ABSTRACT
By the later part of the eighteenth century, and increasingly so as industrialisation gathered pace during the nineteenth century, they had been joined by other groups of workers associated with newer or expanding trades and industries that reflected Britain's changing economic profile. An open, de-regulated and competitive labour market of the type mentioned above would place a powerful weapon in the hands of the masters and the supporters of political economy in their efforts to subordinate wages to the interests of capital and profit. Higher wages meant reduced profits, which served to diminish the sum of capital that could be added to the wage fund. In this scenario, where the laws of political economy were deemed akin to the laws of nature and gravity, combinations of workers and particularly strikes were adjudged to be a dangerous check on the vital accumulation of capital and an impediment to economic well-being and trade.
