Six Acts, crushed them for a time.1 Still we see in these first rude and abortive efforts of the working classes the beginnings of a definite political policy, which found, expression later on in the help given by the masses to the agitation for the Reform Bill of 1832, and still later to the Corn Laws and the Chartist Movement. The results of the Reform Bill, which in its immediate effects seemed only to benefit the middle classes, were very disappointing to working-class politicians, but there was nevertheless among them that deep-seated belief in the ultimate effect of political agitation which has seen its justification, after many years, in the attention now (1895) paid by rival parties in the State to the requirements, or supposed requirements, of the British workman. But it was the two great Revolutions of a hundred years ago in home industry and foreign politics which first roused the political feelings of the masses, by

1 This so-called "Massacre" (a term which in this case is grossly misapplied) was only one of a series of riots, originating in a desire for political reform, that occurred in various parts of England. In 1816 there were riots in the agricultural districts of the East of England, and in December of that year others at Spa Fields. In March 1817 the "Blanketeers" caused disturbances at Manchester, and in June there were risings in Derbyshire also. In 1819 there were riots among the working-classes in many places to petition for reform, and proclamations were issued against seditious meetings. The Manchester riot occurred on August 16th, 1819, when the mob was attacked by the yeomanry and one or two persons killed. The "Six Acts" were passed in consequence of these troubles, and may be briefly summarised as follows:

(1) Nov. 29-Introduced by the Lord Chancellor: An Act to prevent delay in the administration of justice in cases of misdemeanour. (2) Introduced by Lord Sidmouth: An Act to prevent the training of persons to the use of arms and the practice of military evolutions and exercise. (3) An Act for the more effectual prevention and punishment of blasphemous and seditious libels. (4) An Act to authorise justices of the peace in certain disturbed counties to seize and detain arms collected and kept for purposes dangerous to the public peace, and to continue in force till March 25, 1822. (5) Introduced by Lord Castlereagh: An Act to subject certain publications to the duties of stamps on newspapers, and to make other regulations for restraining the abuses arising from the publication of blasphemous and seditious libels. (6) Introduced by Lord Sidmouth in the Lords and (on Nov. 29) by Lord Castlereagh in the Commons: An Act for more effectually preventing seditious meetings and assemblies out of doors, to continue in force for five years (cf. Acland and Ransome's English Political History, p. 170).

2 Toynbee, Industrial Revolution, p. 207.

the misery which the War with Republican France inflicted upon them, and by the new industrial conditions already brought into play by the introduction of machinery and accentuated by the effects of that war. A time of industrial transition is nearly always severe and painful to those who have to go through it; but the pain and misery of the great transition in English industry, both manufacturing and agricultural, was increased tenfold by the terrible foreign conflict into which England was inevitably plunged. That transition period, however, brought home to the working classes, miserable and degraded as they then were, the necessity of some political reform that would give them a voice in the management of their own affairs. They were far too weak then to gain a hearing in Parliament, but as time went on and their power increased, their voice has been heard more and more clearly in English politics.

§ 218. Political Results of the Industrial Revolution. Now it is noticeable that the Industrial Revolution, which caused so much misery to the working classes at first, gave them in the end much of their present political power by the very nature of its economic conditions. The use of machinery worked by steam power necessitated the concentration of workers into factories, where this power could easily be supplied to a set of machines; and since factories, again, to obtain steam power, must be situated near a convenient supply of coal, it resulted that the population working in manufactures was compelled to concentrate itself on the great coal-fields. To this migration of the population to the coal districts of the North and North-west we have already alluded, and it only remains to point out here how the growth of great manufacturing 'towns, resulting from this process, created immediately the political question, as to the proper representation of such large masses of people in Parliament. The system then in

vogue has been described so frequently that it is unnecessary to say more about it, except, perhaps, to point out the great length of time it took to overcome the influence of the opposition to reform. One may note, also, the class

jealousy of the great landed proprietors of the House of Lords against the new manufacturing population that was demanding admittance into the councils of the nation. The jealousy was instinctive, and no doubt well founded, but it has been repaid by the attempts, in later years, to abolish the House which so adequately represents the landed interest. But, however naturally jealous the landed interest may have been, it was palpably absurd to refuse to transfer the franchise of Penryn to the huge town of Manchester, or that of East Retford to Birmingham,1 as was the case in 1828, and such exhibitions of opposition to the inevitable could only arouse the scorn, if not the anger, of the masses of the people. But the Reform Bill was passed at last, and the manufacturing population of the towns gained the first step in their progress towards political influence. It was, however, only a step, and many more had to be taken before they could be said to be adequately represented in the life of the nation. But the history of their progress towards the franchise is a matter for the political historian; the economist need only notice that the coal mine and the spinning jenny revolutionised the face of English politics as effectually as the guillotine changed the course of the politics of France. Of course) the blood-stained political fireworks of the French Revolu-( tion have attracted a larger share of the attention of the ordinary historian, even in England, than has ever been given to the less obvious action of industrial forces, but it is often the case that historians perceive nothing but the obvious. Even in dealing with the French Revolution itself, that favourite theme for those who strive after the dramatic and picturesque, but are ignorant of all but the most elementary methods of historical drama or depiction, the great industrial and economic features of the time are hopelessly neglected, while page after page is devoted to the pretentious vapourings of the second-rate philosophers and pamphleteers of whose works the average Frenchman of the Revolution was profoundly ignorant. It is the weakness of literary men to believe that literature is the main

1 Acland and Ransome's Political History, p. 175.

thing in life, and that a pamphlet can change the destiny of a nation. But it is the men who act, and not those who merely talk or write, who bring about great national changes; and while philosophers were prattling and politicians were orating, the men of action were fighting for the freedom and supremacy of England abroad, or quietly developing her magnificent industrial resources at home. Amid foreign war and political disturbance the miner and the weaver were shaping and changing the future course of the nation. When peace was restored, England had definitely become the workshop of the world, and her industry had definitely completed its transition from the domestic to the factory system. Of this system,

with its enormous advantages, but also enormous evils, we must now speak.

CHAPTER XXIII

THE FACTORY SYSTEM AND ITS RESULTS

§ 219. The Results of the Introduction of the Factory

System.

THE great war which has just been mentioned in the preceding chapter found England at its beginning a nation whose mainstay was agriculture, with manufactures increasing, it is true, but still only of secondary importance. At the commencement of the war English workers spun and wove in their cottages; at its close they were herded together in factories, and were the servants of machinery. The manufacturing population was rapidly increasing and the agricultural steadily declining. The capitalist element had become the main feature in production, and the capitalist manufacturers the main figures in English industry, rivalling and often overtopping the landed gentry. But a man cannot become a capitalist without capital, and capital cannot be accumulated without labour, though these remarkably obvious facts are constantly forgotten. The large capitalists of earlier manufacturing days obtained their capital, after the first small beginnings, from the wealth produced by their workmen, and from their own acuteness in availing themselves of new inventions. Of the wealth produced by their workmen they took nearly the whole, often leaving their employés only enough to live upon while producing more wealth for their masters. Hence it may be said that

capital was in this case the result of abstinence, though the abstinence was on the part of the workman and not of his employer, as we shall shortly see.

This, then, was the immediate result of the factory system the growth of large accumulations of capital in the hands of the new master-manufacturers, who, with their

:

1 Cf. Porter, Progress of the Nation, i. p. 52

2