disappearance of trade-unions. It was felt that these had existed only because of oppression and that they would fall to pieces with the introduction of equality before the law. Such forecasts were not fulfilled. The trade-union movement did, perhaps, occupy less exclusively 3 Cunningham : " Growth of English Industry and Commerce in Modern Times," p. 487.