The Epoch of the Great Inventions

The change, which has been briefly sketched in the previous chapter, from the domestic system of industry to the modern system of production by machinery and steam power was sudden and violent. The great inventions were all made in a comparatively short space of time, and the previous slow growth of industry developed quickly into a feverish burst of manufacturing production that completely revolutionised the face of industrial England. In little more than twenty years all the great inventions of Watt, Ark-wright, and Boulton had been completed, steam had been applied to the new looms, and the modern factory system had fairly begun. Of course this system was not adopted by the country immediately or universally. In some trades the old domestic system persisted longer than in others, and weaving by hand-looms, for instance, was still practised as late as the middle of the nineteenth century. ¹ But on the whole the transition was accomplished with comparative rapidity, and, as a consequence, the change in the industrial system brought great misery as well as great economic advantages. Nothing has done more to make England what she at present is—whether for better or worse—than this sudden and silent Industrial Revolution, for it increased her wealth tenfold, and gave her half a century’s start in front of the nations of Europe. The French Revolution took place about the same time, and as it was performed amid streams of blood and flame, it attracted the attention of historians, many of whom have apparently yet to learn that bloodshed and battles are merely the incidents of history. The French Revolution also succeeded in giving birth to one of the world’s military heroes, and a military hero naturally excites the enthusiasm of the multitude. Yet even the French Revolution was the result of economic causes that had been operating for centuries, and which had had their effect in England four hundred years before, at the time of the Peasants’ Revolt. These economic causes have been rather kept in the background by most historians, who have preferred to dwell upon the antics of French politicians and revolutionaries, many of whom have gained a quite undeserved importance; and it was hardly to be expected that writers should recognise the operation of such causes in England, more especially as their effects were not accentuated by political fireworks, but were even partially hidden by subsequent events resulting from these effects. Men were blinded, too, by an increase in the wealth of the richer portion of the nation, not even seeing whence that wealth proceeded, and quite ignoring the fact that it was accompanied by serious poverty among the industrial classes. ¹ Nor did historians perceive that the world-famous wars in which England was engaged at the close of the last century, and up to 1815, were necessitated by her endeavour to gain the commercial supremacy of the world, ² after she had invented the means of supplying the world’s markets to overflowing. Economic causes were at the root of them all. We shall discuss later the connection between our foreign politics and our industry; and we must not forget that, besides this revolution in manufactures, there was one equally important in agriculture. ¹ But with this we must deal afterwards; at present we must adhere to the subject of the development of industry by the great inventors.