Thus practically by the middle of the nineteenth century the basis of the great industrial revolution was laid by the discovery of the mechanical means which made it possible. It transformed the mediæval world with its narrow outlook and limited possibilities of wealth into the world we know to-day. The revolution in manufacture, industry, and intercourse was Revolution PEASANTS PLOWING IN AUSTRIA. accompanied by a revolution in agriculture. Here the changes were due to the overthrow of manor life, and the introduction of individualism in farm work, and to the greater demand for food due to the growth of population and the new industrial order. The changes involved here were as far reaching and as important as in the other fields. They were comprised in the changes made in methods of farming and in the tenure of lands. in Agriculture. The discovery of the use of the root crops and of grasses to "rest" the land, was given its greatest impetus by Viscount Townshend, "Turnip Townshend" as he was called because of his devotion to the use of root crops to rest the soil, instead of allowing it to lie fallow one year in three. This discovery made possible the continuous use of the land and thus increased the possible crop one third. Changes were also made by the use of fertilizers, by drilling the seed in place of sowing broadcast, by deeper plowing and pulverizing. Like changes were made in the development of stock. The improvement of breeds by careful selection soon showed itself in doubling the weight of cattle, sheep, hogs and horses, while the better sheep produced a finer, more valuable wool. Effect of Such changes soon produced important changes in land tenure. The open field system gave way to the enclosed field where the farmer was enabled to work independently of his neighbors. The change, which was very important and necessary, unfortunately was responsible in part for the accumulation of the great landed estates in England which she is now trying to destroy. The industrial revolution destroyed the yeoman class but the enclosure was only one of the means by which this was effected. The development of the factory system, which destroyed home manufacture, was also responsible for the change, for the factory system could not allow the worker to continue to live in his cottage with its garden where he had spent a part of his time in farming and part in weaving. The results of the industrial revolution soon became evident. In scarcely a half century, the face of England changed startlingly. Instead of farms, hamlets and an occasional town, there appeared immense cities, with teeming populations huddled around gigantic factories. Lancashire and West Riding, the great cotton manufacturing centers, seemed like a forest of factories, with their thousands of tall chimneys belching out clouds of smoke and "their hundreds of windows blazing forth a lurid light in the darkness and rattling with the whir and din of ceaseless machinery by day and night." England had become the "Workshop of the World." The more general effects of this great revolution which has continued down to our own time may be summarized briefly as follows: first, it has produced a tremendous expansion of industry. The possibility of manufacture is only limited by the amount of raw material and the demand for the product and so far there has been an ever increasing demand and ever increasing manufacture. This has led to the discovery of a new use for Summary of colonies. In the early period, England was satisfied to establish trading posts to trade or barter with the natives, but soon she began to realize that the new lands were needed for white settlers who could produce the raw materials for her manufactures. With this in mind, England quietly and without opposition began to colonize the most important undeveloped lands and to settle her people there to assist the people who were laboring in the mills at home by furnishing them their raw materials and buying a portion of their manufactured goods. In the second place there have come great changes over the face of society. Instead of a middle or "free" class, few in numbers, as Social Bourgeois. under the feudal régime, there has grown up a bourgeois or middle class who have taken the leadership from the hands of the nobles and have dominated society even to our own day. This was accomplished because the greatly increased production of wealth fell almost wholly into their hands, and, because they so thoroughly identified themselves with the new state that they were thus able to safeguard themselves in all its activities. Hence they control the great accumulations of wealth and the direction and character of industry and have made of democracy largely a bourgeois or middle class democracy. The Work But even more important than the development of the great middle class was the creation of the "working class" of society. The industrial revolution not only created the workingman ing Class. but has practically given him his characteristics and place in society. He became almost wholly dependent upon the capitalist class for his livelihood. He had lost his power of independent work by his faithfulness to a machine, while at the same time he lost the hand "cunning" which had earlier characterized him. Little by little there was evolved for him, without his participation, a wage system and an economic system which left him just able to live and care for his family by using all its members as soon as they were able to stand before the machines. Thus the revolution in completing the destruction of the medieval system replaced it with a system which in many ways left the peasant and proletariat classes as dependent and helpless as under the old system. The centralization of factories led to the establishment of tenement houses for cheap living with all their evils. It led to the employment of women and children for long hours on wages just above the verge of starvation. It led to modern conditions of unemployment which Compare social changes brought about by the Industrial Revolution in Chapter I, Part VI, The Beginnings of the Social Problem. have become so great an evil in modern life and which we are trying now with some hope of success to remedy. It led to the sweat shop system and to the many other evils of our modern industrial life. Nevertheless there were begun almost at once and directed by the middle class, influences that have gradually emancipated the workingman. Little by little the solidarity of the two classes has grown into the consciousness of society. Hence there began an attack upon the evils of the revolution which has grown in volume and intensity even to our own day. To realize this, we need only recall the efforts toward health, toward better housing, better sanitation, better education, better policing, better conditions of labor and the many other reforms which have characterized the civilization of the nineteenth century. In the third place, the industrial revolution has greatly affected the growth and development of our political institutions. First of all the movement gave to the middle class very largely the direction of affairs. In England the change came rapidly and without bloodshed. The great reform act of 1832 saw the culmination of the process by which the middle class assumed control and began to shape the constitutional monarchy into more democratic forms. But this was only a step in the process, for the act of 1832 was permitted to stop the advance barely more than a generation until the further revolution came which ushered into political life the "Workingman". These great changes went far to associate the revolution with the great democratic movement of the nineteenth century. As was perhaps natural, political emancipation has preceded industrial emancipation because industrial changes are more difficult to effect and because the bourgeois class has held so tenaciously to its theory of individualism in industry. Not until near the close of the century was Europe prepared to act on the principle that the state could interfere freely without necessarily destroying the participation of the individual, and we are now undertaking our great social reforms with this idea in view. The industrial revolution has given a great impetus to the growth of nationality. It established industry as a very central idea of the state. It therefore greatly unified the people by attracting their attention in this direction. It also set them off more distinctly from other states by this process of inside unity and by the competition for raw materials. There has thus grown up the idea of the national state with its aim to become an economic unit independent of all other states. This has led therefore directly to the terrible conflict so recently closed-each great national entity in deadly competition with all others for further economic strength. It has also led to many internal troubles where old geographical lines have included peoples not unified in purpose and life. But we believe that this same industrial revolution has in it the seeds of peace. Trade and commerce thrive well only under peace conditions. The Great War has aided greatly in making clear the economic dependence of all nations upon each other. The coöperation of the allied nations has made it clear that such a relation is far more helpful than the old competitive plan. It is difficult to conceive how we can forget the coöperative work during the war or how we can forget that the old competitive methods were so great a cause of the war. TOPICS FOR FURTHER STUDY THE ENGLISH INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION Hayes, A Political and Social History of Modern Europe, Vol. II, pp. 68-86. Beard, Contemporary American History, pp. 27-50. SUGGESTED READINGS THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION Cheyney, Industrial and Social History of England, pp. 185-189, 203-13. Robinson and Beard, Development of Modern Europe, Vol. II, Ch. XIX. |