AGRICULTURE IN THE 18TH CENTURY, by Dr.
Knowles).
Though agriculture still remains the greatest single industry, yet by the aggregate of her industries Britain is now an industrial rather than an agricultural country. In other words, she rests on her output of coal rather than of wheat and meat. The change has, however, been fully accomplished only in the last two generations.
The new economic conditions have been variously influenced by geography. In the first place Scotland has been effectively united to England. The barren uplands in the north of England — in the isthmus, that is to say, con necting the two countries — are rich in coal, and a population has grown up in this part of the island drawn both from Scottish and Eng lish sources, and of an intermediate character. Moreover, Scotland, by virtue of her own coal, has been able to share in the advantages of the imperial and economic policies of England. At the time of the union of the two parliaments in 1707 Glasgow was only a village.
The dominance of the trader over the farmer led in the 19th century to a reversal of the long settled British policy of protection. England and Scotland no longer rest economically on the resources of their own territories. They produce coal, and are the seat of labor and of capital, but four-fifths of their wheat they im port, and one-fifth of their people are engaged on manufactures for export. Ireland, however, has very little coal, and must still depend on her agricultural products. Thus, while Scot land and England are now a single economic or Ireland— with the exception of Bel fast — is another and separate organism. There is an antagonism of economic interest between Ireland and Great Britain which may be com pared to the antagonism of interest between the Southern States and the Northern before the Civil War. If in her own interest Great Britain were to revert to her former economic policy, an incidental result in the long run might pos sibly be to reconcile Ireland to her.
8. Geographical We must not however seek to ascribe the present strategic and economic position of Britain in the world, in so far as it depends on geographical causes, wholly to the present action of those causes. There is such a thing as geographical momen tum. The causes which originally led to the establishment of a market in a given place may have ceased to act, but the habit of the cus tomers will long compel salesmen to resort to it. London at the present moment is the greatest general store in the world. It has no staple indus try, but parcels of almost everything manu factured in other parts of Britain, and, indeed, in almost all parts of the world, are warehoused there. Except for large quantities of staple goods, many smaller communities find it con venient to give their orders and to make their payments in London. Formerly, no doubt, as Emerson has said, England as the great shop keeping nation had a good stand in the world. Her chief customers were along the European coast opposite. But now part, at any rate, of her influence is due to momentum from the past, to the start given to her during the Napoleonic wars, and by the fact that in the days before railroads she had coal near the waterways.
9. The Consequendes of Sea Power. — Britain now lives in part on the products of her own land and seas, in part as a manufac turer for other countries, and in part as a market. But she also obtains profit from her position as the chief sea power. By this power she prevents her enemies from uniting, she retains certain open markets, and she pro tects her carrying trade. Sea power, however, is a condition of the existence not only of the British Empire, but also of the United King dom. This was early made evident. When Edward the First conquered the Principality of Wales, he moved the fleet of the Cinque Ports, then the only fleet available for the Eng lish king, into the rear of his opponent. This he could not have done had not the Lord of the Isles been defeated shortly beforehand by the Scotch. For several previous centuries sea power along the oceanic borders of Britain had been in the possession of a Norse state estab lished in the fringe of islands which extend round the west of Scotland from the Shetlands to the Isle of Man. Unless Britain has com mand of her seas the Shetlands and the Orkneys, and indeed Ireland itself, might he held by the foreigner against her, and the foreign invader might establish his bases even in the remoter peninsulas, say of Scotland or Wales. It was from such a peninsular base at Lisbon that Wellington conducted the war against France at the beginning of the 19th century.
The very need of sea power, or in other words, of the sea itself, renders it impossible to put territorial limits to naval action. Britain can command in the British seas only if she can also command in waters more remote. Her fleets are now concentrated in European waters because her possible naval opponents are there to be found, and for no other reason. It fol lows, however, that Malta and Gibraltar, the bases of the Mediterranean and Atlantic fleets, are in reality not merely milestones on the road to India, but also outposts for the defence of London. It is this characteristic of sea power, now familiar to all the world through the writ ings of Admiral Mahan, which renders it neces sary for modern Britain— faced by powers that rest upon half continents— to extend her eco nomic bases beyond her original insular terri tory. Whether this is to be done by the method of increasing the insular factories and holding open the over-seas markets, or by such a fed eration with her colonies as will in effect base her navy on the agriculture and factories of a wilder land, is yet the issue of British politics— the outcome of many centuries of history in an insular and yet European geo graphical environment.
Bibliography.—Generally: Mackinder, H. J., and Historical Studies' (12th ed., London 1914) ; (The Modern British State: an Introduction to the Study of Civics' (Lon don 1914), and (Britain and the British Seas' (2d ed., 1907) ; Chisholm, 'Stanford's Com pendium' (Europe, Vol. II, 1902). On the geographical influences in the early history: Green, J. R., 'The Making of England' (1882) ; Hodgkin, (A Political History of England to 1066' (1906).