«Промышленная история Англии»

Следовательно, видно, что при старой системе существовало значительное рассредоточение работы, и не было необходимости в том, чтобы большое количество людей жило в тесноте или работало на фабриках в больших масштабах. Дела велись с большей неспешностью, и на них уходило больше времени. Но с промышленной революцией пришла вся суета и напряжение современной производственной жизни, и произошли полные изменения в манере и методах производства. И теперь, увидев, как обстояли дела непосредственно перед этим великим изменением, мы можем сразу перейти к средствам, с помощью которых оно было осуществлено.

ГЛАВА II. ЭПОХА ВЕЛИКИХ ИЗОБРЕТЕНИЙ

§ 1. Внезапность революции и ее значение —The change from the domestic system of industry which has been briefly sketched in the previous chapter to the modern system of production by machinery and steam power, was sudden and violent. The great inventions were all made in a comparatively short space of time, and the previous slow growth of industry developed quickly into a feverish burst of manufacturing production that completely revolutionized the face of industrial England. In little more than twenty years all the great inventions of Watt, Arkwright, and Boulton had been completed, steam had been applied to the new looms, and the modern factory system had fairly begun. Nothing has done more to make England what she at present is—whether for better or worse—than this sudden and silent Industrial Revolution, for it increased her wealth tenfold, and gave her half-a-century’s start in front of the nations of Europe. The French Revolution {158} took place about the same time, and as it was performed amid streams of blood and flame, it attracted the attention of historians, who have apparently yet to learn that bloodshed and battles are merely the incidents of history. The French Revolution also succeeded in giving birth to one of the world’s military heroes, and a military hero naturally excites the enthusiasm of the multitude. But the French Revolution was the result of economic causes that had been operating for centuries, and which had had their effect in England four hundred years before, at the time of the Peasants’ Revolt. These economic causes have been rather kept in the background by modern historians, and it was hardly to be expected that they should recognize the operation of such causes in England; more especially as their effects were not accentuated by political fireworks, but were even partially hidden by subsequent events resulting from these effects. Men were blinded too by an increase in the wealth of the richer portion of the nation, not even seeing whence that wealth proceeded, and quite ignoring the fact that it was accompanied by serious poverty among the industrial classes. Nor did historians perceive that the world-famous wars in which England was engaged at the close of the last century and up to 1815, were necessitated by England’s endeavour to gain the commercial supremacy of the world, after she had invented the means of supplying the world’s markets to overflowing. Economic causes were at the root of them all. We shall discuss later the connection between our foreign politics and our industry; at present we must adhere to the subject of the development of that industry by the great inventors. 46 {159}

46. Произошла сельскохозяйственная революция, столь же важная, как и промышленная, но лучше рассматривать ее отдельно. Я сделал это в гл. VI.

§ 2. Великие изобретатели —The transition from the domestic to the factory system was begun by four great inventions. In 1770 James Hargreaves, a weaver of Standhill, near Blackburn, patented the spinning-jenny—i.e. a frame with a number of spindles side by side, which were fed by machinery, and by which many threads might be spun at once, instead of only one, as had been the case in the old one-thread hand-spinning wheel. Hargreaves first used this “jenny” for some time in his own house, and was at once enabled to spin eight times as much yarn as before. In 1771 Arkwright established a successful mill at Cromford on the Derwent, in which he employed his patent spinning machine, or “water-frame,” an improvement upon a former invention of Wyatt’s, which derived its name from the fact that it was worked by water power. A few years later (1779) both these inventions were superseded by that of Samuel Crompton, a spinner, but the son of a farmer near Bolton. His machine, the “mule,” combined the principles of both the previous inventions, and was called by this name as being the hybrid offspring of its mechanical predecessors. It drew out the roving (i.e. the raw material when it has received its first twist) by an adaptation of the water-frame, and then passed it on to be finished and twisted into complete yarn by an adaptation of the spinning-jenny. This invention effected an enormous increase in production, for nowadays 12,000 spindles are often worked by it at once and by one spinner. It dates from the year 1779, and was so successful that by 1811 more than four and a half million spindles worked by “mules” were in use in various English factories. Like many inventors Crompton died in poverty in 1827.

Эти три изобретения, однако, лишь увеличили способность прядения сырья в пряжу. Что теперь требовалось, так это машина, которая выполняла бы ту же услугу для ткачества. Это было открыто доктором Картрайтом, кентским священником, и запатентовано как «механический ткацкий станок» в 1785 году, хотя впоследствии он должен был претерпеть множество улучшений и не начинал широко использоваться до 1813 года. Но принцип его был заложен, и это был один из важнейших факторов разрушения старой домашней системы. Ибо поначалу только прядение выполнялось машинами, а ткачи все еще могли выполнять свою работу вручную старыми методами; и действительно, они продолжали делать это до сравнительно недавнего времени, и многие пожилые люди в северных промышленных районах до сих пор помнят старую ткацкую промышленность, как она велась в домах самих рабочих. Но улучшения изобретения Картрайта покончили с ручным ткачом, как другие упразднили ручного прядильщика, и старая форма промышленности была обречена.

Ее смертельный удар, однако, был еще впереди. Как ни удивительны были изменения, внесенные только что упомянутыми машинами, ни одно из них само по себе не произвело бы революцию в наших производственных отраслях. Для работы на них требовалась энергия какого-либо рода, а энергия воды, хотя и использовавшаяся поначалу, была недостаточной и не всегда доступной. Именно применение пара к производственным процессам окончательно завершило промышленную революцию. В 1769 году, в год рождения Веллингтона и Бонапарта, Джеймс Уатт получил патент на паровую машину. Сначала она использовалась как вспомогательное средство в горнодобывающих операциях, но в 1785 году была внедрена на фабриках, когда один ноттингемширский хлопкопрядильщик установил ее на своем предприятии, которое ранее работало только на энергии воды. Конечно, огромные преимущества пара перед энергией воды стали сразу очевидны; мануфактурщики, особенно в хлопчатобумажной торговле, поспешили воспользоваться новыми методами, и за пятнадцать лет (1788–1803) хлопчатобумажная торговля утроилась.

§ 3. Революция в мануфактурах и фабриках —Although these machines of which we have just spoken were intended at first for use in the manufacture of cotton, they rapidly extended to that of woollen and linen fabrics. It is impossible here to describe all the various modifications and adaptations that were thus made; we can only refer to the general features of the great change. The most remarkable of these features was the sudden growth of factories, chiefly of course at first for spinning cotton or woollen yarn. The old factories, had perforce been planted by the side of some running stream, often in a lonely and deserted spot, very inconvenient for markets and the procuring of labour; but necessarily so placed for the sake of the water. Those of my readers who know Yorkshire or Lancashire fairly well may remember how frequently in the course of some long country walk near Bradford, Halifax, Leeds, or Manchester, they come upon the ruins of some old mill, crumbling beside a rushing stream, a silent relic of the old days before the use of steam. How wonderful must the first rude inventions have seemed to the workers in those old factories, as the strange new machinery rattled and shook in the quiet country hollows, and the becks and streamlets ran down to turn the new spindles and looms that were to revolutionize the face of agricultural England. But the old water-mills gave way to others worked by steam power, and now it was no longer necessary to choose any particular site for the works. So the new race of manufacturers made haste to run up steam-factories wherever they could. “Old barns and cart-houses,” says Radcliffe, “outbuildings of all descriptions were repaired; windows broke through the old blank walls, and all were {162} fitted up for loom-shops; new weavers’ cottages arose in every direction.” The merchants too, who did not run factories on their own account, but merely purchased yarn, began to collect weavers around them in great numbers, to get looms together in a workshop, and to give out warp themselves to the workpeople. And now the workers began to feel the difference between the old system and the new. Formerly they used to buy for themselves the yarn they were to weave, and had a direct interest in the cloth they made from it, which was their own property. They were in fact economically independent. The new system made them dependent upon the merchant or upon the mill-owner. At first, it is true, they gained a rise in wages, for the increase in production was so great that labour was continually in demand, and every family, says Radcliffe, brought home forty to one hundred and twenty shillings per week. But this did not last very long. The new machinery soon threw out of employment a number of those who had worked only by hand; it enabled women and children to do the work of grown men; it made all classes of workers dependent upon capitalist employers; it introduced an era of hitherto unheard-of competition. The coming of the capitalists had become an accomplished fact, and with it began again the exploitation of labour. Of this we shall speak in another chapter. Other national changes now demand our attention.

§ 4. Рост населения и развитие северных районов —The two most striking facts of the Industrial Revolution are the great growth and the equally great shifting of the population. Before 1751 the largest decennial increase of population had been about 5 or 6 per cent. But for each of the next three periods of ten years the increase became rapidly greater, till in 1801 {163} it was 14 per cent. on the previous ten years, and reached even 21⁠½ per cent. in the period 1801 to 1811. This last was the highest rate ever reached in England, and is more than double that recorded in the census of 1881 or 1891. The population of England had been under 8,000,000 in 1760; by 1821 it had risen to nearly 12,000,000; and at the present moment it is certainly nearly treble that number.

В то же время великая миграция на Север, начавшаяся еще до революции, теперь ускорилась и завершилась. Северные графства, которые в Средние века, как мы видели, были сравнительно пустынными, теперь стали и с тех пор остаются самыми густонаселенными и процветающими из всех. Центры новой фабричной системы находились на Севере, и туда стекались рабочие, которые ранее были распределены по Англии гораздо более обширным образом или которые группировались вокруг великих восточных и западных центров промышленности, которые до 1760 года превосходили другой центр, Уэст-Райдинг, по процветанию. Но теперь все изменилось. До революции восточные графства, особенно вокруг Нориджа и прилегающих районов, славились своими мануфактурами крепа, бомбазина и других тонких, легких тканей. На западе Англии города Брэдфорд-он-Эйвон, Девайз и Уорминстер были промышленными центрами, известными своими тонкими саржами; Страуд был центром производства крашеного сукна, как и Тонтон, ибо даже во времена Дефо (1725 г.) в нем было 1100 станков; а превосходство котсуолдской шерсти сделало многое для промышленности района. Эти два центра и их продукция, таким образом, были гораздо более известны, чем третий, Уэст-Райдинг, включая города Галифакс, Лидс и Брэдфорд, где производились только грубые ткани. Хлопчатобумажная торговля Ланкашира также ранее была незначительной, ибо она лишь случайно упоминалась Адамом Смитом, хотя Манчестер и Болтон были тогда, как и сейчас, ее штаб-квартирами. В 1760 году в ней было занято всего 40 000 человек, годовая стоимость хлопчатобумажного производства была сравнительно незначительной, в то время как в 1764 году стоимость нашего экспорта хлопка составляла лишь одну двадцатую часть нашего шерстяного, и производились только прочные хлопчатобумажные ткани, такие как димити и фустиан. Но теперь хлопчатобумажные города Ланкашира и шерстяные и камвольные фабрики Йоркшира значительно превосходят старые центры промышленности по богатству и населению, в то время как экспорт хлопка стал первым в королевстве, и подавляющее большинство промышленного населения теперь находится к северу от Трента. Эти великие промышленные изменения были прямым следствием внедрения новых производственных процессов. Ибо использование паровой энергии на фабриках требовало широкого использования угля, и поэтому фабричные районы почти совпадают с великими угольными бассейнами, как видно из прилагаемой карты. Более того, угольная промышленность развивалась почти одновременно с ростом мануфактур, и, действительно, одно влияло на другое. Здесь будет удобно упомянуть улучшения, сделанные в добыче угля и в железной промышленности.

47. На этой промышленной карте видно, что у нас есть

(1) соответствующая Йоркширскому угольному бассейну, мануфактуры шерстяных тканей и т. д., столовых приборов и т. д., кружев и чулочно-носочных изделий, оборудования.

(2) соответствующая Ланкаширскому угольному бассейну, мануфактуры хлопка.

(3) соответствующая Стаффордширскому угольному бассейну, мануфактуры гончарных изделий и скобяных изделий.

(4) соответствующая угольному бассейну Южного Уэльса, плавильные и железные производства.

MAP OF ENGLAND

Showing Coalfields and corresponding Manufactures

§ 5. Революция в горнодобывающей промышленности —I have mentioned in a previous chapter that the development of the vast natural resources of our country as regards coal {165} and iron was retarded by the lack of steam power (p. 137). But with the steam-engines of Watt and Boulton a new era dawned upon coal-mining. In 1774 Watt, after vainly advocating his invention, entered into partnership with Matthew Boulton, a Birmingham man, and their new engine soon produced a vast change in the manner of pumping water from the mines, just as it also produced other changes in every manufacture dependent upon the use of coal. Steam power was used not only to clear the mines of water, but also in sinking shafts, where formerly entrance had often been made only by tunnelling in the side of a hill. It was used too in bringing up the coal from the pit, and in many other necessary processes. The result of this application of steam power was soon seen in the general opening up of all the English coal-fields, and the consequent further growth of towns like Newcastle, Sheffield, and Birmingham, whose industries now depend so greatly upon a large supply of coal.

С большим объемом добычи угля пришло немедленное возрождение железной промышленности, которая, как помнится, значительно пришла в упадок примерно в 1737 и 1740 годах, ибо, поскольку уголь был недоступен, приходилось использовать дерево в качестве топлива, и последующее уничтожение лесов, особенно Сассекского Уилдена, вызвало законодательные запреты. Научная обработка железной руды в различных производственных процессах действительно была улучшена, но без угля мало что можно было сделать. Это понял, например, владелец железоделательного завода Энтони Бэкон в 1755 году, который получил в аренду на 99 лет район в Мертир-Тидвиле, восемь миль в длину и пять в ширину, на котором он построил как железные, так и угольные заводы. В 1760 году изобретение Смитоном нового воздуходувного аппарата на его заводах в Карроне, недалеко от Фолкерка, покончило со старыми неуклюжими мехами; а другие изобретения Крейниджа (1766), Онионса (1783) и Корта (1784), для изучения которых следует обратиться к отдельным трактатам, довели производство железа почти до совершенства. В то время как около 1740 года мы производили всего около 18 000 тонн железа ежегодно и должны были импортировать не менее 20 000 тонн; в 1788 году мы производили уже 68 000 тонн, и производство неуклонно растет до настоящего времени, когда наш экспорт составляет четыре с половиной миллиона тонн железа и стали ежегодно.

§ 6. Богатство нации и ее войны —Of course these discoveries of new processes in procuring coal and making iron enormously increased the wealth of England, and at the same time entirely changed the conditions of industry. For they helped on the textile manufactures by providing any amount of fuel and machinery, and all these together gave employment to a population that seemed to grow in accordance with the need of the nation for workers. The new textile and mining industries supplied England with that vast wealth which enabled her to endure successfully the long years of war at the close of last century and the beginning of this. The Industrial Revolution came only just in time, for after the repose of 1763 to 1792, during which this silent Revolution matured and took root, England engaged in a struggle which she certainly could never have supported without a far greater national wealth than she possessed in the first three quarters of the eighteenth century. And as it was, the year 1815 found a large portion of her people in poverty and distress, and the industrial classes suffered heavily from the taxation which the war imposed. But owing to her industrial development the war left England at its close, in spite of all her troubles, the foremost nation of Europe in economic matters, and consequently in all other matters also. As is the case with most modern wars, this great war originated in economic causes, even {167} to a certain extent in economic mistakes, but it had important effects upon industry and was largely affected by industrial considerations. Hence we must consider it rather more closely.

ГЛАВА III. ВОЙНЫ, ПОЛИТИКА И ПРОМЫШЛЕННОСТЬ

§ 1. Промышленные преимущества Англии в 1763 году —If we look at the state of the European powers after the conclusion of the Seven Years’ War by the Treaty of Paris in 1763, we shall see that England had achieved a very favourable position for the growth of her internal industries. It is true that along with the rest of Europe she had adopted the policy of endeavouring to secure a sole market for her goods, and though that policy was a ruinous mistake she was not alone in her error, and since other powers were doing the same, it was just as well that she should hold the lead among them. And, as Professor Rogers has remarked, since we are paying interest upon the heavy national bills which we ran up at that time, we may profitably examine what we gained thereby.

Во-первых, Англия серьезно искалечила своего могущественного коммерческого соперника, Францию, как в ее индийских, так и в американских владениях. Благодаря Семилетней войне мы приобрели Канаду, Флориду и все французские владения к востоку от реки Миссисипи (за исключением Нового Орлеана); в то время как в Индии наше влияние стало верховным благодаря победам Клайва. Французское влияние в Индии и Америке было практически уничтожено. Испания, верный союзник Франции, потеряла вместе со своим другом место коммерческого соперника Англии во внешней торговле. Германия снова была разорена династическими распрями, в которых Фридрих Великий играл столь заметную роль, между правящими домами Австрии и Пруссии. Голландия была аналогичным образом раздираема внутренними раздорами при статхаудере Вильгельме V, что дало соперничающим суверенам Пруссии и Австрии шанс ухудшить положение своим вмешательством. К 1790 году Соединенные провинции таким образом погрузились в полную незначительность. Швеция, Норвегия и Италия не имели значения в европейской политике, а Россия только начала выходить на передний план. Следовательно, только Англия имела шанс на «всемирную империю единого рынка». Снабжение этого рынка, особенно в наших американских колониях, находилось в руках английских мануфактурщиков и английских рабочих. Великие изобретения, которые появились, как мы видели, после 1763 года, были таким образом сразу призваны к активному применению, и наши фабрики и шахты могли производить богатство так быстро, как только могли работать, без страха перед иностранной конкуренцией.

§ 2. Ошибка меркантилизма —But unfortunately our capitalists made a great mistake in their policy. The commercial mind of England was dominated by what is known as the “Mercantile Theory.” It was a theory that had grown up naturally out of the spirit of Nationalism, of self-sustained and complete national life, that was our heritage from the Renaissance and the Reformation. It was not altogether wrong, for its object was national greatness, an object laudable and harmless enough. But the believers in the policy of increasing our national greatness also believed that it could only be attained in one way, and that was at the expense of our neighbours. In one form and another the theory frequently crops up even to-day, though we are supposed to have repudiated it. The measures adopted to attain this end were various and not always unsuccessful. True, {169} our commercial forefathers made the mistake—not uncommon even now—of believing that national wealth consisted chiefly in holding large stores of gold and silver, and hence they prohibited the export of bullion, till the East India Company demonstrated the futility of this scheme. 48 They endeavoured, too, to obtain a supply of the precious metals by prohibiting the purchase of foreign manufactures, and encouraging only the imports of raw material, that we might sell our own manufactures for foreign silver and gold. Hence proceeded wars of tariff, as for instance when we prohibited the import of gold-lace from Flanders, and the Flemish in revenge excluded our exports of wool. But the most famous of the restrictions imposed by this theory were the Navigation Acts of 1651, by which it was ordered that no goods from Asia, Africa, or America were to be imported into England or her colonies, except in ships belonging to English subjects, and no goods of any European country were to be imported except in English vessels, or ships belonging to the country from which the goods came. Of course these Acts resulted in collision with Dutch interests, for the Dutch were at that time the ocean carriers of the world. We were driven out of neutral ports, and lost the Russian and Baltic trade, because of the high charges of English ship-owners, to whom this protective scheme gave a monopoly of freights. But at the same time our shipping trade gained a great stimulus, and our commercial supremacy grew with it. Of course, however, this protective measure made the country at large pay a higher price for this privilege than was necessary, and we could probably have done better without it. Nevertheless these Acts, coupled with the development of our Indian and American trade, resulted in giving us a position of undoubted {170} commercial supremacy. Many other Protective measures, of a worse kind than this, were passed owing to the dictates of this theory, as for instance when in 1750 Parliament forbade the importation of pig and bar iron from our American colonies. But the Nemesis of this Protective policy was sure to come, and come it did in that fatal folly which caused us to lose those very colonies which we had defended against the French in the Seven Years’ War.

48. См. примечание 15, стр. 249, по этому вопросу.

§ 3. Потеря американских колоний —The way in which English statesmen looked upon our colonies in the last century was that they owed everything to England, and that therefore it was only fair that they should be exploited in the interests of the mother-country. Thus all imports to our colonies from any other country of Europe except England were forbidden, in order that our manufacturers might monopolize the American market. The criminal folly of our legislators went even further than this, for every attempt was made to discourage the colonists from starting manufactures at home. The American woollen industry was practically suppressed; all iron manufactures, as just mentioned, were forbidden in 1750; even colonial hatters were not allowed to send hats from one colony into another.

Тем не менее, американские колонисты уклонялись от правил, запрещавших им торговать с кем-либо, кроме метрополии, и вели, например, значительную торговлю с Южной Америкой. Но в правление Георга III Гренвиль, вигский министр, был настолько глуп, что попытался это остановить. Более того, он стремился собрать деньги, чтобы оплатить американскую часть Семилетней войны, обложив колонистов налогом на марки на юридических документах (Закон о гербовом сборе, 1765 г.). Идея о том, что колонисты должны оплачивать часть расходов на войну, предпринятую для их защиты, была достаточно справедливой; но то, что эти расходы должны были покрываться системой налогообложения, в которой они не имели права голоса, было прямо противоположным. К чести Питта, он протестовал против этого налогообложения без представительства и приложил свое влияние для отмены этого закона (1766 г.). Таким образом, чувства колонистов на время были успокоены, и в 1770 году лорд Норт отменил все налоги, кроме налога на чай. Колонисты отказались покупать чай: Ост-Индская компания, чья торговля естественно пострадала, попыталась навязать свой чай Америке, и дело завершилось знаменитым выбрасыванием груза чая в Бостонскую гавань гражданами этого порта (1773 г.). Норт попытался наказать бостонцев, постановив, что их порт должен быть закрыт, а хартия Массачусетса, их колонии, аннулирована. Конечно, война была теперь неизбежна. Нам не нужно здесь вдаваться в детали этого несчастного конфликта, хотя мы должны упомянуть героические попытки Питта, теперь лорда Чатема, заставить Англию дать полное возмещение своему потомству. Его усилия были тщетны. Франция с готовностью воспользовалась возможностью помочь американцам против англичан, и Англии пришлось очень дорого заплатить за свою приверженность меркантилизму.

§ 4. Начало великой континентальной войны —But although the War of Independence cost us a great deal, it did not greatly affect the development of our home industries. The Industrial Revolution went steadily on, and for just thirty years (1763–93) the country, though not entirely at peace, was yet sufficiently undisturbed to make rapid progress in the new manufacturing methods. But in 1789 the French Revolution broke out, and for over twenty years Europe was plunged into a disastrous and exhausting conflict. At the first outbreak of the Revolution, England looked on quietly. Many men were openly glad that the downtrodden masses of the French nation had overthrown the tyranny of an upper class whose only {172} idea of their duty in life was to extort the last farthing from those below them, in order to spend it in irresponsible debauchery. Statesmen like Fox gloried in it; the younger Pitt was anxious not to interfere. But Pitt was forced into action by the capitalists, who now were equal with the land-owners as the two ruling powers of England. He saw that the conquests which the new French Republic was already beginning to make might help France to secure again her old position as the most formidable rival of English commerce. If now this rival could be finally struck down, England was sure of the control of the world’s markets. It was obviously the policy of England to check the power of France, and when war was declared by the young Republic, England was not slow to answer the challenge. After this England was plunged headlong into the great European struggle of Monarchy against Republicanism. Pitt gained the support of all classes at home. The merchants and manufacturers were only too glad to see their old rival ruined; the land-owners and nobility were of course indignant at seeing the “lower classes,” even of a foreign nation, rise against their lords, even though their lords perhaps deserved their punishment. It was generally believed, and it was largely true, that England was fighting for the great principles of Monarchy and Religion, exemplified by a foolish king and a corrupted priesthood. For a time everyone supported Pitt’s policy. But the French Revolution had found many sympathizers among the working classes, and after the country had felt the first severity of the burdens imposed by the war, a spirit of discontent manifested itself. But the nation at large was against this opposition, and drastic measures were taken to silence it. Pitt was indomitable till his death (in 1805), and under his guidance England often fought single-handed against the world. {173} At times, as in 1796, she was threatened with invasion by the French, and the Irish, or a certain section of them, assisted her would-be invaders. At another time (1806), English industry was threatened with ruin by Napoleon’s Berlin Decree, forbidding Continental nations to trade with us. 49 But at last the great inspiring genius of England’s enemies was defeated, and the long years of war came to a close in 1815.

49. См. мою книгу «Торговля в Европе», стр. 177.

§ 5. Ее влияние на промышленность и рабочий класс —When peace came at length, it found the resources of the nation sorely tried, but not yet exhausted. All classes had suffered somewhat, but the working classes worst of all. The French Revolution, and the consequent wars, had retarded to some extent the development of our industries, for it took nearly all the wealth produced by the new industrial system to pay for them. But in one thing we possessed a great advantage over Continental nations, for our island was the only country in which war was not actually going on, and hence our manufactures were undisturbed. Consequently England was by no means so exhausted as the other participants in the struggle, and she had, moreover, the ocean-carrying trade left secure to her by our undisputed naval supremacy. But yet her finances had been tried and stretched to an enormous extent. The total cost of the war with France had been £831,446,449, to meet which Pitt was compelled to turn to almost every expedient that his financial ingenuity could suggest. Taxation became more and more heavy, and £600,000,000 was added to the debt which we have since been engaged in paying off. The currency had been placed in the most abnormal condition; cash payments were (in 1797) suspended by the Bank of England; and it became a necessity, as soon as {174} the war was over, to put an end to the circulation of a practically inconvertible paper currency by the resumption of them in 1819.

Но рабочий класс пострадал больше всего, несмотря на то, что наши мануфактуры процветали, а экспорт увеличивался на протяжении всей войны. В 1793 году экспорт официально оценивался более чем в 17 000 000 фунтов стерлингов; каждый последующий год он составлял не менее 22 000 000 фунтов, часто больше; в 1800 году — более 34 000 000 фунтов, а к 1815 году он удвоил свою стоимость по сравнению с началом войны, составив тогда более 58 000 000 фунтов (официальная стоимость). Но вся прибыль шла в руки капиталистов-мануфактурщиков, в то время как налогообложение с особой силой ложилось на бедных, поскольку налоги были наложены на каждую необходимость и удобство повседневной жизни. Даже в 1841 году в таможенном тарифе было 1200 статей. Цена на пшеницу, более того, поднялась до голодного уровня; с 49 шиллингов 3 пенсов за четверть в 1793 году до 69 шиллингов в 1799 году, до 113 шиллингов в 1800 году и 106 шиллингов в 1810 году. В то же время заработная плата быстро падала, и таким образом основные тяготы войны легли на тех, кто был наименее способен их оплачивать. Но бедность бедных была богатством землевладельцев, которые продолжали постоянно повышать арендную плату и богатели на голодании народа; ибо они убедили парламент запретить импорт иностранного зерна, кроме как по голодным ценам (ср. стр. 200), и переложили бремя налогообложения, что было не неестественно, на другие плечи. Именно благодаря их влиянию Питт собирал новые средства за счет налогов на предметы торговли, производства и общего потребления. Результат был виден в углубляющемся бедствии промышленных классов, и в 1816 году повсюду вспыхнули бунты — в Кенте среди сельскохозяйственных рабочих, в Мидлендсе среди шахтеров и в Ноттингеме среди ремесленников, которые выместили свою месть на новых машинах, которые, как они думали, украли их хлеб. Им следовало винить тех, кто не позволял им участвовать в богатстве, которое они помогли создать.

50. Подробности о положении рабочего класса см. на стр. 194.

§ 6. Политика среди рабочего класса —Such were the economic effects of the war upon English society—the enriching of the capitalists and land-owners at the expense of the working classes. So dire was the distress of the workmen that they felt something must be done to make their voice effectively heard in the government of the people. William Cobbett, in his Weekly Political Register, taught them to believe that a reform of Parliament would cure their evils. The influences of the French Revolution and the Industrial Revolution also combined to arouse an active political feeling amongst them; for the former excited a sympathetic feeling of revolt against unjust oppression, from what source soever it might come, and the latter brought home to them in their daily lives the new and sharp distinctions between the capitalist autocrat and his hundreds of workpeople bound to him only by a cash nexus, and as yet powerless to resist his endeavours to keep down their wages. Indistinctly, but none the less keenly, the working classes began to feel that they too must be consulted in the councils of the nation, and as a preliminary step must gain an influence over political events. But their early endeavours were sharply and severely repressed, and the legislation following on the (so-called) Manchester Massacre of 1819, crushed them for a time. But the Great War had roused the political feelings of the masses, by the misery it had inflicted upon them and by the industrial conditions which it had brought more fully into play. For although at first it retarded them, it gave a direct stimulus to the new {176} manufactures and to the new manufacturing system, by leaving England the only nation not too exhausted to continue her commerce. During its progress England had definitely become the workshop of the world, her industry had definitely completed its transition from the domestic to the factory system. Of this system, with its enormous advantages but also enormous evils, we must now speak.

ГЛАВА IV. ФАБРИЧНАЯ СИСТЕМА И ЕЕ РЕЗУЛЬТАТЫ

§ 1. Результаты внедрения фабричной системы —The great war of which I have just spoken in the preceding chapter found England at its beginning a nation whose mainstay was agriculture, with manufactures increasing, it is true, but still only of secondary importance. At the commencement of the war, English workers spun and wove in their cottages; at its close they were herded together in factories, and were the servants of machinery. The capitalist element had become the main feature in production, and the capitalist manufacturers the main figures in English industry, rivalling and often overtopping the landed gentry. But a man cannot become a capitalist without capital, and capital cannot be accumulated without labour; though these remarkably obvious facts are constantly forgotten. The large capitalists of earlier manufacturing days obtained their capital, after the first small beginnings, from the wealth produced by their workmen and from their own acuteness in availing themselves of new inventions. Of the wealth produced by their workmen they took nearly the whole, leaving their employés only enough to live upon while producing {177} more wealth for their masters. Hence it may be said that capital was in this case the result of abstinence, though the abstinence was on the part of the workman and not of his employer, as we shall shortly see.

Это, следовательно, было непосредственным результатом фабричной системы: рост крупных накоплений капитала в руках новых хозяев-мануфактурщиков, которые со своими новыми машинами, не потревоженные внутренней войной, могли снабжать народы Европы одеждой в то время, когда эти народы были слишком заняты междоусобными конфликтами на своей собственной земле, чтобы производить продовольствие и одежду для себя. Даже Наполеон, несмотря на все свои указы, направленные против английской торговли, был вынужден одевать своих солдат в йоркширские ткани, когда вел их на Москву. Неудивительно, что рост капитала был быстрым и огромным. Последовали и другие результаты. Ранее широко распространенная домашняя промышленность теперь была сосредоточена в нескольких районах, почти все в Ланкашире и Йоркшире. Люди всех возрастов и обоих полов были собраны вместе в огромных зданиях, без какого-либо морального контроля, без каких-либо условий для сохранения здоровья, комфорта или приличия. Огромное расширение торговли сделало необходимым дополнительную работу, и фабрики работали всю ночь, а также днем. Машины, созданные «для сокращения труда», во многих случаях привели к его значительному расширению; в то время как в других они отняли все средства к существованию у старого класса ручных рабочих. Отсюда часто возникали бунты, и рабочие стремились уничтожить новые машины; борьба того, что называли «железными людьми», против человеческих существ из плоти и крови долгое время продолжала быть источником споров и жалоб, тем более что рабочие видели, что прибыль, полученная этими железными людьми, почти полностью шла в руки их хозяев.

§ 2. Современные свидетельства нового порядка вещей —A very good idea of the effects of the introduction of the factory system upon the operatives may be formed from a resolution unanimously adopted by the magistrates at the quarter sessions of Preston, in Lancashire, dated November 11th, 1779, wherein it was “resolved: That the sole cause of great riots was the new machines employed in the cotton manufacture: That the county [i.e. the manufacturers] had greatly benefited by their erection, and that the destroying them in one county only led to their erection in another; and that if a total stop were put by the legislature to their erection in Britain it would only tend to their establishment in foreign countries, to the detriment of the trade in Britain.” But better than the cold words of a formal resolution is the description of the country round Manchester published in 1795 by a Dr Aikin. He points out what we have already referred to, that “the sudden invention and improvement of machines to shorten labour have had a surprising influence to extend our trade, and also to call in hands from all parts, particularly children for the cotton mills.” He says that domestic life is seriously endangered by the extensive employment of women and girls in the mills, for they had become ignorant of all household duties. “The females are wholly uninstructed in knitting, sewing, and other domestic affairs requisite to make them frugal wives and mothers. This is a very great misfortune to them and to the public, as is sadly proved by a comparison of the labourers in husbandry, and those of manufacturers in general. In the former we meet with neatness, cleanliness, and comfort; in the latter with filth, rags, and poverty.” He also mentions the great prevalence of fevers among employés in cotton mills, consequent upon the utterly unsanitary {179} conditions under which they laboured. But nowhere were the evils which accompanied the sudden growth of wealth and of industry so marked as in the case of those miserable beings who were brought to labour in the new mills under the apprentice system. Their life was literally and without exaggeration simply that of slaves.

§ 3. Английское рабство. Система ученичества —When factories were first built there was a strong repugnance on the part of parents who had been accustomed to the old family life under the domestic system to send their children into these places. It was in fact considered a disgrace so to do: the epithet of “factory girl” was the most insulting that could be applied to a young woman, and girls who had once been in a factory could never find employment elsewhere. It was not until the wages of the workman had been reduced to a starvation level that they consented to their children and wives being employed in the mills. But the manufacturers wanted labour by some means or other, and they got it. They got it from the workhouses. They sent for parish apprentices from all parts of England, and pretended to apprentice them to the new employments just introduced. The mill-owners systematically communicated with the overseers of the poor, who arranged a day for the inspection of pauper children. Those chosen by the manufacturer were then conveyed by wagons or canal boats to their destination, and from that moment were doomed to slavery. Sometimes regular traffickers would take the place of the manufacturer, and transfer a number of children to a factory district, and there keep them, generally in some dark cellar, till they could hand them over to a mill-owner in want of hands, who would come and examine their height, strength, and bodily capacities, exactly as did the slave-dealers in the American markets. {180} After that the children were simply at the mercy of their owners, nominally as apprentices, but in reality as mere slaves, who got no wages, and whom it was not worth while even to feed or clothe properly, because they were so cheap and their places could be so easily supplied. It was often arranged by the parish authorities, in order to get rid of imbeciles, that one idiot should be taken by the mill-owner with every twenty sane children. The fate of these unhappy idiots was even worse than that of the others. The secret of their final end has never been disclosed, but we can form some idea of their awful sufferings from the hardships of the other victims to capitalist greed and cruelty. Their treatment was most inhuman. The hours of their labour were only limited by exhaustion after many modes of torture had been unavailingly applied to force continued work. Children were often worked sixteen hours a day, by day and by night. Even Sunday was used as a convenient time to clean the machinery. The author of The History of the Factory Movement writes 51: “In stench, in heated rooms, amid the constant whirling of a thousand wheels, little fingers and little feet were kept in ceaseless action, forced into unnatural activity by blows from the heavy hands and feet of the merciless over-looker, and the infliction of bodily pain by instruments of punishment invented by the sharpened ingenuity of insatiable selfishness.” They were fed upon the coarsest and cheapest food, often with the same as that served out to the pigs of their master. They slept by turns and in relays, in filthy beds which were never cool; for one set of children were sent to sleep in them as soon as the others had gone off to their daily or nightly toil. There was often no discrimination of sexes; and disease, misery and vice grew as in a {181} hotbed of contagion. Some of these miserable beings tried to run away. To prevent their doing so, those suspected of this tendency had irons riveted on their ankles with long links reaching up to the hips, and were compelled to work and sleep in these chains, young women and girls as well as boys suffering this brutal treatment. Many died and were buried secretly at night in some desolate spot, lest people should notice the number of the graves; and many committed suicide. The catalogue of cruelty and misery is too long to recite here; it may be read in the Memoirs of Robert Blincoe, himself an apprentice, or in the pages of the Blue-books of the beginning of this century, in which even the methodical dry official language is startled into life by the misery it has to relate. It is perhaps not well for me to say more about the subject, for one dares not trust oneself to try and set down calmly all that might be told about this awful page in the history of industrial England. I need only remark, that during this period of unheeded and ghastly suffering in the mills of our native land, the British philanthropist was occupying himself with agitating for the relief of the very largely imaginary woes of negro slaves in other countries. He of course succeeded in raising the usual amount of sentiment, and perhaps more than the usual amount of money on behalf of an inferior and barbaric race, who have repaid him by relapsing into a contented indolence and a scarcely concealed savagery which have gone far to ruin our possessions in the West Indies. The spectacle of England buying the freedom of black slaves by riches drawn from the labour of her white ones, affords an interesting study for the cynical philosopher.

51 Сэмюэл Кидд (псевдоним «Альфред»).

§ 4. Начало фабричного движения —The state of things in factories where large numbers of apprentices {182} were employed became so bad, that at last something had to be done. In 1802 an Act was passed “for the preservation of the health and morals of apprentices and others employed in cotton and other mills.” It is a significant fact, that the immediate cause of this Bill was the fearful spread through the factory districts of Manchester of epidemic disease, owing to the overwork, scanty food, wretched clothing, long hours, bad ventilation, and overcrowding in unhealthy dwellings of the workpeople, especially the children. The hours of work were “reduced” to only 12 per day. This Act, however, did not apply to children residing near the factory where they were employed, for they were supposed to be “under the supervision of their parents.” The result was that, although the apprentice system was discontinued, other children came to work in the mills, and were treated almost as brutally, though luckily they were not entirely in the hands of their master. But the evils of this system of child labour were very great. During the whole of the period of 1800 to 1820, and even to 1840, the results of their sufferings were seen in the early deaths of the majority of children and in the crippled and distorted forms of the majority of those who survived. On the women and grown-up girls the effects of long hours and wearisome work were equally disastrous. A curious inversion of the proper order of things was seen in the domestic economy of the victims of this cheap labour system, for women and girls were superseding men in manufacturing labour, and, in consequence, their husbands had often to attend, in a shiftless, slovenly fashion, to those household duties which mothers and daughters hard at work in the factories were unable to fulfil. Worse still, mothers and fathers in some cases lived upon the killing labour of their little children, by letting them out {183} to hire to manufacturers, who found them cheaper than their parents.

Фабричные рабочие в целом, и дети в особенности, в конце концов нашли поддержку у нескольких филантропов, которые не позволили ослепить себя пылким красноречием агитаторов против рабства чернокожих. Лорда Эшли, впоследствии графа Шефтсбери, и Ричарда Остлера следует особо отметить как защитников фабричных рабочих. Спустя много лет после того, как лорд Шефтсбери преуспел в своем благородном деле, он рассказывал о печальных зрелищах, которые видел во время своей ранней деятельности в фабричных округах. «Я хорошо помню, — сказал он в своей речи в Палате лордов в 1873 году, — как в начале фабричного движения я ждал у фабричных ворот, чтобы увидеть, как выходят дети, и это были печальные, подавленные, изможденные существа. Особенно в Брэдфорде свидетельства долгого и жестокого труда были наиболее примечательны. Калек и людей с искалеченными телами можно было насчитать сотнями, возможно, тысячами. Один мой друг собрал для меня огромное их количество; зрелище было крайне жалким, уродства — невероятными. Из-за своих искривленных фигур они казались мне грудой кривых букв алфавита». Подтверждение его слов можно найти в одном из писем Саути к мистеру Мэю (написанном 1 марта 1833 года), в котором, говоря о фабричном труде, он справедливо заметил: «работорговля — это милосердие по сравнению с ним».

Соратником знаменитого лорда Шефтсбери в фабричном движении был Ричард Остлер, который родился в 1789 году и умер в 1861 году, и поначалу, особенно в 1807 году, был ярым сторонником Уилберфорса в его борьбе против рабства. Но, живя в фабричных округах Йоркшира, он обнаружил худшее рабство, существовавшее прямо у него под носом, и сразу же решил сделать все возможное, чтобы положить ему конец. С 1829 по 1832 год он был лидером движения за «десятичасовой рабочий день», а с 1830 по 1847 год посвятил себя борьбе с притеснением детей на фабриках, пока не добился принятия законов о регулировании фабричного труда. Краткое упоминание об этих фабричных актах будет здесь уместным.

§ 5. Различные фабричные акты —After the Act of 1802 already referred to for improving the condition of apprentices, an Act for the regulation of work in cotton mills was passed in 1819, allowing no child to be admitted into a factory before the age of nine, and placing 12 hours a day as the limit of work for those between the ages of nine and sixteen. The day was really one of 13⁠½ or 14 hours, because no meal-times were included in the working day. Then again in 1831 an Act was passed forbidding night-work in factories for persons between nine and twenty-one years of age, while the working day for persons under eighteen was to be 12 hours a day, and 9 hours on Saturdays. But this legislation only applied to cotton factories; those engaged in the manufacture of wool were quite untouched, and matters there were as bad as ever. But a spirit of agitation was fortunately abroad in the country. These were the days of the Reform Bill and of the rise of Trade Unions. These unions of workmen cried out for the restriction of non-adult labour to 10 hours a day, and the Conservative party, who were chiefly interested in the land and not in the mills, supported them readily against the manufacturers, who were mainly Liberals and Radicals. The two most important Acts were those of 1833 and 1847. That of 1833, introduced by Lord Shaftesbury, prohibited night-work to persons under eighteen in both cotton, wool, and other factories; children from nine to thirteen years of age were not to work more than 48 hours a week, and young persons from thirteen to {185} eighteen years were to work only 68 hours. Provision was also made for the children’s attendance at school, and for the appointment of factory inspectors. These restrictions in the employment of children led to a great increase in the use of improved machinery to make up for the loss of their labour, and it is probable that they accelerated the use of steam power instead of water power in the smaller and more old-fashioned mills. Then, after one or two minor Acts, the famous Ten Hours Bill (10 Vict. c. 29) was passed in 1847, which reduced the labour of women and young persons to 10 hours a day, the legal day being between 5.30 A.M. and 8.30 P.M. Manufacturers tried to avoid the provisions of this Bill by working persons thus protected in relays, but this was stopped by the fixing of a uniform working day in 1850, so that young persons and women could only work between the hours of 6 A.M. and 6 P.M., and on Saturdays only till 2 P.M. Since the passing of these Acts a great many much needed extensions of their provisions to other industries have been made, and in 1874 the minimum age at which a child could be admitted to a factory was fixed at ten years. The limitation of the labour of women and young persons necessarily involved the limitation of men’s labour, because their work could not be done without female aid. Thus the ten hours day at last became universal in factories.

§ 6. Как принимались эти акты —It is curious to notice how these Acts were passed. They all showed the steady advance of the principle of State interference with labour; a doctrine most distasteful to the old Ricardian school of economists, even when that interference was made in the interests of the physical and moral well-being, not only of the industrial classes, but of the community at large. Hence the economists of the day aided the {186} manufacturers in opposing these Acts to the utmost of their power, and the laws passed were due to the action of the Tories and land-owners. Lord Shaftesbury, Fielden, Oastler, and Sadler were all Tories, though they were accused of being Socialists. They were supported by the landed gentry. But the mill-owners had their revenge afterwards when they helped to repeal the Corn Laws in spite of the protest of the landlords, who did not mind the workmen having shorter hours at other people’s expense, but objected to their having cheap bread at their own. The working classes cannot fail to observe that each party was their friend only in so far as they could injure their opponents, or at least do no harm to themselves. John Bright especially distinguished himself (Feb. 10, 1847) by his violent denunciation of the Ten Hours Bill, which he characterized as “one of the worst measures ever passed in the shape of an Act of the legislature.” 52 In 1908 a Coal Mines (Eight Hours) Bill was passed into law.

52 Это необычное высказывание можно найти в отчетах Гансарда, третья серия, том 89, страница 1148.

Но когда мы оглядываемся на деградацию и угнетение, от которых промышленные классы были спасены благодаря этому движению, мы можем понять, почему Арнольд Тойнби так искренне сказал: «Я содрогаюсь при мысли о том, чем стала бы эта страна, если бы не фабричные акты». Они составляют одну из самых интересных страниц в истории промышленности, ибо показывают, какими ужасными могут быть результаты чисто капиталистической и конкурентной промышленной системы, если наемные рабочие не в состоянии эффективно противостоять алчности недобросовестного работодателя.