ABSTRACT

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. 1 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.