ABSTRACT
At the beginning of the twentieth century, Wheeler’s text argues the crucial importance of the navy to England’s imperial success. Pauperism in Lancashire went up 140 percent., but it was only one trade that was affected, and the rest of England came to the support of the cotton trade. The east end of London is clamouring for bread and peace at any price. The working-men of the north are starving, as they starved in the cotton famine of 1862. Then it was only the supply of cotton which was cut off: food could at least be freely imported. In the year 1800 we practically fed ourselves, at any rate to the extent of nineteen-twentieths of our requirements. But in 1795 the harvest failed.
