ABSTRACT
An inescapable condition of successful industrialisation is the existence of an expanding, mobile and adaptable labour supply. What is important is that once the process of industrialisation has started in a country, its rate of industrial growth is determined in part by the rate of growth of the country's industrial workforce, and by the absence of labour bottlenecks which would seriously impede the pace of industrial advance. In considering the problem of the recruitment of labour for modern industry in the nineteenth century, it is worth remembering that the technological innovations of the day were often directly related to the kinds of techniques which had preceded them. The main conclusion to be drawn from this survey of labour supply and industrialisation in the nineteenth century is that only rarely did a lack of labour or of skills hinder the spread of modern technology in those countries which experienced industrial take-off before 1914.
