«Промышленная история Англии»

§ 5. Расширение английской торговли после этих войн 38—Even during the above wars English trade had been spreading. English merchants now did business in the Mediterranean with Turkey and Italy, in the North with Holland, Germany, Russia and Norway, in the East with India, Arabia and Africa, in the West with America and the Spanish colonies. Many companies were started, too numerous to mention here, for those who had hoarded their money during the war were now anxious to make profitable use of it. Of these new companies the most famous was the South Sea Company, formed in 1711 to trade with South America. The directors anticipated enormous profits, and offered to advance the Government £7,500,000 to pay off part of the National Debt. Everyone knows the story of their collapse (1721), and the ruin it brought upon thousands of worthy but credulous shareholders. It was a time when all the accumulated capital of the country seemed to run riot in hopes of gaining profits. Hundreds of smaller companies were started every day, and an unhealthy excitement prevailed. One company, with a capital of £3,000,000, was {126} started “for insuring to all masters and mistresses the losses they may sustain by servants”; another “for making salt-water fresh”; a third for “planting mulberry trees and breeding silk-worms in Chelsea Park.” One in particular was designed for importing “a number of large jackasses from Spain in order to propagate a larger kind of mule in England,” as if, remarks a later writer with some severity, there were not already jackasses enough in London alone.

38. См. примечание 16, стр. 249, об Унии с Шотландией, Дариенском проекте и Метуэнском договоре.

Вся эта мания инвестирования капитала, однако, показывает, насколько процветающей стала Англия и какое огромное количество богатства было накоплено, частично за счет торговли, но также за счет роста мануфактур и улучшений в сельском хозяйстве. Англичане теперь чувствовали себя достаточно сильными, чтобы вступить в новую борьбу за монополию в торговле, результатом чего стали новые войны, а страна оказалась обремененной тяжелым долгом. Но войны в целом были успешными, хотя стремление к монополии было ошибкой.

§ 6. Дальнейшие войны с Францией и Испанией —All the wars in which England now engaged had some commercial object in view. People had yet to learn that the best way to extend a nation’s trade is to promote general peace. In default of that, however, it seemed well to provoke a general war. Mistaken as England’s policy was, it was no more so than that of her neighbours, for all believed, as many do still, in the sole market theory. Moreover, England was provoked into war by the secret “Family Compact” between the related rulers of France and Spain, by which Philip V. of Spain agreed to take away the South American trade from England, and give it to his nephew, Louis XV. of France. The result was a system of annoyance to English vessels trading in the South Seas, culminating in the mutilation of an English {127} captain, one Jenkins, and war was declared openly in 1739. This war merged into the war of the Austrian Succession, which lasted for eight years (1740–48), a matter with which England was in no way concerned, but which afforded a good excuse to renew the struggle against the commercial growth of France as well as Spain. We gained nothing by it except the final annihilation of the hopes of the Stuarts, and a small increase of British power upon the high seas.

Однако через несколько лет мы вступили в новую войну, Семилетнюю войну (1756–1763), в которой Англия и Пруссия сражались бок о бок против остальной Европы и атаковали Францию, в частности, во всех частях света. Война была в значительной степени вызвана распрями французских и английских колонистов в Америке и соперничеством торговцев в Индии. Мы не можем здесь вдаваться в ее детали. Достаточно сказать, что после неудачного начала мы одержали различные победы на море и на суше и к концу (1763 г.) оказались обладателями Канады, Флориды и всех французских владений к востоку от Миссисипи, за исключением Нового Орлеана, а также получили перевес в Индии. Мы удерживали почти бесспорное господство на морях, и наша торговля росла не по дням, а по часам. К сожалению, впоследствии мы ввязались в другие, менее необходимые войны и растратили значительную часть нашего богатства до конца столетия. Но короткий мир, наступивший после 1763 года, дал нам возможность, которую мы не упустили, увеличить наши национальные отрасли промышленности и практически обеспечил нам тот мощный старт в мануфактурах, которым мы обязаны нашим нынешним богатством. В этой войне мы также приобрели нашу Индийскую империю и Канаду, которым мы должны посвятить несколько кратких замечаний.

§ 7. Борьба за Индию —Since the founding of Surat and the acquisition of Bombay, the East India {128} Company had also founded two forts or stations, which have since become most important cities, namely, Fort St George in 1640 (now Madras), and Fort William in 1698 (now Calcutta). They had become powerful, and each of the three chief stations had a governor and a small army. The French, however, had also an East India Company, whose chief station was Pondicherry, south of Madras; and the two companies were by no means on friendly terms. When their respective nations were at war in 1746–48, they too had some sharp fighting, but it was only when Dupleix, the French Governor of Pondicherry, had gained almost absolute power over Southern India after the death of the Great Mogul and the Nizam of the Dekkan in 1748, that matters became serious. The English traders feared with justice the loss both of their lives and commerce, and open war broke out. The magnificent exertions of Clive and Lawrence defeated the French, and finally Dupleix was recalled in 1754 and quiet was restored. But two years afterwards the Seven Years’ War broke out, and India was disturbed again. Suraj-ud-Daula, the ally of the French, took Calcutta and committed the Black Hole atrocity (1757), and he and his allies did their best to drive the English out of Bengal. This province, however, was saved by Clive at the battle of Plassey; Coote defeated the French at Wondiwash (1760); and Pondicherry was captured by the English in 1761. Finally in 1765 the East India Company became the collector of the revenues for Bengal, Behar, and Orissa, and thus the English power was acknowledged and consolidated. Our future struggles in India were not with the French but with native princes.

§ 8. Завоевание Канады —There was, however, a great struggle for commercial supremacy to be waged against the French in America. It began in 1754. The {129} English had now thirteen flourishing colonies between the Alleghany Mountains and the sea. Behind them, above them, and below them, all was claimed by France as French territory. It was inevitable that the growth of our colonies should lead to war, and such was the case. The French began by driving out English settlers from land west of the Alleghany Mountains; the English retorted by driving French settlers out of Nova Scotia, and tried to make a colony in the Ohio valley. In this latter object they were foiled by Duquesne, the French Governor of Canada, who built Fort Duquesne there in 1754. Shortly afterwards, the next Governor, Montcalm, conceived the idea of linking together Forts Duquesne, Niagara, and Ticonderoga by lesser forts, so as to keep the English in their narrow strip of eastern coast-line. Then the English Government at home took up the matter, and sent out General Braddock and 2000 men to help the colonists. Braddock was defeated and killed (1755), but when the Seven Years’ War broke out in the next year, Pitt sent ammunition, men, and money to help the colonists to attack Quebec and Montreal. The war was renewed in Canada with fresh vigour; Fort Duquesne was captured in 1758, Quebec in 1759, and Montreal in 1760; and when peace was made in Europe in 1763, England had gained all the French possessions in America, and her colonies were enabled to extend as far as they desired. We foolishly lost them by a mistaken policy a few years afterwards.

INDIA IN THE TIME OF CLIVE SHOWING ENGLISH FACTORIES AND DISTRICTS UNDER OUR INFLUENCE.

§ 9. Обзор торгового прогресса во время этих войн —The reign of James I. was noticeable for the rapid growth of the foreign trade which had developed from the somewhat piratical excursions of the Elizabethan sailors. Trading companies were formed in considerable numbers, and among them the Levant Company may be noticed, {130} as having made “great gains” in the East in 1605. The mercantile class was now growing both numerous and powerful, and a proof of their advance in social position and influence is furnished by the new title of nobility, that of baronet, conferred by James I. upon such merchant princes as were able and willing to pay the needy king a good round sum for the honour. 39 It is interesting, by the way, to notice the figures of trade in his reign. In 1613 the exports and imports both together were about £4,628,586 in value, and a sign of a quickly developing Eastern trade is also seen in the fact that James made attempts to check the increasing export of silver from the kingdom. At this time English merchants traded with most of the Mediterranean ports, with Portugal, Spain, France, Hamburg, and the Baltic coasts. Ships from the north and west of Europe used in return to visit the Newcastle collieries, which were rapidly growing in value. The English ships were also very active in the new cod fisheries of Newfoundland, and the Greenland whale fisheries. Commerce was further aided by the Navigation Acts of 1651, which provided that no merchandise of Asia, Africa, or America should be imported in any but English ships. Previously, the carrying trade had been in the hands of the Dutch, but Holland had now entered upon the period of its decline, and the short war with England which followed these Acts contributed to hasten it. The development of English trade is signalized in this century by the appearance of numerous books and essays on commercial questions, of which the works of Mun, Malynes, Misselden, Roberts, Sir Josiah Child, Worth, and Davenant may be mentioned as among the most important. The increase in the wealth of the country is shown by the rapid rebuilding of London after the Great {131} Fire, when the loss was estimated at £12,000,000; and Sir Josiah Child, writing in 1670, speaks of the great development of the commerce and trade of England in the previous twenty years. We know from Gregory King that rents had been doubled in this period, and that is always a sure sign of prosperity. The East India Company was so flourishing that in 1676 their stock was quoted at 245 per cent. Trade with America was equally prosperous. New Amsterdam, now New York, was taken from the Dutch in 1664, and in 1670 the Hudson’s Bay Company received their charter. But the main commercial fact of the latter half of the seventeenth century, and of the eighteenth, was the development of the Eastern trade, and, as a consequence, of the home production of articles to be exchanged for Eastern goods. The cloth trade especially was greatly increased, and imports of cloth from Spain were quite superseded. This improvement in English manufactures led to increased trade with our colonial possessions, especially in the West Indies. It was partly, perhaps, this great development of English trade 40 with both the Western and the Eastern markets that stimulated the genius of the great inventors to supply our manufacturers with machinery that would enable them to meet the huge demands upon their powers of production, for, by 1760, the export trade had grown to many times its value in the days of James I. Then, as we saw, it was only £2,000,000 per annum; in 1703, nearly a hundred years later, it was, according to a MS. of Davenant’s, £6,552,019; by 1760 it reached £14,500,000. The markets, too, had undergone a change. We no longer exported so largely to Holland, Portugal, and France, as in the seventeenth century, but instead one-third of our exports went to our colonies. In 1770, {132} for example, America took three-fourths of the manufactures of Manchester, and Jamaica alone took almost as much of our manufactures as all our plantations together had done in the beginning of the century. The prosperity and development of modern English commerce, as we know it, had now begun. It was due, of course, not to the great wars we had waged for the right of a sole market, but to the fact that we were able to supply the markets of the world with manufactured goods that no other country could then produce. How we were able to do so will shortly be seen when we come to speak of the Industrial Revolution of the last half of the eighteenth century.

39. См. примечание 13, стр. 247, о банковском деле и приостановке выплат казначейством.

40. См. также мою книгу «Торговля в Европе», стр. 137–147.

ГЛАВА VI. МАНУФАКТУРЫ И ГОРНОДОБЫЧА

§ 1. Обстоятельства, благоприятные для английских мануфактур —I have frequently remarked in previous chapters that Flanders was the great manufactory of Europe throughout the Middle Ages, and up to the sixteenth century. Her competition would in any case have been sufficient to check much export of manufactured goods from England, though we had by the sixteenth century got past the time when most of our imports of clothing came from Flanders. Now, at the end of the sixteenth century, Flemish competition was practically annihilated, owing to the ravages made in the Low Countries by the Spanish persecutions and occupation. But England did not merely benefit by the cessation of Flemish competition: she received at the same time hundreds of Flemish immigrants, who greatly improved our home manufactures, and thus our {133} prosperity was doubly assisted. The result is seen in the fact that our export of wool diminished, and our export of cloth increased.

§ 2. Торговля шерстью. Домашние мануфактуры. Крашение —In the reign of James I. the wool trade is even said to have declined, and certainly we know that little wool can have been exported, for nearly all that produced in England was used for home manufacture. On the other hand, however, the same fact shows that the manufacturing industry was rising in importance, for it required all the home-grown wool that could be got; and, in 1660, the export of British wool was for this reason forbidden, and remained so till 1825. The woollen trade was now very largely in the hands of the Merchant Adventurers, 41 whose methods caused many complaints; but the manufacturing industry flourished steadily, and a considerable part of the population was now engaged in it. It seems to have received some impetus, also, from the Acts 4 and 5 James I. (1607 and 1608), carefully regulating and guarding the quality of cloth exported, and by the end of the seventeenth century no less than two-thirds of our exports were woollen fabrics. The usefulness of our climate, too, for this particular manufacture had been discovered, and was now recognized, while the manufacturing industry was likewise aided by the impetus given to dyeing by the exertions of Sir Walter Raleigh. Previously to James I.’s reign most English goods had to be sent to the Netherlands to be dyed, as I explained above; but Raleigh, in his Essay on Commerce, called attention to this fact, and proposed to grant a monopoly for the art of dyeing and {134} dressing, and by his advice the export of English white goods was prohibited (1608), but the monopoly granted to Sir W. Cockayne caused such an outcry that it was revoked.

41. Эта компания, согласно хартиям Якова I от 1604 и 1617 годов, имела исключительную привилегию экспорта шерстяных тканей Англии в Нидерланды и Германию. Она включала около 4000 купцов.

§ 3. Другие влияния, благоприятные для Англии. Иммиграция гугенотов —But other influences were at work in the seventeenth century in favour of our home industries. It becomes more and more apparent that our insular position was specially fitted for the development of manufactures as soon as they made a fair start. Except for the Parliamentary War, which did not disturb the industry of the country very much—for there is no sign of undue exaltation of prices, or anything else that points to commercial distress—England was free from the terrible conflicts that desolated half Europe in the Thirty Years’ War. Our own Civil War was conducted with hardly any of the bloodshed, plunder, and rapine that make war so disastrous. But the Thirty Years’ War (1619–1648) did not cease till the utter exhaustion of the combatants made peace inevitable, and till every leader who had taken part in the beginning of the war was in his grave. Germany was effectually ruined, and with Germany and Flanders laid low, England had little to fear from foreign competition. And just at this moment the folly of our neighbour, the French King Louis XIV., induced him to deprive his nation of most of its skilled workmen, by the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. His loss was our gain. The Edict in question, passed nearly a century previously, had insured freedom of worship to the French Huguenots, who comprised in their ranks the élite of the industrial population. Louis XIV. set to work to exterminate the Protestant religion in France, and began by revoking this Edict (1685). Once more England profited by her Protestantism, and, owing {135} to the religious opinions of her people, received a fresh accession of industrial strength. Some thousands of skilled Huguenot artisans and manufacturers came over and settled in this land. They greatly improved the silk, glass, and paper trades, and exercised considerable influence in the development of domestic manufactures generally. It is said that the immigrants numbered 50,000 souls, with a capital of some £3,000,000. 42 Everyone knows how they introduced the silk industry into this country, and how Spitalfields long remained a colony of Huguenot silk weavers. Their descendants are to be found in every part of England.

42. Андерсон, «Хроника торговли», II, 569.

1700–50 INDUSTRIAL ENGLAND Показывает население в первой половине XVIII века, главные города и мануфактуры. Наиболее густонаселенные графства отмечены темно-зеленым цветом.

Большая часть населения находилась в западных и южно-центральных графствах (темно-зеленый цвет); но Ланкашир и Уэст-Райдинг Йоркшира росли. Главные промышленные центры в (1) восточных графствах, (2) Уилтшире, (3) Йоркшире и т. д. показаны так, но следует помнить, что мануфактуры были очень разбросаны и велись параллельно с сельским хозяйством. Поэтому некоторые другие графства отмечены косыми линиями.

§ 4. Распределение суконной торговли —From this time forward the cloth trade, in especial, took its place among the chief industries of the country, largely owing to the fresh spirit infused into it, first by Flemish, and afterwards by French weavers. It became more and more widely distributed. The county of Kent, and the towns of York and Reading made one kind of cloth of a heavy texture, the piece being thirty or thirty-four yards long by six and one-half quarters broad, and weighing 66 lbs. to the piece. Worcester, Hereford, and Coventry made a lighter kind of fabric, while throughout the eastern counties of Norfolk, Suffolk, and Essex were made cloths of various kinds—plunkets, azures, blues, long cloth, bay, say, and serges; Suffolk, in particular, made a “fine, short, white cloth.” Wiltshire and Somerset made plunkets and handy warps; Yorkshire, short cloths. Broad-listed whites and reds, and fine cloths, also came from Wiltshire, Gloucestershire and Oxfordshire; and Somerset was famous in the eastern part for narrow-listed whites and reds, and in the west for “dunsters.” Devonshire made kerseys and grays, as also did {136} Yorkshire and Lancashire. The Midlands furnished “Penistone” cloths and “Forest whites”; while Westmoreland was the seat of the manufacture of the famous “Kendal green” cloths, as also of “Carpmael” and “Cogware” fabrics. It will be seen that the manufacture was exceedingly extensive, and that special fabrics derived their names from the chief centre where they were made. It may be mentioned here, too, that the value of wool shorn in England at the end of the seventeenth century was £2,000,000, from about 12,000,000 sheep (according to Youatt); and the cloth manufactured from it was valued at £6,000,000 or £8,000,000. Nearly half-a-century later (1741) the number of sheep was reckoned at 17,000,000, the value of wool shorn at £3,000,000, and of wool manufactured at £8,000,000, showing that progress in invention had not done much to enhance the value of the manufactured article. But in 1774, when the Industrial Revolution may be said to have fairly begun, the value of manufactured wool was £13,000,000, the value of raw wool (£4,500,000) being smaller in proportion.

§ 5. Угольные шахты —Turning now from textile manufactures to mining and working in metals, we find that in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries we were just upon the eve of the most important changes in these industries—changes which, in many places, have entirely transformed the face of the country. But it cannot be too clearly understood that none of our mining and mineral industries attained any proportions worth speaking of till what is known as the Industrial Revolution. Englishmen seem to have had hardly any idea of the vast wealth of coal and iron that has placed us in the forefront of Europe as a manufacturing nation. Nevertheless we may just glance at the imperfect methods which our forefathers used up {137} till the eighteenth century. Coal-mining had been carried on fairly extensively by the Romans, as for instance the discovery of huge cinder-heaps at Aston and other places testifies. Then, like all our industries, it was almost entirely given up, and it was due to the Norman Conquest that coal-mining was revived. That it was practised to some extent in the North is seen from an entry in the Boldean Book (a kind of Domesday of the county of Durham, composed in 1183), in which a smith is allowed twelve acres of land for making the ironwork of the carts, and has to provide his own coal. But collieries were not opened at Newcastle till the thirteenth century, in the year 1238. In the next year we find notice of the first public recognition of coal as an article of commerce, and from a charter of Henry III. to the freemen of Newcastle, we may date the foundation of the coal trade. In 1273 this had become sufficiently extensive for the use of coal to be forbidden in London; as there was a prejudice against it and in favour of wood as fuel. In the fourteenth century, again, the monks of Tynemouth Priory engaged in mining speculation, and (1380) leased a colliery for £5. In the fifteenth century trade was sufficiently important to form a source of revenue, for a tax of twopence per chaldron was placed upon sea-borne coal, and in 1421 an Act had to be passed to enforce this tax. In fact in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries coal-mining became general in Great Britain.

§ 6. Развитие угольной торговли: семнадцатый и восемнадцатый века —By the seventeenth century it had also become important—important enough for the needy Stuart monarch Charles I. to see in it a chance of revenue. This king gave to Sir Thomas Tempest and his partners the monopoly of the sale of Newcastle coal for twenty-one years, beginning in 1637; and next year he allowed a {138} syndicate to be incorporated which was to buy up all the coal from Newcastle, Sunderland and Berwick, and sell it in London for “not more than 17s. a ton in summer, and 19s. in winter”—an extravagant price for those times. The king got a shilling a ton out of this ingenious scheme. However, the Long Parliament finally put a stop to this outrageous monopoly.

Но хотя угольная торговля была довольно обширной для того периода, она была совершенно незначительной по сравнению с ее нынешними масштабами, и на то была очень веская причина. Не было средств для откачки воды из шахт, кроме старомодного воздушного насоса, который, конечно, был совершенно неадекватен. И подходящее изобретение не было найдено до самого конца семнадцатого века, когда Томас Севери в 1698 году изобрел своего рода насос, работающий на конденсации пара. Это довольно неуклюжее изобретение, однако, было вскоре вытеснено в 1705 году паровым насосом Ньюкомена. Но только после начала промышленной революции паровая энергия была научно применена к угольным шахтам благодаря изобретениям Уатта и Болтона (1765 и 1774 гг.), которые мы отметим в надлежащем месте. До того времени также было трудно перевозить уголь во внутренние районы по дорогам, ньюкаслский уголь доставлялся в Лондон на кораблях, а затем перевозился вверх по внутренним рекам на баржах. Но эти баржи не могли подниматься высоко по многим рекам в то время, а каналы еще не были построены. Было трудно, например, доставить уголь в Оксфорд, так как он должен был прибыть в Лондон, а затем частично вверх по Темзе, которая тогда не была судоходна так далеко. Но в Кембридже его было легко достать, так как баржи могли подходить прямо к городу из восточных портов. Поэтому в Кембридже он был намного дешевле, чем в Оксфорде.

§ 7. Железная промышленность —As it had been with coal, so with iron. Only very small quantities of it were mined in the {139} Middle Ages; it was smelted only by wood, as a rule, and was manufactured only in a very rude way. We saw that at the great fairs foreign iron, chiefly from the Biscay coast, was much in demand, as our own supply was utterly insufficient. It was naturally not until we learnt to mine and use our coal properly that we learnt also how to mine and manufacture our iron. Before learning this, English workmen used wood as fuel, and it is to this cause that we owe the destruction of most of the forests which, at the time of Domesday, occupied so large an area. “The waste and destruction of the woods in the counties of Warwick, Stafford, Hereford, Monmouth, Gloucester, and Salop by these iron-works is not to be imagined,” a speaker said in Parliament as late as the beginning of the eighteenth century. And as wood was used as house-fuel also, it will readily be understood what a vast destruction of timber took place. In 1581 the erection of iron-works within certain distances from London and the Thames was prohibited “for the preservation of the woods.”

Но в начале семнадцатого века (1619 г.) Дад Дадли, сын лорда Дадли, начал использовать морской и каменный уголь для выплавки железа и получил монополию на «тайну и искусство выплавки железной руды и изготовления из нее литых изделий или прутьев в печах с мехами». Дадли продавал это чугунное литье по 12 фунтов за тонну и получал с этого хорошую прибыль. Он производил семь тонн в неделю, что считалось большим объемом поставок и показывает относительную незначительность отрасли в то время. Однако она была лишь сравнительно незначительной, ибо до конца века было подсчитано, что в Англии ежегодно производилось 180 000 тонн железа; а в восемнадцатом веке (1719 г.) железо занимало третье место в списке английских мануфактур, и торговля давала работу 200 000 человек. Однако все еще наблюдалась большая растрата древесины, поскольку многие владельцы железоделательных заводов не использовали уголь, и поэтому экспорт и даже производство железа сдерживались законодательством до такой степени, что к 1740 году объем производства сократился до 17 350 тонн в год, едва ли десятую часть от предыдущего указанного количества. Растрата древесины была наиболее заметна в Сассекском Уилдене, леса которого обязаны своим уничтожением почти полностью производству железа и стекла.

Но примерно в это время другой изобретатель, Дарби, открыл секрет большой доменной печи, в которой использовались каменный уголь и древесный уголь. Он начал свои эксперименты еще в 1730 году, но не сделал многого за двадцать лет. В 1756 году, однако, его заводы были «на самой вершине процветания; двадцать и двадцать две тонны в неделю продавались так быстро, как производились, и прибыли было достаточно».

После Дарби пришли Смитон и другие изобретатели, и промышленная революция распространилась на железную промышленность. Мы увидим ее в действии в нашем следующем периоде.

§ 8. Гончарное дело —As with all other manufactures, so too the development of pottery was reserved for the Renaissance of industry in the eighteenth century. Of course pottery of a kind had always been made in England, especially where the useful soil of Staffordshire formed a favourable ground for the exercise of this art. But the pottery hitherto manufactured had been rude and coarse, and its manufacture was a strictly domestic and not very widespread industry. We owe its improvement, as in so many other cases, largely to the efforts of the Dutch and Huguenot immigrants of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. For the Dutch had been great among the potters of Europe, as the renown of Delft-ware still testifies, and France had the honour of being the land of Palissy. The factories at Burslem owed their origin to {141} the industry of two Germans, called Elers, from whom an Englishman, Astbury, learnt the secret of producing the red unglazed Japanese ware, and the black Egyptian ware. Burslem, too, was the birthplace of Josiah Wedgwood, born 1730, who first began business in 1752 as manager for a master-potter, but started in business on his own account in 1759, the eve of the Industrial Revolution. His efforts and experiments were magnificent and untiring, and they can be read at leisure in various biographical works. It is sufficient here to say that Wedgwood was the man who first made the art of pottery a science, and before his death in 1795 he had brought this manufacture to such a pitch of excellence, that few improvements have been left for his successors to make, and it rose to be one of the chief industries of the country.

§ 9. Другие горнодобывающие отрасли —There remain one or two industries that require a passing mention, but which were not in the eighteenth century of much importance. As to the metals, the foreign trade in tin and lead has been already mentioned. In the reign of John the tin-mines of Cornwall were farmed by the Jews, and the tin and lead trade must have attained considerable proportions in the fourteenth century, for the Black Prince paid his own expenses in the French wars by the produce of his mines of those metals in Devonshire. Copper, also, was mined in the northern counties, and in a statute of 15 Edward III. (1343) we find grants of mines given at Skeldane, in Northumberland; at Alston Moor, in Cumberland; and at Richmond, in Yorkshire; a royalty of one-eighth going to the king, and one-ninth to the lord of the manor. Keswick was at that time a centre of this industry; but there cannot have been any great output, for copper had to be imported from Germany in the fifteenth century. The mines were also very primitive, the approaches being {142} made not by shafts, but by adits in the side of a convenient hill. Another mineral, which is very abundant in England, especially in Worcestershire and Cheshire, was at this period hardly utilized. Salt was a necessary of life to the English householder, for he had to salt his meat for the winter; but he did not know how to mine it himself, and either got it imported from south-west France or contented himself with the inferior article evaporated on the sea-coast, until the end of the seventeenth century.

Здесь мы также можем упомянуть, что производство кирпича было утраченным искусством с пятого по пятнадцатый век, и кирпичи даже не импортировались. Первая закупка кирпичей, которая была зафиксирована, произошла в Кембридже в 1449 году; но до конца пятнадцатого века он стал обычным строительным материалом в восточных графствах, а в шестнадцатом веке широко использовался в Лондоне и в графствах вдоль нижнего течения Темзы.

§ 10. Закат периода ручного труда —We have now reached a turning-point in English industrial history, and are about to study a period that is in every way a violent contrast to the centuries which preceded it. We have come to the time when machinery begins to displace unaided manual labour. Hitherto all our manufactures, our mining, and of course our agriculture, had been performed by the literal labour of men’s hands, only slightly helped by a few simple inventions. Industry, too, was not organized upon a vast capitalistic basis, though of course capitalists existed; but it would be more correct to say that hitherto industry had been chiefly carried on by numbers of smaller capitalists who were also manual workmen, even when they employed other workmen under them. Only in agriculture had the capitalist class become very far removed from the labourers. There was certainly no such violent contrast {143} as now exists between a mill-owner and a mill-hand in the realm of manufacturing industry, though of course this contrast existed between the rich land-owner who received rents, and the poor agricultural labourer whose labour helped to pay them. But, speaking of industry generally, it may be said that the absence of machinery kept employers and workmen more upon a common level, and as large factories of course did not exist, industry was carried on chiefly in the workmen’s homes, and the workman was not merely a unit among hundreds of unknown “hands” in a mill, but a person not hopelessly removed in social rank from his employer, who was well acquainted with him, and like him worked with his own hands.

Но теперь этот старый порядок вещей уходит, и появляется новый порядок, возвещенный гулом и грохотом машин и могучим шипением пара. Происходит полная трансформация, и жизнь Англии пробуждается заново в великой промышленной революции.

ПЕРИОД V. ПРОМЫШЛЕННАЯ РЕВОЛЮЦИЯ И СОВРЕМЕННАЯ АНГЛИЯ

ГЛАВА I. НАКАНУНЕ РЕВОЛЮЦИИ

§ 1. Промышленность и политика. Землевладельцы и торговые принцы —We are, of course, mainly concerned in this book with industrial facts; but as these underlie all politics and national history, we must pause for a moment to see how the growth of commerce had by this time affected the relations of two great classes: the land-owners and their new rivals, the great merchants and the commercial classes generally. Up to the time of the deposition of James II., or the Whig Revolution of 1688, as it is sometimes called, the land-owning class had been practically supreme in social and political influence. But from that time forward, although they still held this high position, their influence was heavily counterbalanced by that of the mercantile classes. The capitalist and the commercial magnates were all favoured by the great movement which divided the nation into the two historic parties of Whigs and Tories, for it was that movement which first accentuated their importance in the political life of the nation. That importance was still more accentuated by a series of significant economic events which took place shortly after the Revolution; namely, the foundation of the Bank of {145} England (1694), 43 the new and extended Charter granted to the East India Company in 1693, the beginning of the National Debt in the same year, and the Restoration of the Currency in 1696. The commercial and industrial section of the community was becoming more and more prominent, and the great Whig families who occupied themselves with endeavouring to rule England in the eighteenth century, relied for their support upon the middle and commercial classes. The old reverence, however, for the position of a land-owner had not yet died out, and the men who had gained their wealth by commerce strove for a higher social position by buying land in large quantities. The time had not yet come when a merchant was on equal terms with a landlord.

43. Подробности см. в примечаниях 13 и 14, стр. 247, 248.

На самом деле, среди всех слоев английского народа всегда существовал необычайный сентиментализм по отношению к земле; и по какой-то причине, которая никогда не была полностью объяснена, человек, который просто унаследовал большое количество земли (даже если он никогда не пытался ее обрабатывать), считается выше того, кто сколотил состояние в промышленном или коммерческом мире. И это чувство было сильнее в восемнадцатом веке, чем в настоящее время. Поэтому коммерческие магнаты покупали землю, а вместе с ней и социальный престиж. Джеймс Лоутер, получивший титул графа Лонсдейла в 1784 году, был потомком купца, занимавшегося левантийской торговлей; первый граф Тилни был сыном того выдающегося делового человека, сэра Джозайи Чайлда. Дочерям торговых принцев даже позволялось выходить замуж за отпрысков нуждающейся аристократии — и содержать их. Дефо действительно обнаружил удивительный и революционный факт, что человек, занимающийся коммерцией, может быть джентльменом, хотя, несомненно, это его смелое предположение поначалу было встречено с недоверием. Он говорит: «Торговля настолько далека от того, чтобы быть несовместимой с джентльменом, что в Англии торговля делает джентльмена; ибо через поколение или два дети торговца становятся такими же хорошими джентльменами, государственными деятелями, парламентариями, судьями, епископами и дворянами, как и дети самого высокого происхождения и самых древних семей». Декан Свифт заметил, «что власть, которая раньше следовала за землей, перешла к деньгам». Доктор Джонсон оракульно объявил, что «английский купец — это новый вид джентльмена».

Теперь промышленная революция пошла еще дальше, чтобы завоевать социальное и политическое влияние для коммерческих классов. Ей удалось разрушить глупую идею о том, что только землевладельцы должны рассматриваться как лидеры нации. Она дала капиталистам и мануфактурщикам новый приток власти, колоссально увеличив их богатство. Более того, она помогла подорвать интересы землевладельцев, сделав мануфактуры Англии сначала равными, а затем превосходящими ее сельское хозяйство, так что богатый владелец фабрики или железоделательного завода стал таким же важным, как крупный землевладелец. Монополия интересов землевладельцев была сломлена капиталом. Нигде контраст между старыми и новыми классами в прошлом столетии не виден так отчетливо, как в романе Скотта «Роб Рой», где старый тори-сквайр, твердо державшийся церкви и короля, противопоставляется новому коммерческому магнату, поддерживавшему Ганноверскую династию. Одно благо мы получили от возвышения коммерческих классов, и это было окончательное свержение Стюартов со всеми глупостями, которые представляла эта несчастная династия.

§ 2. Приход капиталистов —Now, although the commercial capitalist was fast coming into prominence as the rival of the land-owner, he was becoming still more {147} prominent as the master of the workmen whom he employed. For before the Industrial Revolution the capitalist had occupied a comparatively subordinate place. The vast enterprises of modern industry, such as railways or mills, which often require so large an expenditure of capital before they can begin to be in any way remunerative, were practically unknown a century ago. The industrial system was, moreover, far less complicated, far less international, far less subdivided. Instead of the great capitalist manufacturers of to-day, who can control the markets of a nation, England possessed numbers of smaller capitalists, with far less capital, both individually and in the aggregate, than what is now required by a man who undertakes even a moderate business. The large capitalists of the last century were chiefly the foreign trading companies. For English home manufactures, although greatly developed, were still largely conducted upon the domestic system, and the small capitalist-artisan was a conspicuous feature of that time, just as the large mill-owner or ironmaster is of our own day. Manufactures were carried on by a number of small master-manufacturers, who gave out work to be done in the homes of their employés; and who often combined agricultural with manufacturing pursuits. But nevertheless there were signs of the approach of modern capitalist methods, of production upon a large scale. It was becoming increasingly the custom to employ a large number of workpeople together under one roof, or at least under the direction and supervision of one great manufacturer. Arthur Young, for instance, mentions a silk mill at Sheffield with 152 hands—a large number in the eighteenth century; a factory at Boynton with 150 hands; and a master-manufacturer at Darlington who ran above fifty looms. Work was also {148} given out by capitalist manufacturers or merchants to workmen to do at home in the villages and towns. These workmen were, like the employés of the present day, entirely dependent upon their employer for work and wages. Thus, at Nottingham in 1750 we find fifty master-manufacturers who “put out” work in this way for as many as 1200 looms in the hosiery trade.

§ 3. Класс мелких мануфактурщиков —But although the coming of the capitalists was now near at hand the old order of things was not seriously disturbed till the application of steam power to machinery some years later. There were still many small manufacturers who lived on their own land and worked with their workpeople in their own houses. Defoe in his Tour through Great Britain (made in 1724–26) gives an interesting account of this class at a time when they were in the height of their prosperity, before machinery and steam had even begun to cause their disappearance. Speaking of the land near Halifax, in Yorkshire, he says: “The land was divided into small enclosures from two acres to six or seven each, seldom more, every three or four pieces of land having a house belonging to them; hardly a house standing out of speaking distance from another. We could see at every house a tenter, and on almost every tenter a piece of cloth or kersie or shalloon. At every considerable house there was a manufactory. Every clothier keeps one horse at least to carry his manufactures to the market; and every one generally keeps a cow or two or more for his family. By this means the small pieces of enclosed land about each house are occupied, for they scarce sow corn enough to feed their poultry. The houses are full of lusty fellows, some at the dye-vat, some at the looms, others dressing the cloths; the women and children carding or spinning; being all employed, from the {149} youngest to the oldest.” And Defoe adds a remark which is certainly not applicable either to Halifax or any other manufacturing town of the present day, for he concludes his description with the words: “not a beggar to be seen, or an idle person.”

§ 4. Положение производственного населения —For it is a significant fact that under the old domestic system, simple and cumbrous as it was, the manufacturing population was very much better off than it was for some time after the Industrial Revolution. For one thing, they still lived more or less in the country and were not crowded together in stifling alleys and courts, or long rows of bare smoke-begrimed streets, in houses like so many dirty rabbit-hutches. Even if the artisan did live in a town at that time, the town was very different from the abodes of smoke and dirt which now prevail in the manufacturing districts. There were no tall chimneys, belching forth clouds of evil smoke; no huge, hot factories with their hundreds of windows blazing forth a lurid light in the darkness, and rattling with the whir and din of ceaseless machinery by day and night. There were no gigantic blast furnaces rising amid blackened heaps of cinders, or chemical works poisoning the fields and trees for miles around. These were yet to come. The factory and the furnace were almost unknown. Work was carried on by the artisan in his little stone or brick house, with the workshop inside, where the wool for the weft was carded and spun by his wife and daughters, and the cloth was woven by himself and his sons. He had also, in nearly all cases, his plot of land near the house, which provided him both with food and recreation, for he could relieve the monotony of weaving by cultivating his little patch of ground, or feeding his pigs and poultry. Work too was more regular than it {150} often is at present, for there were fewer commercial fluctuations; fashions did not change so quickly, and the market for home-spun fabrics was always steady and assured. The relations between employers and employed were far closer; even the distribution of wealth was comparatively more equal. Wages were of course less in money value than at present, but then prices of food and rent were only about half what they are now. Arthur Young gives 9s. 6d. as the average weekly wages of an artisan in the North and Midland counties, while the average rent for a cottage in the same counties he puts at 28s. 2d. a year, or only 6⁠½d. per week. And it must be remembered that this included a piece of land round the cottage. Meat, also, was cheap, being from 2⁠½d. to 3⁠¼d. per pound; and bread 1⁠¼d. a pound. In fact we may confidently say that artisans, especially spinners and weavers, were well off about 1760. Adam Smith testifies to this in the Wealth of Nations. “Not only has grain become somewhat cheaper,” he says, “but many other things from which the industrious poor derive an agreeable and wholesome variety of food have become a great deal cheaper.” And the healthy condition of industry in general is shown by the fact that at the close of the wars with France by the Peace of 1763, when more than 100,000 men accustomed to war were thrown upon the country and had to find work or else be supported somehow or other, “not only no great convulsion, but no sensible disorder arose.”

§ 5. Положение сельскохозяйственного населения —Nor was that convenient plenty which was the lot of the manufacturing portion of the people confined only to that section. The condition of the agricultural labourer, who was generally the worst off of all classes from being so much under the direct supervision of his master, had {151} considerably improved, together with the general improvement of agriculture spoken of in a previous chapter. The price of corn had fallen, while wages had risen, though these were less than an artisan’s, being, according to Arthur Young’s average estimate for the North and Midland counties, about 7s. a week. But it was generally 8s. or 10s., while the board of a working man may be placed at about 5s. or 6s. a week. Cottages were occasionally rent free, or at any rate only paid a low rent, never more than 50s. or 60s. per year. There was an abundance of food, clothing, and furniture. Wheat-bread had entirely superseded rye-bread. Every poor family now drank tea, which had formerly been a costly luxury. The consumption of meat was, says Arthur Young, “pretty considerable,” and that of cheese “immense.” Indeed he states that the labourers “by their large wages and the cheapness of all necessaries enjoyed better dwellings, diet, and apparel in England than the husbandmen or farmers did in other countries.” Certainly Arthur Young must have been struck with the difference between the agricultural population of England and that of France, which latter country he visited shortly before the Revolution, when the misery of the labourers was at its lowest depth, thanks to the extortions of the privileged noblesse.

§ 6. Рост населения —But not only had the condition of the industrial population improved in the period 1700–1750, but their numbers had also considerably increased. And now too was beginning that great shifting of the centres of population from the South to the North of England, which is so important a feature in the new industrial epoch. The most suggestive fact of this period is the growth of the population of Lancashire and of the West Riding of Yorkshire, which were rapidly becoming {152} the seats of the cotton and coarse woollen manufactures. Similarly also Staffordshire and Warwickshire, the pottery and hardware centres, were growing in numbers, and so, too, were Durham and Northumberland, whose coal-fields were now far more developed than before. On the other hand, the population of the Western and Eastern counties, still large manufacturing centres, had increased very little. But in the North and North-west the increase was enormous. Between 1685 and 1760 the people of Liverpool had increased tenfold, of Manchester fivefold, of Birmingham and Sheffield sevenfold. The total population of England had increased from the five millions or so of Elizabeth’s time, to not much less than eight millions in Arthur Young’s time, and far more of these were in the northern portions of the country than was the case even in Defoe’s time. Defoe said in 1725, “the country south of the Trent is by far the largest, as well as the richest and most populous.” But forty or fifty years later the shifting towards the North had already made itself felt. The cause of the great increase of population between 1700 and 1760 is to be found in the rapid increase of national wealth gained by foreign commerce, in the progress of home manufactures and of agriculture. Increased wealth means increased comfort in living, increased command of food, and consequently better chances of survival among children born of poor parents. And in this period the increase in national wealth was, in spite of foreign wars, enormous; for if England had to pay heavily for these wars other countries had to pay more heavily still, and were, moreover, the battle-grounds of contending armies, while our own land was at least free from invasion.

§ 7. Англия все еще преимущественно сельскохозяйственная —Of the population of the country at this time the majority were still {153} engaged in agriculture, and the agricultural labourers alone formed one-third of the working classes, and a large number even of the manufacturing classes still worked in the fields for a portion of the year, especially in harvest-time. In 1770 England was still mainly an agricultural country, and Arthur Young estimates that the income of the agricultural portion of the nation was larger than that of all the rest of the community. But it must be remembered that by far the largest portion of this income was in the hands of large land-owners and the farmers, the share of the labourer being of course much smaller. Arthur Young’s estimates must be taken with a certain amount of caution, but they are probably approximately correct, and are certainly interesting as giving us a very fair idea of the distribution of occupations and national wealth just before the Industrial Revolution. Hence I append a small table, giving in round numbers the figures of his estimates. It will be noticed that the number of the population is rather too high, but the proportion of one class to another is probably correct.

INCOMES OF VARIOUS CLASSES†

IN MILLION POUNDS

Процент на капитал 5; Пауперы 1,5; Военные и чиновники 5; Профессии 5; Коммерческие 10; Производственные 27; Сельскохозяйственные 66; Итого = 119 500 000 фунтов стерлингов.

† This table is drawn to scale.

POPULATION

IN MILLIONS

Пауперы 0,5; Военные и чиновники 0,5; Профессионалы 0,2; Коммерческие 0,7; Производственные 3; Сельскохозяйственные 3,6; Итого = 8 500 000.

Можно заметить, что сельскохозяйственные работники, хотя их численность была лишь на полмиллиона больше, чем у производственных классов, имели гораздо более высокий пропорциональный доход, фактически более чем вдвое. Это, конечно, было частично связано с сельскохозяйственными улучшениями этого периода и тем фактом, что мануфактуры все еще велись почти исключительно вручную, что давало лишь небольшую продукцию от большого числа рабочих. Но промышленная революция быстро изменила все это, и теперь сельское хозяйство больше не является основной отраслью страны. Мы можем здесь сослаться на то, что упоминалось ранее в отношении сельскохозяйственного развития на огороженной земле и превосходства результатов огораживаний над общинными полями. Те фермеры и крупные владельцы, которые понимали лучшие способы выращивания урожая, процветали, и с каждым годом огораживалось все больше земли для выращивания зерна (которое, кстати, быстро росло в цене), клевера, репы и других корнеплодов. Между 1760 и 1774 годами было принято не менее 700 актов об огораживании. Старые общинные поля начали исчезать, и рабочий класс также потерял свои права на выпас скота на пустошах, ибо пустоши теперь были огорожены. Следует признать, что старая система общинных полей давала очень плохие результаты (ср. стр. 41), но потеря общинных прав была очень катастрофичной для рабочего, ибо она вытеснила его с земли в то же самое время, когда рост мануфактур привлек его прочь от нее, и таким образом рабочий за несколько лет полностью оторвался от почвы. В настоящее время предпринимаются попытки привлечь его обратно, предлагая ему небольшие полоски низкокачественной земли за высокую арендную плату. Это известно как система наделов. Едва ли стоит говорить, что в том виде, в каком она осуществляется сейчас, она вряд ли увенчается успехом.

45. О недавних событиях см. стр. 231.

§ 8. Домашняя система производства —But in the period we are now speaking of, the period before the great inventions, neither the agricultural labourer nor the manufacturing operative was quite divorced from the land. The weavers, for instance, often lived in the country, in a cottage with some land attached to it. There had certainly been changes in the industrial system before 1760. At first the weaver had furnished himself with warp and weft, worked it up, and brought it to the market himself; but by degrees this system grew too cumbersome, and the yarn was given out by merchants to the weaver, and at last the merchant got together a certain number of looms in a town or village, and worked them under his own supervision. But even yet the domestic system, as it is commonly called, retained in many if not in most cases the distinctive feature that the manufacturing industry was not the only industry in which the artisan was engaged, but that he generally combined with it a certain amount of agricultural work in the cultivation of his own small plot of land. This fact explains to some extent the comparative comfort of the operative in this cottage industry, for that they were fairly well off is the testimony of Adam Smith, in 1776. Commercial fluctuations were few; the home market was steady; {156} employer and employed were more closely knit together than at present; wealth was more equally distributed, and capital existed in smaller amounts but in a larger number of hands. The poet’s vision of “contentment spinning at the cottage door” was not altogether imaginary, for women and children shared in the common task brought home by the head of the family. Nor, after all, was trade so restricted and hampered as some writers have seemed to suppose. On the contrary, there was, in spite of bad roads, very frequent and considerable internal communication for manufacturing purposes, and this was facilitated by means of the local markets, the importance of which in those days cannot be easily overrated. Manufacturers would ride a long way to buy wool from the farmers or at the great fairs already mentioned, such as that of Stourbridge (p. 63), which was sufficiently considerable even a hundred years ago, or those of Lynn, Boston, Gainsborough, and Beverley, all four of which were celebrated for their wool-sales. This wool was then brought home and sorted; then sent out to the hand-combers, and on being returned combed was again sent out, often to long distances, to be spun. It was, for instance, sent from remote parts of Yorkshire to Lancashire, or even farther; or again from near London to Kendal and back. When spun, the tops, or fine wool, were entrusted to some shopkeeper to “put out” among the neighbours. Then the yarn was brought back and sorted by the manufacturer himself into hanks, according to the counts and twist. The hand-weavers would next come for their warp and weft, and in due time bring back the piece, which often was sent elsewhere to be dyed. Finally, the finished cloth was sent to be sold at the fairs, or at the local “piece halls” of such central towns as Leeds or Halifax. {157}