There were practically no people dispossessed by machinery in the cotton trade; instead there were increasing opportunities of employment, but other trades suffered. The demand for both light woolen and linen goods fell off as cotton was substituted. Still the weavers prospered. They continued to work up the yarn in their own homes, and it was not until the dislocation of trade brought about by the Napoleonic wars that they fell upon evil days. Gradually ma chinery was applied to weaving, and the race of hand-loom weavers died out amid great privations.
It was when machinery was applied to wool, that the real social upheaval came. It destroyed the by-employment of spinning throughout the whole of the country districts, and an elabo rate system of relief from the rates had to be devised to assist people over the crisis. This pauperized the whole of the south of England and degraded the agricultural laborers as a class.
The radical change in English life came that the real social upheaval came. It destroyed the old stability. A man had to follow his work to the towns and lost his little farm. Even when the factories were situated in the country he had to work regularly and could not take time off to attend to the garden as he could when working for himself. The regularity of the life, the tyranny of the factory bell, and the loss of independence were the things of which the worker most complained. The early fac tories, situated as they were in the country dis tricts, laid the workmen open to an appalling system of payment in kind called 'itrudc,° an evil only gradually remedied by a series of Acts of Parliament beginning in 1831, and ex tended in 1887 and 1896 to all manual workers except domestic servants.
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But more important than his dependence on Ins treatment by the master was the dependence of the workman on the state of trade. The sufferings during the Industrial Revolution in England were especially violent owing to the Continental System of Napoleon which shut out English goods from Europe except by smuggling between 1806-1812, and which was followed by the rupture with the United States, which cut off another very important market. After the peace of 1815 the utter exhaustion of the conti nent made Europe a bad customer, and England, equipped as she now was for production in bulk, suffered accordingly. The coming of machinery would have been a difficult time for any coun try, but the troubles were enormously aggra vated owing to the fluctuations of trade and the depression after the war. English exports de
creased in value between 1815 and 1825, and only began to recover about 1835, and to make a rapid advance in 1840. Nevertheless the in crease in trade when compared with that of 1750 was enormous.
The exports in 1750 were valued at 112,699,081; in 1880 they were 134,381,617; in 1840, 1116,479,678. The imports in 1750 were 17,772,039; in 1800, 128,257,781; in 1840, 167, 432,964.
The growth in the import of raw cotton is very striking. In 1751, 2,976,610 pounds were imported; in 1815, in 1830, 259, 856,000.
The import of wool could not expand till the Australian wool became available. In 1800 the number of pounds imported was 8,609,000; in 1840, 49,436,000; in 1857, 127,390,000.
Then the English fiscal system had to be overhauled to get in cheap raw material, and the agitation of the manufacturers was success ful in bringing about the free trade era.
During the 19th century the English Parlia. ment was mainly occupied in readjusting the relations of employers and employed, in fad• taring the growth of a manufacturing state, and in abandoning the system which was made for an agricultural state; while no attempt has been made to preserv6 any balance between agri culture and industry.
The result of the industrial revolution in England was, to use the words of an 18th century writer, "to remove multitudes of people from our natural and fixed basis, land, to the artificial and fluctuating basis, trade.° See also INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION.
Baines, E.,