Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1919 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER II THE MECHANICAL REVOLUTION AND ITS ECONOMIC" EFFECTS Sec. 1.--Review. The last chapter was devoted to the industrial and social conditions which existed in England on the eve of the Industrial Revolution. Viewed from a political as well as an economic standpoint, agriculture was of supreme importance.1 It furnished a large porlion of the national income, and the great land-owners occupied official positions which yielded them an immense administrative and political power. The factory system had not yet taken possession of industry and supplanted domestic manufacture. According to Defoe, many of the manufactures were organised by the guilds for home consumption, and only those whose raw material was the produce of home agriculture showed any considerable export. There was littlespecialisation in industry; foreign trade was comparatively small; nations and communities were largely seTf-sugtaining; the workers were less dependent upon capital; tr_ade_was steadier because_production" was carried on for the _j?urpose of supplying a small and well-known demand; and the tQQls required in most Industries were so simple and _ no easily secured, and the power utilisedTn_their.operation_ so_jfargely human, thatthere was little_jified for vast aggregations oPcapjtair Though" the amount of aa machinery which had been invented up to that time must not be under-estimated, it is apparent that man was I limited and cramped in his activities on account of his! ignorance of the tremendous forces of the natural world, j In fact, England of the first part of the eighteenth century was virtually a mediaeval England, quiet, primeval, and undisturbed by the roar of trade and commerce. Suddenly, almost like a thunderbolt from a I clear sky, were...
