1785-1789 in the reign of George I. for the Pretender. Coal, however, existed in many parts of the north; the steam-engine followed coal, manufactures followed the steam-engine, and population followed manufactures. In Sussex, for instance, there was in the seventeenth century a considerable population supported by the manufacture of iron, and it was from this Sussex iron that the railings round St. Paul's were made. By the middle of the eighteenth century, however, the weald of Sussex, on which had once stood the forest which had for some time blocked the way of the South Saxon conquest, had been denuded of its wood, in consequence of the large demands made by the furnaces for smelting iron, and now the industry of iron manufacture moved entirely to the north. At first, indeed, the transfer of laborers to the north was not followed by beneficial results. The crowds who gathered for work were for the most part ignorant, and always in haste to be rich. There was neglect of sanitary requirements, and those who rose to be masters often wore away the lives of their workmen. As yet, law did not interfere to protect the weak from excessive labor, or to guard against the frequent occurrence of preventable accidents. It was as though a new world had opened in the north, of which Parliament knew so little that it neither desired to regulate it nor even thought of making the attempt. But the growth of the factory system as opposed to the domestic system has always been marked by growth in civilization, and its abuses, while great, have in nowise outweighed the distinct advantage to the worker. The unsanitary conditions which years later called so loudly for improvement, resulting in the Eight Hours agitation and laws regulating the labor of women and children, had had their evil counterpart in the crowded homes of the workers under the domestic system, where wheels and looms disputed accommodations, and crowded quarters, bad air, and bad surroundings in the individual huts could have been no more conducive to moral and physical welfare. The great pauper class in Great Britain's agricultural districts at one time called for onefourth the annual budget for its support. It was an evil which neither legislation nor philanthropy seemed able to check. By the invention of the cotton manufactures and increase of factory districts many of the paupers as well as the peasants were absorbed, and from this time is traced the pauper evil's decline. Moreover, the lifting of the poor and ignorant laborer of the southern agricultural districts to self-supporting employment in the North brought with it increase of self-respect, a fact of enormous importance in any sociological consideration. The mental friction of the factory cannot be denied; neither can it be reasonably claimed that the minds and skill of the workers have been dwarfed, or that factory labor has degraded the skilled individual worker. With the many evils of the system, a just view of the economic and sociological advance to which it has so largely contributed must invariably be taken. Chapter LI ENGLAND AND THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 1789-1795 LEADING DATES REIGN OF GEORGE III., A.D. 1760-1820-MEETING OF THE STATES- T HE spread of manufacturing industry did much to strengthen Pitt's government, because the wealthy manufacturers were jealous of the landed aristocracy, and, therefore, supported him against the great Whig families. In the beginning of 1789 there seemed to be every prospect that Pitt's tenure of office would continue to be distinguished by a long series of gradual reforms, carried out just so far as Pitt could induce the nation to follow him. Before long, however, events took place in France which shocked the English nation, and produced a temper hostile to reform. The form of government in France had long been an absolute monarchy; the nobles had no political power, but had privileges injurious to the rest of the community, and were accordingly hated. Voltaire and Rousseau had prepared the minds of the people. The weak king, Louis XVI., finding himself bankrupt and helpless, summoned the States General in 1789, a body something like the English Parliament, but which had not met for a hundred and seventyfive years. When it came together the Third Estate resolved itself into the National Assembly, assumed the right of making a constitution, and swept away all the special privileges of the two privileged orders, nobles and clergy, forming the first two estates. At first the Revolution in France was generally welcomed in England. Englishmen thought that they had before them a mere repetition of the English Revolution of 1688, and that a Parlia |