ПРОМЫШЛЕННАЯ ИСТОРИЯ АНГЛИИ

THE INDUSTRIAL
HISTORY OF ENGLAND

BY

H. DE B. GIBBINS,

LITT.D., M.A.

SOMETIME SCHOLAR OF WADHAM COLLEGE, OXFORD AND UNIVERSITY (COBDEN) PRIZEMAN IN POLITICAL ECONOMY

WITH FIVE MAPS AND A PLAN

TWENTY-SEVENTH EDITION

METHUEN & CO. LTD.

36 ESSEX STREET W.C.

LONDON

Впервые опубликовано | Июль 1890 г.
Второе издание | 1890
Третье издание | 1892
Четвертое издание | 1895
Пятое и шестое издания | 1897
Седьмое издание | 1900
Восьмое издание | 1902
Девятое издание | 1903
Десятое издание | 1904
Одиннадцатое и двенадцатое издания | 1906
Тринадцатое и четырнадцатое издания | 1907
Пятнадцатое издание | 1908
Шестнадцатое издание | 1910
Семнадцатое издание | 1911
Восемнадцатое издание, переработанное | 1912
Девятнадцатое издание | 1913
Двадцатое издание | 1914
Двадцать первое издание | 1916
Двадцать второе издание | 1917
Двадцать третье, двадцать четвертое и двадцать пятое издания | 1918
Двадцать шестое издание | 1919
Двадцать седьмое издание | 1920

ПРЕДИСЛОВИЕ

Эта небольшая книга представляет собой попытку в краткой, сжатой и простой форме изложить основные контуры экономической и промышленной истории Англии. Она призвана служить введением в более глубокое изучение предмета и предварительным очерком, который читатель впоследствии, при желании, сможет дополнить самостоятельно, обратившись к более объемным трудам, посвященным отдельным периодам. В то же время есть надежда, что этот очерк поможет не только студенту, но и обычному читателю получить общее представление о той стороне истории, которой слишком часто пренебрегают, но которая имеет важнейшее значение для правильного понимания истории английской нации. Я стремился, насколько это было возможно в рамках столь краткой работы, связать экономические и промышленные вопросы с социальными, политическими и военными движениями, полагая, что только в такой взаимосвязи исторические события могут обрести свою полную значимость.

Крайняя необходимость простоты и краткости в очерке подобного рода вынудила меня опустить или лишь вкратце упомянуть многие моменты, которые те, кто знаком с моим предметом, могли бы ожидать увидеть. Я, например, не приводил подробных статистических данных или объемных сносок о фактическом состоянии нашей торговли в различные периоды. Я также не дал ничего, кроме общего очерка старых и новых законов о бедных, финансовых мер или банковского дела; и с большим нежеланием я опустил обсуждение колониальной торговли. Но все эти вопросы, за исключением, пожалуй, последнего, студент может оставить до тех пор, пока не перейдет к гораздо более крупным работам; хотя надлежащая экономическая история наших колоний еще ждет своего написания. Тем не менее, я надеюсь, что этот общий взгляд на широкие контуры роста нашего богатства и промышленности в их связи с общей историей Англии окажется полезным.

Я предпочел не утомлять читателя постоянными ссылками на авторитетные источники в сносках, а выразил признательность различным авторам, чьи труды были изучены, в приложении, где также можно найти рекомендации для дальнейшего чтения.

ПРЕДИСЛОВИЕ К ВОСЕМНАДЦАТОМУ ИЗДАНИЮ

С момента первой публикации этой книги в 1890 году прошло двадцать один год, и автор, чью безвременную кончину оплакивают все ученые, успел внести различные исправления, которые сделали эту книгу более полно гармонирующей с его более крупным трудом «Промышленность в Англии». По некоторым вопросам он был вынужден изменить свои взгляды — шаг, неизбежный для книги, охватывающей столь обширную область.

В предисловии к пятому изданию он писал: «Говорили, что я пишу с предубеждением против землевладельцев, но это не так. Земельное дворянство Англии на протяжении нескольких столетий обладало преобладающей властью в государстве и обществе и, что вполне естественно, во многих случаях использовало ее для продвижения собственных интересов. Долг историка — указать на это, но из этого не следует делать вывод, что он испытывал какую-то особую предвзятость по отношению к этому классу. Любой другой класс, безусловно, поступил бы так же, как, например, владельцы фабрик поступали со своими наемными работниками в начале этого века, и как, по всей вероятности, будут поступать рабочие классы, когда дальнейшее расширение демократического правления даст им такую возможность».

«Недостаток человеческой природы заключается в том, что ей редко можно доверить безответственную власть, и если влияние одного класса общества не уравновешивается в той или иной степени влиянием другого, всегда будет существовать тенденция к некоторой несправедливости. Я надеюсь, что мои читатели будут помнить об этом при чтении следующих страниц и поверят, что я не намерен проявлять несправедливость по отношению к земельному дворянству Англии, которое сделало многое для укрепления славы и стабильности своей страны».

Настоящее, восемнадцатое издание было тщательно пересмотрено М. Э. Херст, магистром искусств, и в дополнение к этой редакции она написала новую главу (главу VIII), которая посвящена новой эре промышленного расширения. Таким образом, «Промышленная история Англии» продолжена с того момента, на котором ее оставил автор, и доведена до 1911 года.

CONTENTS
ПЕРИОД I
АНГЛИЯ ДО НОРМАННСКОГО ЗАВОЕВАНИЯ
ГЛ. I. ВВЕДЕНИЕ — РИМЛЯНЕ И ИХ ПРЕЕМНИКИ — ТОРГОВЛЯ | 1
ГЛ. II. ЗЕМЛЯ: ЕЕ ВЛАДЕЛЬЦЫ И КУЛЬТИВАТОРЫ | 5
ПЕРИОД II
ОТ НОРМАННСКОГО ЗАВОЕВАНИЯ ДО ЦАРСТВОВАНИЯ ГЕНРИХА III (1066–1216 гг. н. э.)
ГЛ. I. КНИГА СТРАШНОГО СУДА И МАНОРЫ | 10
ГЛ. II. ГОРОДА И ГИЛЬДИИ | 22
ГЛ. III. ПРОМЫШЛЕННОСТЬ И ТОРГОВЛЯ: XI–XIII ВЕКА | 31
ПЕРИОД III
С XIII ДО КОНЦА XV ВЕКА, ВКЛЮЧАЯ ВЕЛИКУЮ ЧУМУ (1216–1500 гг.)
ГЛ. I. СЕЛЬСКОЕ ХОЗЯЙСТВО В СРЕДНЕВЕКОВОЙ АНГЛИИ | 40
ГЛ. II. ШЕРСТЯНАЯ ТОРГОВЛЯ И ПРОМЫШЛЕННОСТЬ | 47
ГЛ. III. ГОРОДА, ПРОМЫШЛЕННЫЕ ДЕРЕВНИ И ЯРМАРКИ | 57
ГЛ. IV. ВЕЛИКАЯ ЧУМА И ЕЕ ЭКОНОМИЧЕСКИЕ ПОСЛЕДСТВИЯ | 67
ГЛ. V. ВОССТАНИЕ КРЕСТЬЯН 1381 ГОДА И ПОСЛЕДУЮЩЕЕ ПРОЦВЕТАНИЕ РАБОЧЕГО КЛАССА | 75
ПЕРИОД IV
С XVI ВЕКА ДО КАНУНА ПРОМЫШЛЕННОЙ РЕВОЛЮЦИИ (1509–1760 гг.)
ГЛ. I. ЗЛОДЕЯНИЯ ГЕНРИХА VIII И ЭКОНОМИЧЕСКИЕ ИЗМЕНЕНИЯ В XVI ВЕКЕ | 83
ГЛ. II. РОСТ ВНЕШНЕЙ ТОРГОВЛИ | 91
ГЛ. III. ЕЛИЗАВЕТИНСКАЯ АНГЛИЯ | 100
ГЛ. IV. РАЗВИТИЕ СЕЛЬСКОГО ХОЗЯЙСТВА В XVII И XVIII ВЕКАХ | 109
ГЛ. V. КОММЕРЦИЯ И ВОЙНА В XVII И XVIII ВЕКАХ | 121
ГЛ. VI. ПРОМЫШЛЕННОСТЬ И ГОРНОЕ ДЕЛО | 132
ПЕРИОД V
ПРОМЫШЛЕННАЯ РЕВОЛЮЦИЯ И СОВРЕМЕННАЯ АНГЛИЯ
ГЛ. I. КАНУН РЕВОЛЮЦИИ | 144
ГЛ. II. ЭПОХА ВЕЛИКИХ ИЗОБРЕТЕНИЙ | 157
ГЛ. III. ВОЙНЫ, ПОЛИТИКА И ПРОМЫШЛЕННОСТЬ | 167
ГЛ. IV. ФАБРИЧНАЯ СИСТЕМА И ЕЕ РЕЗУЛЬТАТЫ | 176
ГЛ. V. ПОЛОЖЕНИЕ РАБОЧЕГО КЛАССА | 187
ГЛ. VI. ПОДЪЕМ И УПАДОК СОВРЕМЕННОГО СЕЛЬСКОГО ХОЗЯЙСТВА | 198
ГЛ. VII. СОВРЕМЕННАЯ ПРОМЫШЛЕННАЯ АНГЛИЯ | 211
ГЛ. VIII. НОВАЯ ЭПОХА, 1897–1911 гг. | 223
ПРИМЕЧАНИЕ ОБ ИСТОЧНИКАХ ПО ПРОМЫШЛЕННОЙ ИСТОРИИ | 241
ПРИМЕЧАНИЯ | 243
УКАЗАТЕЛЬ | 253

СПИСОК КАРТ И ДИАГРАММ
ДИАГРАММА МАНОРА | стр. 21
АНГЛИЯ ВСКОРЕ ПОСЛЕ ВРЕМЕНИ СОСТАВЛЕНИЯ КНИГИ СТРАШНОГО СУДА, 1100–1200 гг. н. э. | напротив стр. 38
ИНДИЯ ВО ВРЕМЕНА КЛАЙВА, С УКАЗАНИЕМ АНГЛИЙСКИХ ФАБРИК И РАЙОНОВ ПОД НАШИМ ВЛИЯНИЕМ | напротив стр. 128
ПРОМЫШЛЕННАЯ АНГЛИЯ, 1700–1750 гг. | напротив стр. 134
АНГЛИЯ, С УКАЗАНИЕМ УГОЛЬНЫХ БАССЕЙНОВ И СООТВЕТСТВУЮЩИХ ПРОИЗВОДСТВ | напротив стр. 164
INDUSTRIAL ENGLAND, 1890 | напротив стр. 210

THE INDUSTRIAL HISTORY OF ENGLAND

ПЕРИОД I АНГЛИЯ ДО НОРМАННСКОГО ЗАВОЕВАНИЯ

ГЛАВА I ВВЕДЕНИЕ — РИМЛЯНЕ И ИХ ПРЕЕМНИКИ — ТОРГОВЛЯ

§ 1.

ALTHOUGH the industrial history of England does not properly begin until the settlement made by the Norman Conquest, it is nevertheless impossible to omit some reference to the previous economic condition of the country. As everybody knows, the Romans were the first to invade Britain, although it had been known, probably for centuries previously, to the Phenicians and Carthaginians who used to sail here for its tin and lead. The Romans, however, first colonized the country and began to develop its resources; and they succeeded in introducing various industries and in opening up a considerable commerce.

Под властью Рима Британия достигла высокого уровня процветания, и этому факту есть множество свидетельств римских писателей. Они говорят о богатых природных ресурсах Британии, о ее многочисленных стадах, о ее полезных ископаемых, о различных торговых возможностях и о доходах, получаемых из этих источников.

Мы знаем, что в середине III века н. э. в Британии было не менее пятидесяти девяти городов, и население, вероятно, было довольно значительным, хотя у нас нет точных статистических данных по этому вопросу. Из страны вывозилось большое количество зерна: однажды было отправлено до 800 судов для снабжения римских городов в Германии. Это свидетельствует о довольно развитом сельском хозяйстве. Олово также было важным экспортным товаром, как, впрочем, и всегда; а британские рабы постоянно отправлялись на рынок в Рим. В самой стране велись масштабные материальные работы: строились обнесенные стенами города, мощеные дороги, акведуки и великие общественные здания, которые остались свидетельствовать о величии своих строителей долгое время после того, как их имена стали далеким воспоминанием. Военная система римлян способствовала промышленным результатам, поскольку римские солдаты принимали активное участие в строительстве дорог, возведении дамб, работе на рудниках и проведении крупных инженерных операций, которые отмечали римское правление. Главные города в значительной степени обязаны своим возникновением своей важности как военных станций; и большинство из них, такие как Йорк, Лондон, Честер, Линкольн, Бат и Колчестер, с тех пор продолжали оставаться значительными центрами населения, хотя, конечно, с периодическими колебаниями. Однако, когда римляне окончательно покинули Британию (в 410 г. н. э.), торговля и сельское хозяйство начали приходить в упадок; города разрушались; и на протяжении веков Англия становилась полем битвы различных хищнических племен с континента, которые постепенно осуществили поселение, сначала во многих королевствах, но в конечном итоге в одном, и стали известны как «англичане» или англосаксонская национальность (827 г. н. э.).

1 См. примечание 1, стр. 243, о населении римской Британии.

§ 2. Торговля в англосаксонский период

—But although Egbert became Lord of the Saxons in 827, it was not till {3} the reign of Edgar (958–975) that England became one united kingdom, and indeed throughout this period internal war was almost constant, and naturally prevented any great growth of home industry or foreign trade. The home industry, such as it was, was almost entirely agricultural, under a system of which I shall speak in the next chapter. The separate communities living in the country villages or small towns were very much disinclined for mutual intercourse, and endeavoured as far as possible to be each a self-sufficing economic whole, getting their food and clothing, coarse and rough as it generally was, from their own flocks and herds, or from their own land in the mark or manor.﻿2 Hence only the simplest domestic arts and manufactures were carried on.

2 См. следующую главу.

§ 3. Внутренняя торговля. Деньги

—But, however much a community may desire to be self-sufficing, it cannot be so entirely. Differences of soil, mineral wealth, and other advantages cause one community to require what another has in abundance. Salt, for instance, was largely in request for salting meat for the winter, and it cannot be universally procured in England. Hence local markets arose, at first always on the neutral boundary between two marks,﻿3 the place of the market being marked by the boundary stone, the origin of the later “market cross.” These markets at first took place only at stated times during the year. Shrines and burial-places of noted men were the most frequented spots for such annual fairs. Thus, e.g., the origin of Glasgow may be traced from the burial-place of St Ninian (A.D. 570). There seems to have been a well-defined, though small, trading class; but, at any rate at first, most people of different occupations met {4} at well-known, convenient places, and bartered without the assistance of any kind of middlemen.

3 См. примечание 2, стр. 243, о рынках на границах.

Простой бартер, однако, утомителен и обременителен; и хотя до времени Альфреда (870 г. н. э.) значительная часть, хотя и не вся, английской внутренней торговли велась таким образом, использование металлов для обмена начинает становиться обычным в IX веке; а в 900 г. н. э. зафиксированы регулярные денежные платежи арендаторов. А когда мы подходим к сбору датских денег (991 г. н. э.) — налога, введенного Этельредом в качестве выкупа датчанам, — становится ясно, что денежная чеканка должна была получить широкое распространение и находиться в общем обращении.

§ 4. Внешняя торговля

—Trade of all kinds had suffered a severe blow when the Romans quitted Britain, but during the Anglo-Saxon period English merchants still did a certain amount of foreign trade. They were encouraged too in this by a doom, of Danish origin,﻿4 which provided that “if a merchant thrived so that he fared thrice over the sea by his own means, then was he of thane-right worthy,” which gave him a comparatively high rank. The settlement of German merchants in London, pointing to some continental trade, also dates from the time of Ethelred the Unready (about A.D. 1000). Much of this foreign trade lay in the treasures of precious metals and embroideries, which were imported for use in monasteries. It is interesting, by the way, to note that St Dunstan (who died in 988) encouraged handicraft work in metals, especially in ironwork. The exports from England were chiefly wool—which we shall afterwards see becomes of great importance—some agricultural produce, and also, as before, lead and tin. English merchants we know went to Marseilles, and others frequented the great French fairs of Rouen and St Denis in the ninth century; while, {5} rather earlier, we have a most interesting document, our first treaty of commerce in fact, dated A.D. 796, by which Karl the Great, or Charlemagne, as some people call him, grants protection to certain English traders from Mercia. And in King Alfred’s days one English bishop even “penetrated prosperously” to India with the king’s gifts to the shrine of St Thomas.

4 См. примечание 3, стр. 243, о датском влиянии на торговлю.

§ 5. Общее резюме

—Taking a general view of the period between the Saxon Conquest and the Norman Conquest, we see that crafts and manufactures were few and simple, being confined as far as possible to separate and isolated communities. Fine arts, and works in metal and embroideries were limited to the monasteries, which also imported them. The immense mineral wealth of the island in iron and coal was untouched. Trade was small, though undoubtedly developing. The mass of the population was engaged in agriculture, and every man had, so to speak, a stake in the land, belonging to a manor or parish. A landless man was altogether outside the pale of social life. The owners of the land, and the method of its cultivation, will occupy us in the next chapter.

ГЛАВА II ЗЕМЛЯ: ЕЕ ВЛАДЕЛЬЦЫ И КУЛЬТИВАТОРЫ

§ 1. Марка

—We have just said that the population of England as a whole was almost entirely engaged in agriculture; and indeed for some centuries onward this industry was by far the most important in the country. Now, it is impossible to understand the conditions of this industry without first glancing at the tenure of land as existing about this time. It has been thought, but it is {6} not at all certain, that in very early times before the tribes afterwards called English had crossed over to England, or perhaps even before they had arrived in Europe, all land was held in common by various communities of people, perhaps at first with only a few families in each. The land occupied by this community (whether it was a whole tribe or a few families) had probably been cleared away from the original forests or wastes, and was certainly separated from all other communities by a fixed boundary or mark,﻿5 whence the whole land thus separated off was called a mark. Within this mark was the primitive village or “township,” where each member of the community had his house, and where each had a common share in the land. This land was of three kinds—(1) The forest, or waste land, from which the mark had been originally cleared, useful for rough natural pasture, but uncultivated. (2) The pasture land, sometimes enclosed and sometimes open, in which each mark-man looked after his own hay, and stacked it for the winter, and which was divided into allotments for each member. (3) The arable land, which also was divided into allotments for each mark-man. To settle any question relating to the division and use of the land, or to any other business of common importance, the members of the mark, or mark-men, met in a common council called the mark-moot, an institution of which relics survived for many centuries. This council, and the mark generally, formed the political, social, and economic unit of the early English tribes. How far it actually existed when these tribes occupied England it is difficult to say, and it is probable that it had already undergone considerable transformation towards what is called the manorial {7} system. But this much is certain, that in England, as in Germany, traces of communal life still remain. Our commons, still numerous in spite of hundreds of enclosures, and the names of places ending in ing, which termination frequently implies a primitive family settlement, are evidences which remain among us to-day. And it is only comparatively recently that the “common fields,” yearly divided among the commoners of a parish, together with the “three-field system,” which this allotment involved, have disappeared from our English agriculture.

5 Критику теории марки см. в «Промышленности в Англии», стр. 47–61.

§ 2. Манор

—But when we come to the time when the Anglo-Saxons had made a final settlement, and were ruled by one king, we find a different system prevailing—i.e. the manorial system. The word “manor” is a Norman name for the Saxon “township,” or community, and it differs from the mark in this: the mark﻿6 was a group of households organized and governed on a common, democratic basis, while in the manor we find an autocratic organization and government, whereby a group of tenants acknowledge the superior position and authority of a “lord of the manor.” But although “manor” is a Norman name, the change from the old mark system had taken place long before the Norman Conquest, and even if perhaps occasional independent communities still existed, they were completely abolished under the Norman rule. The great feature of the manor was, that it was subject to a “lord,” who owned absolutely a certain portion of the land therein, and had rights of rent (paid in services, or food, or money, or in all three) over the rest of the land. It is probable that the lord of the manor had gained his position under a promise of aiding and protecting his humbler brethren; but, even in later {8} times, he had to acknowledge certain rights belonging to them.

6 т. е. предполагая, что он когда-либо существовал.

§ 3. Совместное земледелие

—In the manor, just as in the earlier stage, all agriculture was carried on collectively by the tenants of the manor. Men gathered together their oxen to form the usual team of eight wherewith to drag the plough, pastured their cattle in common, and employed a common swineherd or shepherd for their pigs and sheep.

Отличительной чертой этого совместного земледелия была трехпольная система. Вся пахотная земля возле деревни была разделена на три полосы и засевалась следующим образом: поле засевалось пшеницей или рожью осенью одного года; но из-за медлительности примитивного земледелия этот урожай не успевали собрать вовремя для осеннего посева следующего года, поэтому посев происходил следующей весной, а следующим урожаем был овес или ячмень; после этого урожая земля год находилась под паром. Таким образом, из этих трех полос каждый год одна была занята пшеницей или рожью, другая — овсом или ячменем, а третья находилась под паром. Земля каждого отдельного человека была неизбежно разбросана между различными участками его соседей, чтобы каждый мог иметь справедливую долю земли хорошего качества. Этот стиль земледелия, конечно, давал очень скудные результаты, но, по-видимому, его было достаточно для простых нужд жителей той эпохи.

§ 4. Феодальная система

—In the next period we shall see this manorial system consolidated and organized under the Norman rule, and so may defer a full description of a typical manor till then. Here we may say that the manor is closely connected with the feudal system, which, it must be remembered, had begun a considerable time before the Norman Conquest. For the manor afforded a convenient political and social unit for the estimation of {9} feudal services, and the lord of the manor became more and more a feudal chief. But it must be understood that the manorial system was not the same as the feudal system, though it helped to prepare the way for it; and eventually the lords of the manors became nominally the protectors, but really the masters of the village husbandmen dwelling around them. The lord professed to take them under his protection if they surrendered their independence to him, and it was probably owing to the frequent incursions of the Danes that the system grew as it did. In Canute’s reign we find it in full force, for at this time the kingdom was divided into great military districts, or earldoms, the “earl” being responsible to the king and receiving the profits of his district. When William the Norman conquered England he did not, as is often supposed, impose a feudal system upon the people. The system was there already, developed from the old manors, and all William I. did was to reorganize it, and give the English people Norman instead of Anglo-Saxon or Danish lords.

ПРИМЕЧАНИЕ. Теория марки (которая сейчас считается весьма сомнительной) более подробно рассматривается в гл. IV моей книги «Промышленность в Англии», где также обсуждаются свидетельства общинной деревенской жизни; и я должен отослать своих читателей к ней для ознакомления с более современными взглядами.

ПЕРИОД II ОТ НОРМАННСКОГО ЗАВОЕВАНИЯ ДО ЦАРСТВОВАНИЯ ГЕНРИХА III (1066–1216 гг. н. э.)

ГЛАВА I КНИГА СТРАШНОГО СУДА И МАНОРЫ

§ 1. Книга Страшного суда

—It was very natural that, when William the Norman conquered England, he should wish to ascertain the capabilities of his kingdom both in regard to military defence and for taxation; and that he should endeavour to gain a comprehensive idea of the results of his conquest. So he ordered a grand survey of the kingdom to be made, and sent commissioners into each district to make it. These officials were bidden to inquire about all the estates in the realm—who held them, what was the value of each, how many men occupied it and how many cattle each supported. The results of this survey form our earliest and most reliable statistics for English industrial history; and it is to be regretted that no general table or analysis of this great work has yet been made, or that historians do not use it more copiously for gaining a knowledge of the social and economic conditions of the time. For this latter purpose it is absolutely unrivalled.﻿7

7 О недавних работах о Книге Страшного суда см. стр. 242.

§ 2. Экономическое состояние страны, показанное в Книге Страшного суда

—From it we may gather the following few facts {11} as to the economic condition of England about the time of the Norman Conquest. The population numbered about 2,000,000, three-fourths of whom lived by agricultural labour, the remaining fourth being townsfolk, gentry, and churchmen. The East and South, especially the county of Kent, were the best tilled, richest, and most populous parts of the country. “The downs and wolds gave fine pasturage for sheep, the copses and woods formed fattening grounds for swine, and the hollows at the downs’ foot, the river flats, and the low, gravel hills, were the best and easiest land to plough and crop. Far the largest part of the country was forest—i.e. uncleared and undrained moor, wood, or fen.”﻿8 The chief towns were London, Canterbury, Chester, Lincoln, Oxford, York, Hereford, and Winchester; but these were trading centres rather than seats of manufacturing industry. A small foreign export trade was done in wool and lead, the imports being chiefly articles of luxury. There were 9250 villages or manors in the land; in these about three-fifths of each is waste—i.e. untilled, common land—one-fifth pasture, and one-fifth arable.

8 См. «Промышленность в Англии», стр. 69.

§ 3. Маноры и их владельцы

—Now each of these manors after the Norman Conquest was held by a “lord,” who held it more or less remotely from the king. For it is the distinguishing feature of the Conquest, that William the Norman made himself the supreme landlord of the country, so that all land was held under him. He himself of course held a good many manors, which were farmed by his bailiffs, and for each of these manors he was the lord. But the majority of the manors were held by his followers, the Norman nobles, and nearly all of them had several manors apiece. Now it was impossible for a noble to look after all his manors himself, and they {12} found it was not always the best plan to put their bailiffs in to work them; so they used to sublet some of their manors to other tenants, often to Englishmen who had submitted to the Norman Conquest. The nobles who held the land direct from the king were called tenants in chief,﻿9 the tenants to whom they sublet it were called tenants in mesne.﻿10 If a noble let a manor to a tenant in mesne the tenant then took his place, and became the lord of the manor. Thus, then, we have some manors owned directly by the king, others by the great nobles, and others again by tenants in mesne. For instance, in the part of Domesday relating to Oxfordshire, we find that one Milo Crispin, a tenant in chief, held several manors from the king, but also let some of them to sub-tenants, that of Cuxham, e.g., being let to one Alured, who was therefore its lord. So in Warwickshire the manor of Estone (now Aston) was one of those belonging to William Fitz-Ansculf, but he had let it to Godmund, an Englishman, who was then “lord of the manor of Estone.”

9 Или in capite (непосредственно от короны).

10 т. е. субарендаторы.

§ 4. Жители маноров

—Besides the lord himself (whether king, noble, or sub-tenant), with his personal retainers, and generally a parish priest or some monks, there were three other classes of inhabitants. (1) First came the villeins, who formed 38 per cent. of the whole population recorded in Domesday, and who held their land in virgates, a virgate being some thirty acres of arable land, scattered of course in plots (cf. p. 20) among the common fields of the manor, together with a house and messuage in the village. These villeins were often called virgarii (or yardlings), from this term virgate. (2) Below the villeins came the cottars, or bordars, a class distinct from and below the former, who probably held {13} only some five or ten acres of land and a cottage, and did not even possess a plough, much less a team of oxen, apiece, but had to combine among themselves for the purpose of ploughing. They form 32 per cent. of the Domesday population. Finally came (3) the slaves, who were much smaller in numbers than is commonly supposed, forming only 9 per cent. of the Domesday population. Less than a century after the Conquest these disappear and merge into the cottars.

§ 5. Положение этих жителей

—The chief feature of the social condition of these classes of people was that they were subject to a lord. They each depended upon a superior, and no man could be either lordless or landless; for all persons in villeinage, which included everyone below the lord of the manor, were subject to a master, and bound to the land, except, of course, “free tenants” (p. 15). But even against their lord the villeins had certain rights which had to be recognized. They had, moreover, many comforts and little responsibility, except to pay their dues to their lord. Moreover, it was possible for a villein to purchase a remission of his services, and become a “free tenant.” Or he might become such by residing in a town for a year and a day, and being a member of a town gild, as long as during that period he was unclaimed by his lord. And in course of time the villein’s position came to be this—he owed his lord the customary services (see p. 14) whereby his lord’s land was cultivated; but his lord could not refuse him his customary rights in return—“his house and lands, and rights of wood and hay”—and in relation to everyone but his lord he was a perfectly free citizen. His condition tended to improve, and up to the time of the Great Plague (1348) a large number of villeins had become actually free, having commuted their services {14} for money payments. What these services were we shall now explain. But finally, we wish to point out that the state of villeinage and of serfage was practically the same thing in two aspects; the first implying the fact that the villein was bound to the soil, the second that he was subject to a master. A serf was not a slave; and, as we saw above, slaves became extinct soon after the Norman Conquest.

§ 6. Повинности, причитающиеся лорду от его арендаторов в вилланидже

—Under the manorial system rent was paid in a very different manner from that in which it is paid to-day, for it was a rent not so much of money, though that was employed, as of services. The services thus rendered by tenants in villeinage, whether villeins or cottars, may be divided into week-work, and boon-days or work on special days. The week-work consisted of ploughing or reaping, or doing some other agricultural work for the lord of the manor for two or three days in the week, or at fixed times, such as at harvest; while boon-day work was rendered at times not fixed, but whenever the lord of the manor might require it, though the number of boon-days in a year was limited. When, however, the villein or cottar had performed these liabilities, he was quite free to do work on his own land, or for that matter on any one else’s land, as indeed the cottars frequently did, for they had not much land of their own, and so often had time and labour to spare. It was from this cottar class with time to spare that a distinct wage-earning class, like our modern labourers, arose, who lived almost entirely by wages. We shall hear more of them later on; but at the time of the Conquest they hardly existed.

§ 7. Денежные платежи и рента

—It was also usual for a tenant, besides rendering these servile services, to pay his lord a small rent either in money or kind, generally {15} in both. Thus on Cuxham manor we find a villein (or serf) paying his lord ½d. on November 12th every year and 1d. whenever he brews. He also pays, in kind, 1 quarter of seed-wheat at Michaelmas; 1 peck of wheat, 4 bushels of oats, and 3 hens on 12th November; also 1 cock and 2 hens, and 2d. worth of bread every Christmas. His services are—to plough and till ½ acre of the lord’s land, to give 3 days’ labour at harvest, and other days when required by the bailiff. This was the rent for about 12 or 15 acres of land (half a virgate), and upon a calculation of the worth of labour and provisions at that time (end of thirteenth century) comes to about 6d. an acre for his land, and 3s. a year for his house and the land about it (curtilage).

§ 8. Свободные арендаторы. Сокмены

—So far I have been speaking only about tenants in villeinage. But in the Domesday Book we find another class of tenants, called free, who had to pay a rent fixed in amount, either in money or kind, and sometimes in labour. This rent was fixed and unalterable in amount, and they were masters of their own actions as soon as it was paid. They were not, like the villeins, bound to the soil, but could transfer their holdings or even quit the manor if they liked. They were, however, subject to their lord’s jurisdiction in matters of law, and hence were called soke-men (from soke or soc = jurisdiction exercised by a lord). They also were bound to give military service when called upon, which the villeinage tenants had not to give. If they had any services to render, these were generally commuted into money payments; and here we may observe, that there was a constant tendency from the Conquest to the time of the Great Plague (1348) towards this commutation. Villeins also could, and did frequently, commute their labour rents for money rents. {16}

В Книге Страшного суда мы находим, что восточные и восточно-центральные графства были теми местами, где «свободные» арендаторы или сокмены были наиболее распространены. Там они составляют от 27 до 45 процентов жителей этих частей, хотя, если брать всю Англию в целом, они составляют лишь 4 процента от общей численности населения. Однако число свободных арендаторов постоянно росло, даже среди арендаторов в вилланидже, поскольку лорд часто находил более полезным иметь деньги и был готов разрешить замену повинностей; или, опять же, он мог предпочесть не обрабатывать всю свою землю (свой домен), а сдать ее в аренду за фиксированную денежную ренту виллану, чтобы тот делал с ней, что мог; и таким образом виллан становился свободным человеком, в то время как лорд был уверен в получении фиксированной суммы со своей земли каждый год, независимо от того, был ли урожай хорошим или плохим.

§ 9. Иллюстрации старых маноров. (1) Эстон

—To make clear what I have said in this chapter, it will perhaps be well to give two illustrations drawn from the Domesday Book (eleventh century) and from bailiffs’ accounts of a later period (end of thirteenth century).

Сначала мы возьмем манор в Уорикшире из Описания Страшного суда (1089 г.) — Эстон, ныне Астон, близ Бирмингема. Он был одним из многих, принадлежавших Уильяму, сыну Анскульфа, который был держателем-в-главе, но сдал его в аренду некоему Годмунду, субарендатору. В Описании говорится: «Уильям Фиц-Анскульф держит от короля Эстон, а Годмунд — от него. Там 8 гайд. Пашня требует 20 плугов; в домене пашня требует 6 плугов, но сейчас плугов нет. Там 30 вилланов со священником, 1 крепостной и 12 бордаров [т. е. коттаров]. У них 18 плугов. Мельница приносит 3 шиллинга. Лес 3 мили в длину и полмили в ширину. Он стоил 4 фунта; сейчас 100 шиллингов».

11 Гайда варьировалась по размеру и была (после Завоевания) равна карукате, которая могла составлять от 80 до 120 или 180 акров. Возможно, 120 — это справедливое среднее значение, хотя некоторые говорят 80.

Здесь мы имеем хороший пример манора, удерживаемого субарендатором и содержащего все три класса, упомянутые в § 4 этой главы — вилланов, коттаров и рабов (т. е. крепостных). Весь манор должен был составлять около 5000 акров, из которых 1000, вероятно, была пахотной землей, которая, конечно, была разделена на полосы между вилланами, лордом и священником. Поскольку на 30 вилланов приходилось всего 18 плугов, очевидно, что некоторым из них, по крайней мере, приходилось использовать плуг и волов сообща. Доменная земля, по-видимому, не очень хорошо обрабатывалась Годмундом, лордом, так как на ней не было плугов, хотя она была достаточно большой, чтобы занять шесть. Возможно, Годмунд, будучи англичанином, сражался с нормандцами во времена Гарольда и позволил ей выйти из обработки, или, возможно, прежний владелец погиб на войне, а Годмунд арендовал землю у нормандского дворянина, которому ее дал Уильям.

§ 10. Манор Каксем в XI и XIII веках

—Our second illustration can be described at two periods of its existence—at the time of Domesday and 200 years later. It was only a small manor of some 490 acres, and was held by a sub-tenant from a Norman tenant in chief, Milo Crispin. It is found in the Oxfordshire Domesday, in the list of lands belonging to Milo Crispin. The Survey says: “Alured [the sub-tenant] now holds 5 hides for a manor in Cuxham. Land to 4 ploughs; now in the demesne, 2 ploughs and 4 bondsmen. And 7 villeins with 4 bordars have 3 ploughs. There are 3 mills of 18 shillings; and 18 acres of meadow. It was worth £3, now £6.” Here, again, our three classes of villeins, cottars or bordars, and slaves are represented. The manor was evidently a good one, for though smaller than Estone it {18} was worth more, and has three mills and good meadow land as well. Now, by the end of the thirteenth century this manor had passed into the hands of Merton College, Oxford, which then represented the lord, but farmed it by means of a bailiff. Professor Thorold Rogers gives us a description of it,﻿12 drawn from the annual accounts of this bailiff, which he has examined along with a number of others from other manors. We find one or two changes have taken place, for the bondsmen have entirely disappeared, as indeed they did in less than a century after the Conquest all through the land. The number of villeins and bordars has increased. There are now 13 villeins and 8 cottars, and 1 free tenant. There is also a prior, who holds land (6 acres) in the manor but does not live in it; also two other tenants, who do not live in the manor, but hold “a quarter of a knight’s fee” (here some 40 or 50 acres)—a knight’s fee comprising an area of land varying from 2 hides to 4 or even 6 hides, but in any case worth some £20. As the Cuxham land was good, the quantity necessary for the valuation of a fee would probably be only the small hide or carucate of 80 acres, and the quarter of it of course 20 acres or a little more. The 13 serfs hold 170 acres, but the 8 cottars only 30 acres, including their tenements. The free tenant holds 12⁠¾ acres, and Merton College as lord of the manor some 240 acres of demesne. There are now two mills instead of three, one belonging to the prior, and the other to another tenant. There were altogether, counting the families of the villeins and cottars, but not the two tenants of military fees, about 60 or 70 inhabitants, the most important being the college bailiff and the miller.

12 В его книге «Шесть веков труда и заработной платы».

§ 11. Описание манорной деревни

—Now in both these country manors, as in all others, the central feature {19} would be the dwelling of the lord, or manor-house. It was substantially built, and served as a court-house for the annual sittings of the court baron and court leet.﻿13 If the lord did not live in it, his bailiff did so, and then the lord would come once or twice a year to hold these courts. Near the manor-house generally stood the church, often large for the size of the village, because the nave was frequently used as a town-hall for meetings or for markets. Then there would be the house of the priest, possibly in the demesne; and after these two the most important building was the mill, which, if there was a stream, would be placed on its banks in order to use the water-power. The rest of the tenants generally inhabited the principal street or road of the village, near the stream, if one ran through the place. The houses of these villages were poor and dirty, not always made of stone, and never (till the fifteenth century) of brick, but built of posts wattled and plastered with clay or mud, with an upper storey of poles reached by a ladder. The articles of furniture would be very coarse and few, being necessarily of home manufacture; a few rafters or poles overhead, a bacon-rack, and agricultural tools being the most conspicuous objects. Chimneys were unknown, except in the manor-houses, and so too were windows, and the floor was of bare earth. Outside the door was the “mixen,” a collection of every kind of manure and refuse, which must have rendered the village street alike unsavoury, unsightly and unwholesome. But though their life was rude and rough, it seems that the villagers were fairly happy, and, considering all things, about as well off as are their descendants now.

13 См. примечание 4, стр. 243, о манорных судах.

§ 12. Виды земли в маноре

—Before concluding this chapter, it is necessary, in order to complete our {20} sketch of the manorial system from the time of the Conquest onwards, to understand how the land was divided up. We may say that there were seven kinds of land altogether, (1) First came the lord’s land round about the manor-house, the demesne land, which was strictly his own, and generally cultivated by himself or his bailiff. All other land held by tenants was called land in villeinage. (2) Next came the arable land of the village held by the tenants in common fields. Now these fields were all divided up into many strips, and tenants held their strips generally in quite different places, all mixed up anyhow (cf. diagram, where the tenants are marked A, B. C, etc.). The lord and the parson might also have a few strips in these fields. There were at least three fields, in order to allow the rotation of crops mentioned before (p. 8). Each tenant held his strip only till harvest, after which all fences and divisions were taken away, and the cattle turned out to feed on the stubble. (3) Thirdly came the common pasture, for all the tenants. But each tenant was restricted or stinted in the number of cattle that he might pasture, lest he should put on too many, and thus not leave enough food for his neighbours’ cattle. Sometimes, however, we find pasture without stint, as in Port Meadow at Oxford to this day. (4) Then comes the forest or woodland, as in Estone, which belonged to the lord, who owned all the timber. But the tenants had rights, such as the right of lopping and topping certain trees, collecting fallen branches for fuel; and the right of “pannage”—i.e. of turning cattle, especially swine, into the woods to pick up what food they could. (5) There was also in most manors what is called the waste—i.e. uncultivated—land, affording rough pasture, and on which the tenants had the right of cutting turf and bracken for fuel and fodder. Then near the stream there would {21}

DIAGRAM OF A MANOR

КОРОЛЬ (верховный землевладелец)

ДЕРЖАТЕЛЬ-В-ГЛАВЕ, владеющий различными манорами.

СУБАРЕНДАТОР, или держатель-в-мезне, лорд манора ниже.

возможно, будет немного (6) луговой земли, как в Каксеме; но она всегда принадлежала лорду, и если он сдавал ее в аренду, то всегда взимал дополнительную ренту (скажем, восемь пенсов вместо шести пенсов за акр), так как она была очень ценной, обеспечивая хороший запас сена на зиму. Наконец, если арендатор мог себе это позволить и хотел иметь другую землю, помимо общинных полей, где он мог бы пасти свой скот или более тщательно обрабатывать землю, он мог занять (7) огороженный участок, или часть земли, специально отмеченную и сданную в аренду отдельно. У лорда всегда был огороженный участок в его домене, и у главных арендаторов обычно тоже был один или два. Огороженная земля, конечно, арендовалась дороже, чем земля на общинных полях.

Прилагаемая диаграмма показывает типичный манор, удерживаемый субарендатором от держателя-в-главе, который держит его от короля. Он содержит все различные виды земли, хотя, конечно, они не всегда существовали все в одном маноре. На ней также показаны манорный дом, церковь, мельница и деревня.

14 См. примечание 5, стр. 244, об упадке манорной системы.

ГЛАВА II ГОРОДА И ГИЛЬДИИ

§ 1. Происхождение городов

—As in the case of the manor, which was the Norman name for the Saxon “townships,” the town, in the modern sense of the word, had its origin from the primitive settlement known as the mark (p. 6). The only difference between a town and a manor originally lay in the number of its population, and in the fact that the town was a more defensible place than the {23} “township,” or rural manor, probably having a mound or moat surrounding it, instead of the hedges which ran round the villages. In itself it was merely a manor or group of manors; as Professor Freeman puts it, “one part of the district where men lived closer together than elsewhere.” The town had at first a constitution like that of a primitive village in the mark, but its inhabitants had gradually gained certain rights and functions of a special nature. These rights and privileges had been received from the lord of the manor on which the town had grown up; for towns, especially provincial towns, were at first only dependent manors, which gained safety and solidity under the protection of some great noble, prelate, or the king himself, who finally would grant the town thus formed a charter.

§ 2. Рост городов в Англии

—Towns first became important in England towards the end of the Saxon period Saxon England had never been a settlement of towns, but of villages and townships, or manors. But gradually towns did grow up, though differing widely in the circumstances and manner of their rise. Some grew up in the fortified camps of the invaders themselves, as being in a secure position; some arose from a later occupation of the once sacked and deserted Roman towns. Many grew silently in the shadow of a great abbey or monastery. Of this class was Oxford, which first came into being round the monasteries of St Frideswide and Osney. Others clustered round the country houses of some Saxon king or earl. Several important boroughs owed their rise to the convenience of their site as a port or a trading centre. This was the origin of the growth of Bristol, whose rise resulted directly from trade; and London of course had always been a port of high commercial rank. A few other towns, like Scarborough and Grimsby, were at first {24} small havens for fishermen. But all the English towns were far less flourishing before the arrival of the Normans than they afterwards became.

§ 3. Города в Книге Страшного суда: Лондон

—If, now, we once more go back to our great authority, the survey made by William the Norman, we find that the status of these towns or boroughs is clearly recognized, though they are regarded as held by the lord of the manor “in demesne,” or in default of a lord, as part of the king’s demesne. Thus Northampton at that time was a town in the king’s demesne; Beverley was held in demesne by the Archbishop of York. It was possible, too, that one town might belong to several lords, because it spread over, or was an aggregate of, several manors or townships. Thus Leicester seems to have included four manors, which were thus held in demesne by four lords—one by the king, another by the Bishop of Lincoln, another by a noble, Simon de Senlis, and the fourth by Ivo of Grantmesnil, the sheriff. In later times it was held under one lord, Count Robert of Meulan.

Итак, в Книге Страшного суда упоминается сорок один провинциальный город или боро, большинство из которых являются окружными центрами сегодняшнего дня. Есть также десять укрепленных городов, имеющих большее значение, чем другие. Это Кентербери, Йорк, Ноттингем, Оксфорд, Херефорд, Лестер, Линкольн, Стаффорд, Честер и Колчестер. Лондон был городом особняком, как это было всегда, и был единственным городом, который имел гражданскую конституцию, регулируемую порт-ривом и епископом, и имевшим своего рода хартию, хотя впоследствии привилегии этой хартии были значительно расширены. Лондон, конечно, был крупным портом и торговым центром, в нем было много иностранных купцов. Он был тогда, как и в последующие века, центром английской национальной жизни, и голос его граждан имел значение в национальных делах. Другими крупными портами Англии в то время были Бристоль, Саутгемптон и Норидж, и по мере того, как торговля росла и процветала, многие другие порты выдвигались на первый план (см. стр. 64).

§ 4. Особые привилегии городов

—Even at the time of the Conquest most towns, though small, were of sufficient importance to have a certain status of their own, with definite privileges. The most important of these was the right of composition for taxation, i.e. the right of paying a fixed sum, or rent, to the Crown, instead of the various tallages, taxes, and imposts that might be required of other places. This fixed sum, or composition, was called the firma burgi, and by the time of the Conquest was nearly always paid in money. Previously it had been paid both in money and kind, for we find Oxford paying to Edward the Confessor six sectaries of honey as well as £20 in coin; while to William the Norman it paid £60 as an inclusive lump sum. By the end of the Norman period all the towns had secured the firma burgi, and the right of assessing it themselves, instead of being assessed by the sheriff; they had the right also of choosing a mayor of their own, instead of the king’s bailiff or reeve. They had, moreover, their own tribunals, a charter for their customs, and special rules of local administration, and, generally speaking, gained entire judicial and commercial freedom.

§ 5. Как города получали свои хартии

—It is interesting to see what circumstances helped forward this emancipation of the towns from the rights possessed by the nobles and the abbeys, or by the king. The chief cause of the readiness of the nobles and kings to grant charters during this period (from the Conquest to Henry III.) was their lack of ready money. Everyone knows {26} how fiercely the nobles fought against each other in Stephen’s reign, and how enthusiastically they rushed to the Crusades under Richard I. They could not indulge their love of fighting, which in their eyes was their main duty, without money to pay for their fatal extravagances in this direction, and to get money they frequently parted with their manorial rights over the towns that had grown up on their estates. Especially was this the case when a noble, or king, was taken prisoner, and wanted the means of his ransom. In this way Portsmouth and Norwich gained their charters by paying part of Richard I.’s ransom (1194). Again, Rye and Winchelsea gained theirs by supplying the same king (in 1191) with two ships for one of his Eastern crusades. Many other instances might be quoted from the cases of nobles who also gave charters when setting out upon these extraordinary religious and sentimental expeditions. Indeed, the Crusades had a very marked influence in this way upon the growth of English towns. Someone had to pay for the wars in which the aristocracy delighted, and it is well to remember the fact that the expenses of all our wars—and they have been both numerous and costly—have been defrayed by the industrial portion of the community. And the glories and cruelties of that savage age of so-called knightly chivalry, which has been idealized and gilded by romancers and history-mongers, with its tournaments and torture-chambers, were paid for by that despised industrial population of the towns and manors which contained the real life and wealth of mediæval England.

§ 6. Гильдии и города. Различные виды гильдий

—But besides the indirect effect of the Crusades, there was another powerful factor in the growth and emancipation of the towns after the Conquest. I refer to the merchant {27} gilds, which were becoming more and more prominent all through this period, though the height of their power was reached in the fourteenth century. These merchant gilds were one out of four other kinds of gilds, all of which seem to have been similar in origin. The earliest gilds are found in Saxon times, and were very much what we understand by clubs. At first they were associations of men for more or less religious and charitable purposes, and formed a sort of artificial family, whose members were bound by the bond not of kinship, but of an oath; while the gild-feast, held once a month in the common hall, replaced the family gatherings of kinsfolk. These gilds were found both in towns and manors, but chiefly in the former, where men were brought more closely together. Besides (1) the religious gilds, we find in Saxon times (2) the frith gilds, formed for mutual assistance in case of violence, wrong, or false accusation, or in any legal affairs. But this class of gilds died out after the Conquest. The most important were (3) the merchant gilds mentioned above, which existed certainly in Edward the Confessor’s time, being called in Saxon ceapemanne gilds, and they were recognized at the time of the Conquest, for they are recorded in Domesday here and there as possessing lands. The merchant members of these gilds had various privileges, such as a monopoly of the local trade of a town, and freedom from certain imposts. They had a higher rank than the members of the (4) craft gilds. These last were associations of handicraftsmen, or artisans, and were separate from the merchant gilds, though also of great importance. If a town was large enough, each craft or manufacture had a gild of its own, though in smaller towns members of various crafts would form only one gild. Such gilds were found, too, not only in towns but in country villages, as is known, e.g., in the case of some {28} Norfolk villages, and remains of their halls in villages have been found. Their gild feasts are probably represented to this day in the parish feasts, survivals of ancient custom.

§ 7. Как купеческие гильдии способствовали росту городов

—Now it was only natural that the existence of these powerful associations in the growing boroughs should secure an increasing extent of cohesion and unity among the townsmen. Moreover, the craft and merchant gilds had a very important privilege, which could make many men anxious to join their ranks, namely, that membership in a gild for a year and a day made a tenant in villeinage a free man, as were all the members of a gild. Thus the gilds included all the free tenants in a town, and in becoming a merchant gild the body of free citizens, who formed the only influential portion of a town, began to enlarge their municipal powers. It became their special endeavour to obtain from the king or from their lord wider commercial privileges, grants of coinage, of holding fairs, and of exemption from tolls. Then they asked for freedom of justice and of self-government; and more especially did the gilds, as representing practically the town, buy up the firma burgi, or fixed tax, and thus became their own assessors, and finally bought a charter, as we have seen, from a king or noble in need of ready money. And so gradually, and by other steps which are not always clear, the emancipation of the towns was won by the gilds; the boroughs became free from their lords’ restrictions and dues; till by the end of the twelfth century chartered towns, which were very few at the time of the Conquest, became the general rule.

§ 8. Как ремесленные гильдии способствовали промышленности

—So far we have specially noted the work of the merchant gilds, which, as it were, built up the constitution and freedom of the towns. {29}

Теперь мы должны на мгновение взглянуть на работу ремесленных гильдий, которые впоследствии стали очень важными. Эти гильдии встречаются не только в Лондоне, но и в провинциальных городах. Лондонские ткачи упоминаются как ремесленная гильдия во времена Генриха I (1100 г. н. э.), и большинство этих гильдий, по-видимому, существовали уже в течение длительного периода. Гильдия ювелиров претендовала на то, что владела землей еще до нормандского завоевания, и она была довольно влиятельной во времена Генриха II (1154 г. н. э.), поскольку он нашел удобным попытаться подавить ее. Но она не получила официального признания в виде хартии до XIV века. Они возникли, конечно, сначала в городах и первоначально, по-видимому, состояли из небольшой группы ведущих людей определенного ремесла, которым было доверено регулирование конкретной отрасли, вероятно, как только эта отрасль была признана достаточно важной для регулирования. Гильдия стремилась обеспечить качественную работу со стороны своих членов и пыталась подавить производство товаров безответственными лицами, не являющимися членами гильдии. Их фундаментальный принцип заключался в том, что член гильдии должен работать не только для своей личной выгоды, но и для репутации и блага своего ремесла; поэтому плохая работа наказывалась, и любопытно отметить, что ночная работа была запрещена, так как она вела к низкому качеству работы. Гильдия заботилась об обеспечении притока компетентных рабочих в будущем путем обучения молодых людей своему конкретному ремеслу, и отсюда возникла система ученичества, которая, по крайней мере, сначала имела значительные преимущества.

Гильдия, кроме того, осуществляла моральный контроль над своими членами и обеспечивала их хорошее поведение, тем самым формируя эффективную ветвь социальной полиции. С другой стороны, она обладала многими характеристиками общества взаимопомощи, обеспечивая защиту от болезней и смерти среди своих членов, как, собственно, и все гильдии.

Эти институты, однако, принадлежали не только городам, но встречались и в сельских районах; так, мы слышим о сельских гильдиях плотников и каменщиков в правление Эдуарда III. Даже крестьянские рабочие, по словам профессора Торольда Роджерса, обладали этими ассоциациями, которые во всех случаях выполняли многие функции современных профсоюзов. Позже (1381 г.) мы столкнемся с очень примечательным примером силы этих крестьянских союзов в вопросе восстания Тайлера.

§ 9. Жизнь в городах того времени

—The inhabitants of the towns were of all classes of society. There was the noble who held the castle, or the abbot and monks in the monastery, with their retainers and personal dependants; there were the busy merchants, active both in the management of their trade and of civic affairs; and there were artisans and master workmen in different crafts. There were free tenants, or tenants in socage, including all the burgesses, or burgage-tenants, as they were called; and there was the lower class of villeins, which, however, always tended to rise into free men as they were admitted into the gilds. “To and fro went our forefathers in the quiet, quaint, narrow streets, or worked at some handicraft in their houses, or exposed their goods round the market-cross. And in those old streets and houses, in the town-mead and market-place, amid the murmur of the mill beside the stream, and the notes of the bell that sounded its summons to the crowded assembly of the town-mote, in merchant gild and craft gild, was growing up that sturdy, industrial life, unheeded and unnoticed by knight or baron, that silently and surely was building up the slow structure of England’s wealth and freedom.”﻿15

15 См. «Промышленность в Англии», стр. 96; и Грин, «История», I. 212.

ГЛАВА III ПРОМЫШЛЕННОСТЬ И ТОРГОВЛЯ: XI–XIII ВЕКА

§ 1. Экономические последствия феодальной системы

—We shall find that for some time after the Norman Conquest English industry does not develop very rapidly, and that for obvious reasons. The feud that existed between Norman and Saxon—although perhaps partially allayed by Henry I.’s marriage to an English wife—and the social disorder that accompanied this feeling, hardly tended to that quiet and security that are necessary for a healthy industrial life. The frightful disorders that occurred during the fierce struggle for the kingdom between Stephen of Blois and the Empress Maud, and the equally frightful ravages and extortions of their contending barons, must have been serious drawbacks to any progress. As the old annalist remarks—“They fought among themselves with deadly hatred; they spoiled the fairest lands with fire and rapine; in what had been the most fertile of counties they destroyed almost all the provision of bread.”﻿16 But this mighty struggle fortunately ended in ruining many of the barons who took part in it, and in the desirable destruction of most of their abodes of plunder. And the accession of Henry II. (1154) marks a period of amalgamation between Englishmen and Normans, not only in social life, but in commercial traffic and intercourse.

16 Процитировано Грином; «История», I. 155.

Но даже когда мы начинаем рассматривать феодальную систему в мирное время, мы видим, что она не способствовала большому росту промышленности. Ибо она поощряла, а не уменьшала тот дух изоляции и самодостаточности, который был столь заметной чертой ранних маноров и поселений, где, опять же, было мало возможностей для индивидуальной инициативы из-за того, что согласие лорда манора или города часто было необходимо для самых обычных целей промышленной жизни. Это правда, как мы видели, что когда благородный владелец оказывался в финансовых затруднениях, города извлекали из этого выгоду, чтобы получить свои хартии; и, возможно, мы не найдем повода для сожаления в том, что бароны, через свои междоусобные распри, таким образом невольно способствовали развитию промышленности в стране. Можно также признать, что хотя изоляция общин, ставшая следствием преобладающей манорной системы, не поощряла торговлю и сообщение между отдельными общинами, она все же способствовала распространению знаний о домашних промыслах по всей стране в целом, поскольку каждое место должно было в значительной степени обеспечивать себя само.

Однако постоянное налогообложение, влекущее за собой феодальную систему в виде талья, пособий и штрафов, как королю, так и дворянам, затрудняло накопление капитала низшими классами, тем более что в гражданских войнах их постоянно открыто грабили. Высшие классы просто растрачивали его в сражениях. Сельское хозяйство страдало аналогичным образом; ибо вилланы, как бы хорошо они ни жили, были привязаны к земле, особенно в ранний период вскоре после Завоевания, и до того, как замена повинностей денежной рентой стала такой же обычной, как впоследствии; они не могли покинуть свой манор, не понеся явного ущерба, как в социальном статусе, так и — что более важно — в средствах к существованию. Системы постоянных повинностей лорду манора и коллективные методы обработки земли также были препятствиями для хорошего сельского хозяйства. Опять же, в торговле цены устанавливались властями, конкуренция была чрезмерно ограничена, а купцы должны были платить тяжелые штрафы за королевскую «защиту».

§ 2. Внешняя торговля. Крестовые походы

—But, on the other hand, the Norman Conquest, which combined the Kingdom of England with the Duchy of Normandy in close political relations, gave abundant opportunities for commerce, both with France and the Continent, and foreign trade certainly received a stimulus from this fact. It was further developed by the Crusades. The most obvious effect of these remarkable expeditions for a visionary success was the opening up of Trade Routes throughout Europe to the shores of the Mediterranean Sea, and to the East in general. They produced also a considerable redistribution of wealth in England itself, for the knights and nobles that set out for the Holy Land often mortgaged their lands and never redeemed them, or they perished and their lands lapsed to the crown, or to some monastery that took the place of a trustee for the absent owner. The growth of towns also, as we saw, is directly attributable to the privileges and freedom secured at this time by supplying money to a crusading lord. As to foreign trade, our chief authority at this time is the old chronicler, Henry of Huntingdon, whose history was published about A.D. 1155. Like most historians, even of the present day, he says very little about so insignificant a matter as trade; but the single sentence which he devotes to it is probably of as great value as any other part of his book. From it we gather that our trade with Germany was extensive, and that we exported lead and tin among the metals; fish and meat and fat cattle (which seems to point to some improvement in our pastoral economy); and, most important of all, fine wool, though at that time the English could not weave it properly for themselves. Our imports, however, are very {34} limited, comprising none of the necessities of life, and few of its luxuries beyond silver and foreign furs. Other imports were fine woven cloths, used for the dresses of the nobility; and, after the Crusades began, of rich Eastern stuffs and spices, which were in great demand, and commanded a high price. So too did iron, which was necessary for agricultural purposes, as Englishmen had not yet discovered their rich stores of this metal, but had to get it from the lands on the Baltic shore. Generally speaking, we may say that our imports consisted of articles of greater intrinsic value and scarcity than our exports, and thus were fewer in number, though of course balancing in total value, as imports and exports always must.

§ 3. Торговые статьи Великой хартии вольностей

—One great proof of the existence of a fair amount of foreign trade is seen in the clauses which were inserted in the Great Charter (1215), by the influence of the trading class. One enactment secures to foreign merchants freedom of journeying and of trade throughout the realm, and another orders a uniformity of weights and measures to be enforced throughout the whole kingdom. The growth of home industry in the towns is seen in the enactment which secures to the towns the enjoyment of their municipal privileges, their freedom from arbitrary taxation, and the regulation of their own trade. The forfeiture of a freeman, even upon conviction of felony, was never to include his wares, if he were a merchant. The exactions of forced labour by the royal officers was also forbidden, and this must have been a great boon to the agricultural population. There is also a clause which endeavours to restrict usury exacted by the Jews, a clause which points to the usual characteristics of the Hebrew race, and which shows their growing importance {35} in economic England. We will therefore briefly mention the facts concerning them at this period.

§ 4. Евреи в Англии: их экономическое положение

—The first appearance of the Jews in England may practically be reckoned as occurring at the time of the Norman Conquest, for immediately after 1066 they came in large numbers from Rouen, Caen, and other Norman towns. They stood in the peculiar position of being the personal property, or “chattels,” of the king, and a special officer governed their settlements in various towns. These settlements were called Jewries, of which those at London, Lincoln, Bury St Edmund’s, and Oxford were at one time fairly considerable. They were protected by the king, and of course paid him for their protection. Their general financial skill was acknowledged by all, and William II. employed them to farm the revenues of vacant sees, while barons often employed them as stewards of their estates. They were also the leading if not the only capitalists of that time, and must have assisted merchants considerably in their enterprises, of course upon the usual commission. After the death of Henry I. the security which they had enjoyed was much weakened, in proportion as the royal power declined in the civil wars, and in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries they were in a precarious position. Stephen and Matilda openly robbed them; Henry II. (in 1187) demanded one-fourth of their chattels, and Richard I. obtained large sums from them for his crusading extravagances. From 1144 to 1189, riots directed against them became common, and the Jewries of many towns were pillaged. In 1194 Richard I. placed their commercial transactions more thoroughly under local officers of the crown. John exploited them to great advantage, and levied heavy tallages upon them, and Henry III. did very much the same. They were {36} expelled from the kingdom in 1290, and before this had greatly sunk from their previous position as the financiers of the crown, to that of petty money-lenders to the poor at gross usury. What concerns us more immediately to notice in this early period of English history, is their temporary usefulness as capitalists in trading transactions, at a time when capital was not easily accumulated or kept in safety.﻿17

17 См. примечание 6, стр. 244, об их возвращении.

§ 5. Промышленность в этот период: фламандские ткачи

—We now turn from the subject of trade and finance to that of manufacturing industry. On doing so, we find that the chief industry is that of weaving coarse woollen cloth. An industry so necessary as this, and one too that can be carried on in a simple state of society with such ease, as a domestic manufacture, would naturally always exist, even from the most uncivilized times. This had been the case in England. But it is noticeable that although Henry of Huntingdon mentions the export of “fine wool” as one of the chief English exports, and although England had always been in a specially favourable position for growing wool, her manufacture of it had not developed to any great extent. Nevertheless it was practised as a domestic industry in every rural and urban community, and at this period already had its gilds—a sure sign of growth. Indeed one of the oldest craft gilds was that of the London weavers, of which we find mention in the time of Henry I. (A.D. 1100). And in this reign, too, we first hear of the arrival of Flemish immigrants in this country, who helped largely both then and subsequently in the development of the woollen manufacture. Some Flemings had come over indeed in the days of William the Norman, having been driven from Flanders by an incursion of the sea, and had settled at Carlisle. But Henry I., as we read in {37} Higden’s Chronicle, transferred them to Pembrokeshire in A.D. 1111: “Flandrenses, tempore regis Henrici primi, ad occidentalem Walliæ partem, apud Haverford, sunt translati.” Traces of them remained till a comparatively recent period, and the names of the village of Flemingston, and of the road called the Via Flandrica, running over the crest of the Precelly mountains, afford striking evidence of their settlement there, as also does the name Tucking Mill (i.e. Cloth-making mill, from German and Flemish tuch, “a cloth”). Norfolk also had from early times been the seat of the woollen industry, and had had similar influxes of Flemish weavers. They do not, however, become important till the reign of Edward III., when we shall find that English cloth manufacture begins to develop considerably. In this period, all we can say is that England was more famed for the wool that it grew than for the cloth which it manufactured therefrom, and it had yet to learn most of its improvements from lessons taught by foreigners.

§ 6. Экономический облик Англии в этот период. Население

—The England of the Domesday Book was very different from anything which we can now conceive, nor did its industrial condition change much during the next century or two. The population was probably under 2,000,000 in all; for in Domesday Book only 283,342 able-bodied men are enumerated. These multiplied by five, to include women and children, give 1,400,000 of general population, and allowing for omissions we shall find two millions rather over than under the mark. Nor indeed could the agricultural and industrial state of the country have supported more. This population was chiefly located in the Southern and Eastern counties, for the North of England, and especially Yorkshire, had been laid waste by the Conqueror, in {38} consequence of its revolt in 1068. The whole country between York and the Tees was ravaged, and the famine which ensued is said to have carried off 100,000 victims. Indeed, for half-a-century the land “lay bare of cultivation and of men” for sixty miles northward of York, and for centuries more never fully recovered from this terrible visitation. The Domesday Book records district after district, and manor after manor, in Yorkshire as “waste.” In the East and North-west of England, now the most densely populated parts of the country, all was fen, moorland, and forest, peopled only by wild animals and lawless men. Till the seventeenth century, in fact, Lancashire and the West Riding of Yorkshire were the poorest counties in England. The fens of East Anglia were reclaimed only in 1634. The main ports were London for general trade; Southampton, for the French trade in wines; Norwich for the export wool trade with Flanders, and for imports from the Baltic; and on the west coast Bristol, which had always been the centre for the western trade in Severn salmon and hides. At one time, too, it was the great port for the trade of English slaves who were taken to Ireland, but William the Norman checked that traffic, though it lingered till Henry II. conquered Ireland. For internal trade market towns, or villages as we should call them, were gradually springing up. They were nearly always held in demesne by the lord of the manor, who claimed the tolls, though in after years the town bought them of him. Some of these markets had existed from Saxon times, as is seen by the prefix “Chipping” (=chepinge, A.S. a market), as in Chipping Norton, Chippingham, and Chepstowe; others date from a later period, and are known by the prefix “Market,” as e.g. Market Bosworth. But these market towns were very small, and indeed only some {39} half-dozen towns in the kingdom had a population above 5000 inhabitants. These were London, York, Bristol, Coventry, Norwich, and Lincoln.

ENGLAND SHORTLY AFTER TIME OF DOMESDAY, A.D. 1100–1200

ТЕМНО-ЗЕЛЕНЫЙ: Плотность населения выше. КРАСНО-КОРИЧНЕВЫЙ: Лес. ЖЕЛТЫЙ: Болото.

Основной цвет — зеленый, чтобы показать, что вся страна была преимущественно сельскохозяйственной. Часть Йоркшира бледно-розовая, чтобы показать, что это была пустошь.

Десять главных городов: 1 — Йорк.* 2 — Бристоль.* 3 — Линкольн.* 4 — Норидж.* 5 — Ковентри.* 6 — Оксфорд. 7 — Колчестер. 8 — Ноттингем. 9 — Винчестер. И 10 — Лондон.

*Population over 5000.

§ 7. Общее состояние периода

—Speaking generally for the whole period after the Conquest, we may say that, though the economic condition of England was by no means unprosperous, industrial development was necessarily slow. The disputes between Stephen and Maud, and the civil wars of their partisans, the enormous drain upon the resources of the country caused by Richard I.’s expenses in carrying on Crusades when he should have been ruling his kingdom, and the equally enormous taxes and bribes paid by the worthless John to the Papal See, could not fail seriously to check national industry. It is no wonder that in John’s reign, at the beginning of the thirteenth century, we hear of great discontent throughout all the land, of much misery and poverty, especially in the towns, and of a general feeling of revolt. That miserable monarch was only saved from deposition by his opportune death.

И все же, несмотря на все эти беды, экономическое состояние Англии, хотя и подавленное, отнюдь не было абсолютно нездоровым; и следующее правление (Генриха III, 1216–1272 гг.), с его сравнительным миром и досугом, предоставило, как мы увидим, достаточную возможность для того, чтобы народ мог вернуть себе положение общего богатства и процветания. Это время спокойного прогресса и промышленного роста является подходящим поводом для выделения новой эпохи.

ПЕРИОД III С XIII ДО КОНЦА XV ВЕКА, ВКЛЮЧАЯ ВЕЛИКУЮ ЧУМУ (1216–1500 гг.)

ГЛАВА I СЕЛЬСКОЕ ХОЗЯЙСТВО В СРЕДНЕВЕКОВОЙ АНГЛИИ

§ 1. Введение. Возникновение класса наемных рабочих

—The long reign of Henry III., although occasionally troubled by internal dissensions among the barons, was upon the whole a prosperous and peaceful time for the people in general, and more especially for those whom historians are pleased to call the lower classes. For by this time a remarkable change had begun to affect the condition of the serfs or villeins, a change already alluded to before, by which the villeins became free tenants, subject to a fixed rent for their holdings. This rent was rapidly becoming a payment in money and not in labour, for, as we saw, the lords of the manors were frequently in want of cash, and were ready to sell many of their privileges. The change was at first gradual, but by the time of the Great Plague (1348), money rents were becoming the rule rather than the exception; and though labour rents were not quite obsolete, it was an ill-advised attempt to extort them again that was the prime cause of Wat Tyler’s insurrection (1381). Before the Plague, in fact, villeinage in the old sense had become almost {41} extinct, and the peasants, both great and small, had achieved practical freedom. The richer villeins had developed into small farmers; while the poorer villeins, and especially the cottars, had formed a separate class of agricultural labourers, not indeed entirely without land, but depending for their livelihood upon wages paid for helping to cultivate the land of others. The rise of this class, that lived by wages and not by tilling their own land, was due to the fact that cottars and others, not having enough land of their own to occupy their whole time, were free to hire themselves to those who had a larger quantity of land. Especially would they become labourers at a fixed wage for the lord of a manor when he had commuted his rights to the unpaid services of all his tenants for a fixed money rent. Of course this change came gradually, but its effect is seen subsequently in the difficulties as to wages expressed in the Statute of Labourers, difficulties which first became serious after the Great Plague.

§ 2. Сельское хозяйство — главное занятие народа

—Throughout the whole of this period the vast majority of the population were continuously engaged in agricultural pursuits, and this was rendered necessary owing to the very low rate of production consequent upon the primitive methods of agriculture. The production of corn was only about four, or sometimes eight, bushels per acre, and this naturally had the effect of keeping down the population, at this time still only between 1,500,000 and 2,000,000. It is a remarkable fact that even the inhabitants of the towns used at harvest-time to go out into the country to get agricultural work, and people often migrated from one district to another for the same purpose, just as Irish agricultural labourers of to-day are accustomed to cross over to England for the harvesting. {42} Some attention was being paid to sheep farming, and a noticeable increase in this branch of industry took place in the beginning of the fourteenth century. One order of monks in particular, the Cistercians, used to grow large quantities of wool; and indeed England had almost a monopoly in the wool trade with Flanders, for even Spanish wool could not be utilized without an admixture of English. But the great increase of sheep farming occurs rather later, at the beginning of the sixteenth century.

§ 3. Методы обработки земли. Капиталистический землевладелец и его управляющий. Аренда «скота и земли»

—The agriculture of the early part of this period is described to us by Walter de Henley, who wrote a book on husbandry some time before 1250. It cannot be said that our agriculture was at this time at a high level, for, as we have seen, the production of wheat (e.g.) was exceedingly low, not being more than four to eight bushels per acre. If we look at a typical manor, we shall find that the arable lands in it were divided pretty equally between the landlord and the tenants of the manor; and before the Great Plague the landlord was not merely a rent-receiving master, but a capitalist land-owner, who cultivated his land by means of his bailiff, subject to his personal supervision. These bailiffs kept very accurate accounts, and we are thereby greatly helped in our investigations in this period. The average rent paid by tenants from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century was sixpence per acre. In many cases, especially on lands owned by monasteries, the land was held on the “stock and land” lease system, by which the landlord let a certain quantity of stock with the land, for which the tenant, at the expiration of his lease, had to account either in money or kind. A relic of this kind of lease {43} existed even in the eighteenth century, for Arthur Young occasionally mentions the practice of the landlord letting cows to dairy farmers. In mediæval times the person to whom cows were leased for dairy purposes was the deye—i.e. dairyman or dairymaid. The stock and land lease plan was favourable to the tenant, for it supplied his preliminary want of capital, and if he was fortunate allowed him often to make considerable profits, and even eventually purchase an estate for himself.

§ 4. Общинная земля арендатора и огороженные участки

—It must always be remembered, however, that the arable land in a manor was “communal”—i.e. each tenant held a certain number of furrows or strips in a common field, the separate divisions being merely marked by a piece of unploughed land, where the grass was allowed to grow. The ownership of these several strips was limited to certain months of the year, generally from Lady Day to Michaelmas, and for the remainder of the year the land was common pasture. This simple and rudimentary system was utterly unsuited to any advanced agriculture. The tenants, however, also possessed “closes,” some for corn, others for pasture and hay. The rent of a close was always higher than that of communal land, being eightpence instead of sixpence per acre. Besides the communal arable land, and his close, the husbandman also had access to two or three kinds of common or pasture—(1) a common close for oxen, kine, or other stock, pasture in which is stinted both for landlord and tenant; (2) the open (“champaign” or “champion”) country, where the cattle go daily before the herdsmen; (3) the lord’s out-woods, moors, and heaths, where the tenants are stinted but the lord is not. Thus the tenant had valuable pasture rights, besides the land he actually rented. But the system of holding arable land in strips {44} was very cumbrous and caused many disputes, since often a tenant would hold a short lease on one strip and a longer lease on another; or confusion of ownership would arise; while in many ways tenure was made insecure, and no encouragement was given to advanced agriculture.

§ 5. Пахота

—As regards the cultivation of the land, it was generally ploughed three times a year. Ordinary ploughing took place in the autumn, the second ploughing in April, the third at midsummer. The furrows were, according to Walter de Henley, a foot apart, and the plough was not to go more than two fingers deep. The ploughing and much other work was done by oxen, as being cheaper than horses. The hoeing was undertaken by women, who also worked at harvest-time in the fields. In Peres the Plowman’s Crede (about A.D. 1394) we have a description of a small farmer ploughing while his wife leads the oxen. “His wife walked by him with a long goad, in a cutted cote cutted full high” (l. 433).

Средний урожай в шесть бушелей с акра — это то, что Уолтер де Хенли считает необходимым для обеспечения прибыльного земледелия.

§ 6. Скот, свиньи и птица

—As to stock, the amount kept was generally rather large, and the agriculturist of the thirteenth century was fully alive to the importance of keeping it; for Walter de Henley advised stocking land to the full extent it would bear. Oxen, as we saw, were kept for the plough and draft; but not much stock was fatted for the table, especially as it could not be kept in the winter. There was no attempt to improve breeds of cattle, for the scarcity of winter food (winter roots being unknown till much later), and the general want of means for resisting the severities of the winter helped to keep all breeds much upon the same level. On the other hand, {45} swine were kept in large numbers, and every peasant had his pig in his sty, and, indeed, probably lived on salt pork most of the winter. Care was taken with the different breeds. The whole of the parish swine were generally put in summer under the charge of one swineherd, who was paid both by tenants and the lord of the manor. The keeping of poultry, too, was at that time universal, so much so that they were very rarely bought by anyone, and when sold were almost absurdly cheap. This habit of keeping fowls, ducks, and geese must have materially helped the peasant in ekeing out his wages, or in paying that portion of his rent which was paid in kind; as e.g. in the case of the Cuxham tenant (p. 15) who had to pay his lord six fowls in all during the year.

§ 7. Овцы

—This animal is so important in English agriculture that we must devote a special paragraph to it alone. For the sheep was, in the earlier periods of English industrial history, the mainstay of the British farmer, chiefly, of course, owing to the quantity of wool required for export. England had, up to a comparatively recent period, almost a monopoly of the raw wool trade, her only rival being Spain. There were, as mentioned before, a great number of breeds of sheep, and much care was taken to improve them. The fleece however was light, being only as an average 1 lb. 7⁠¾ oz., according to Professor Rogers, and the animal was small. The reason of this was that the attempts of the husbandman to improve his breeds were baffled by the hardships of the mediæval winter, and by the prevalence of disease, especially the rot and scab. It is probable that the average loss on the flocks was 20 per cent. a year. They were generally kept under cover from November to April, and fed on coarse hay, wheat, and oat straw, {46} or pea and vetch haulm; but no winter roots were available.

§ 8. Рост овцеводства

—A great increase of sheep farming took place after the Great Plague (1348), and this from two causes. The rapid increase of woollen manufactures promoted by Edward III. rendered wool growing more profitable, while at the same time the scarcity of labour, occasioned by the ravages of the Black Death, and the consequently higher wages demanded, naturally attracted the farmer to an industry which was at once very profitable, and required but little paid labour. So, after the Plague, we find a tendency among large agriculturists to turn ploughed fields into permanent pasture, or, at any rate, to use the same land for pasture and for crops, instead of turning portions of the “waste” into arable land. Consequently from the beginning of the fifteenth century we notice that the agricultural population decreases in proportion as sheep farming increases; and the steady change may be traced in numerous preventive statutes till we come (in 1536) to those of Henry VIII. about decayed towns, especially in the Midlands and the Isle of Wight, culminating in the excitements of 1549. Another cause that, in Henry VIII.’s time, had a distinct influence in promoting sheep farming, was the lack of capital that made itself felt, owing to the general impoverishment of England in his wasteful reign, and which naturally turned farmers to an industry that required little capital, but gave quick returns.

§ 9. Как следствие — увеличение огораживаний

—One consequence of this more extensive sheep farming was the great increase in enclosures made by the landlords in the sixteenth century. So great were these encroachments and enclosures in north-east Norfolk, that they led, in 1549, {47} to a rebellion against the enclosing system, headed by Ket; but, though more marked, perhaps, in Henry VIII.’s reign, the practice of sheep farming had been growing steadily in the previous century. Fortescue, the Lord Chancellor of Henry VI. (in the middle of the fifteenth century), refers to its growth and the prosperity it caused in rural districts—a prosperity, however, that must have been confined only to the great land-owners. We receive other confirmation of this from various statutes designed to prevent the rural population from flowing into the towns, as, for example, the Acts of 1 and 9 Richard II. (1377 and 1385), of 17 Richard II. (1394), promoting the export of corn in hopes of making arable land more valuable. Another Act was passed in 1489 (4 Henry VII.) to keep the rural population from the towns. But the growth of sheep farming is also connected with a great economic and industrial development in England, the rise and progress of cloth manufactures and of the weaving industry generally, and to this we must now devote our next chapter.

ГЛАВА II ШЕРСТЯНАЯ ТОРГОВЛЯ И ПРОМЫШЛЕННОСТЬ

§ 1. Монополия Англии на шерсть

—In the Middle Ages England was the only wool-producing country in the North of Europe. Spain grew wool also, but it could not be used alone for every kind of fabric, and besides it was more difficult to transport wool from Spain to Flanders, the seat of the manufacture of that article, than it was to send it across the narrow German Ocean, where swarms of light craft plied constantly between Flanders and the {48} eastern ports of England. Hence England had a practical monopoly of the wool trade, which was due not only to its favourable climate and soil, but also to the fact that even at the worst periods of civil war—and they did not last for long—our island was incomparably more peaceful than the countries of Western Europe. From the thirteenth to the seventeenth century, the farmers of Western Europe could not possibly have kept sheep, the most defenceless and tender of domestic animals, amid the wars that were continually devastating their homesteads; nor, as a matter of fact, did they do so. But in England, especially after the twelfth century, nearly everybody in the realm, from the king to the villein, was concerned in agriculture, and was interested therefore in maintaining peace. Even when the great landlords, after the Plague of 1348, gave up the cultivation of their arable land, they went in, as we saw, for sheep farming, and enclosed large tracts of land for that purpose. Hence the export trade in wool became more and more important, and there was always a continual demand for English wool to supply the busy looms of the great manufacturing towns in Flanders.

§ 2. Шерсть и политика

—The most convincing proof of the importance of the wool trade is seen in England’s diplomatic relations with Flanders, which, by the way, afford an interesting example of the necessity of taking economic factors into account in dealing with national history. Flanders was the great manufacturing country of Europe at that time. England supplied its raw material in vast quantities, and nine-tenths of English wool went to the looms of Bruges and Ghent. A stoppage of this export from England used to throw half the population of the Flemish towns out of work. The immense transactions that even then took place, are {49} seen from the fact that a single company of Florentine merchants would contract with the Cistercian monks of England for the whole year’s supply of the wool produced on their vast sheep-ranges on the Yorkshire moorlands; for the Cistercian order were among the foremost wool-growers in the country. Now, it is a curious and significant fact that when Edward I., Edward III., and Henry V. premeditated an attack on France, they generally took care to gain the friendship of Flanders first,﻿18 so as to use that country as a base from which to enter France, or at least as a useful ally; and secondly, they paid a large proportion of the expenses of their French expeditions by means of a wool-tax in England. Thus, when Edward III. opened his campaign against France in 1340, he did so from Flanders, with special help afforded by a Flemish alliance. This king also received annually £60,000 from the wool-tax alone, and on special occasions even more. Again, it was a grant of 6s. 8d. on each sack of wool exported that enabled Edward I. in 1275 to fill his treasury for his subsequent invasion of Wales. The same king in 1297 got the means for equipping an expedition against France, via Flanders, in the same way. Similarly Henry V. took care to cultivate the friendship of the Flemish and their rulers before setting out to gain the French crown, and paid for his expedition by raising taxes on wool and hides. The enormous revenues also which from the thirteenth to the fifteenth century were exacted from England by the Papal Court, and by the Italian ecclesiastics quartered on English benefices, were transmitted in the shape of wool to Flanders, and sold by the Lombard exchangers, who transmitted the money thus realized to Italy. The extent of these revenues may be gathered from the fact that the {50} Parliament of 1343, in a petition against Papal appointments to English ecclesiastical vacancies, asserted that—“The Pope’s revenue from England alone is larger than that of any Prince in Christendom.” And at this very time the deaneries of Lichfield, Salisbury, and York, and the archdeaconry of Canterbury, were all held by Italian dignitaries, while the Pope’s collector sent from London 20,000 marks a year to his master at Rome. Now, these impositions were paid out of the proceeds of English wool. It is interesting, too, to find that taxes for King Edward III. were calculated, not in money, but in sacks of wool. In one year the Parliament granted him 20,000 sacks; in another year 30,000 sacks. In 1339 the barons granted him “the tenth sheep, fleece, and lamb.” Early in the fifteenth century £30,000 out of the £40,000 revenue from customs and taxes came from wool alone. Once more, as in the days of the Crusades, we are able to see how the Hundred Years’ War with France, and the exactions of Rome, were paid for by the industrial portion of the community, while underneath the glamour of the victories of Edward III. and Henry V. lies the prosaic but powerful wool-sack.﻿19

18 См. примечание 7, стр. 244, о Фландрии и Англии.

19 См. примечание 8, стр. 243, о других источниках дохода.

§ 3. Цены и сорта английской шерсти

—Having now seen the importance of wool as a factor in English industry and political history, we must proceed to study more closely the facts of the woollen trade, and the manufacture of woollen cloth. The chief growers of wool were the Cistercian monks, who owned huge flocks of sheep. The wool grown near Leominster, in Herefordshire, was the finest of all, and, generally speaking, that grown in Wiltshire, Essex, Sussex, Hampshire, Oxfordshire, Cambridge and Warwickshire, was the best. The poorest came from the North of England, and from {51} the Southern downs. There were a number of different breeds of sheep, for care was taken to improve the breed, and it would seem that forty-four different brands of English wool, ranging in value from £13 to £2, 10s. the sack (of 364 lbs.), were recognized both in the home and foreign markets, as mentioned in a Parliamentary petition of 1454. The average price of wool from 1260–1400 was 2s. 1⁠¾d. per clove of 7 lbs.—i.e. a little over threepence a pound, sometimes fourpence. In the middle of this period (1350) the average annual export, according to Misselden, in the Circle of Commerce, was about 11,648,000 lbs., representing a value of some £180,683 yearly.

§ 4. Английская промышленность

—Now, although I have spoken of Flanders as the manufacturing centre for Europe, it must not be supposed that England could not manufacture any of the large quantity of wool which it grew. Undoubtedly the people of the Netherlands were at that time the great manufacturers of the world, and were acquainted with arts and processes to which the English were strangers, while for a long time the English could not weave fine cloths; but, nevertheless, there was a considerable manufacturing industry, chiefly of coarse cloths, an industry very widely spread, and carried on in people’s own cottages under the domestic system. The chief kinds of cloth made were hempen, linen, and woollen coverings, such as would be used for sacks, dairy-cloths, woolpacks, sails of windmills, and similar purposes. The great textile centres were Norfolk and Suffolk, where, indeed, manufacturing industries had existed long before the earliest records. An idea of their importance may be given from the fact that, in the assessment for the wool-tax of 1341, Norfolk was counted by far the wealthiest county in England after Middlesex (including London). {52} There was also a cloth industry of importance in the West of England, the chief centres being Westbury, Sherborne, and Salisbury. The linen of Aylsham was also celebrated.

§ 5. Иностранное производство товаров высокого качества

—But we find rich people used to purchase fine cloths from abroad—e.g. linen from Liège and Flanders generally, and velvet and silk goods from Genoa and Venice—although there was certainly a silk industry in London, carried on chiefly by women, and protected by an Act of 1454. In the England of which we are now speaking, the textile industries were prevented from attaining a full development from the fact that, though general, they were strictly local; and, moreover, those who practised them did not look upon their handicraft as their sole means of livelihood, but even till the eighteenth century were generally engaged in agriculture as well. The cause of this is connected with the isolation and self-sufficiency of separate communities, previously noted. An evidence of the consequent inferiority of English to Flemish cloth is given by the fact that an Act of 1261 attempts to prohibit the import of spun stuff and the export of wool. Needless to say it was useless. The prices of cloth at this period are interesting, as showing the great difference between the fine (i.e. foreign) and coarse (home) cloths. The average price of linen is 4d. an ell, being as low as 2d. and as high as 8⁠¼d. Inferior woollens sold at 1s. 7⁠½d. a yard, “russet” at 1s. 4d., blanketing at 1s. On the other hand, scarlet cloth (foreign) rises to the enormous price of 15s. a yard. Cloth for liveries varied from 2s. 1d. to 1s. per yard. Speaking generally for the period 1260–1400, we may give the average price of the best quality at 3s. 3⁠½d. a yard from 1260–1350, and 3s. 5⁠½d. from 1350–1400; while cloth of the second quality {53} fetched 1s. 4⁠½d. in the first period, and 1s. 11⁠¼d. in the second.

§ 6. Фламандские поселенцы обучают английских ткачей. Норидж

—It is to Edward III., very largely, that the development of English textile industry is due. It is true that, long before, Henry II. had endeavoured to stimulate English manufacture by establishing a “cloth fair” in the churchyard of St Bartholomew. But English industry had developed slowly till the days of Edward, partly, no doubt, owing to the continual disorder of the preceding reigns. Stimulated, probably, by his wife Philippa’s connexion with Flanders, he encouraged Flemish weavers to settle in England, chiefly in the Eastern counties, though we hear of two Flemings from Brabant settling in York in 1331; and about this time one John Kemp, also a Fleming, removed from Norwich, and founded in Westmoreland the manufacture of the famous “Kendal green.” The chief centre, however, of the foreign weavers was naturally Norwich, the Manchester of those days, with a population of some 6000, and the chief industry was that of worsted cloths, so named from the place of manufacture, Worstead. When we speak of worsted cloths, we mean those plain, unpretending fabrics that probably never went beyond a plain weave or a four-shaft twill. The yarn was very largely spun on the rock or distaff, by means of a primitive whorl or spindle, while the loom was but a small improvement on that in which Penelope wove her famous web. There was a great demand among religious orders for sayes and the like, of good quality; plain worsteds were generally worn by the public.

§ 7. Камвольная промышленность

—Whether the growth of the worsted cloth industry was connected or not with this particular Flemish immigration we cannot determine. {54} The manufacture was confirmed to the town of Worstead by a patent of 1313, and in 1328, also, Edward III. issued a letter patent on behalf of the cloth workers in worsted in the county of Norfolk. The manufacture was already so extensive and important that the next year a special “aulnager” (or cloth searcher) was appointed to inspect the worsted stuffs of Norwich and district, and held his office for twenty years. In 1348, however, on the petition of the worsted weavers and merchants themselves, the patent was revoked, and the aulnager removed. But in 1410, when Norwich gained a new charter, the power of “aulnage” was once more given, at its own request, to its mayor and sheriffs, or their deputies.

§ 8. Гильдии в суконной торговле

—In the previous period we referred to the origin and growth of the craft gilds, and it is interesting to note their importance in connexion with the woollen industry at this time. As a separate craft, that of the weaver cannot be traced back beyond the early part of the twelfth century; in the middle of the twelfth century, however, gilds of weavers are found established in several of the larger English towns. At first they were in voluntary association, though acting independently of each other, but it became the policy of the government in the fourteenth century to extend the gild organization over the whole country, and thus to bring craftsmen together in organized bodies. Elaborate regulations were drawn up for their governance by Parliament, or by municipalities. Now, in London at this date (1300), and probably at Norwich and other large towns, the woollen industry was divided into four or five branches, the weavers and burellers, the dyers and fullers, and the tailors (cissores). The weavers and burellers were united in the same gild, the dyers and fullers in another, while the tailors formed a third gild of {55} their own. But they were all very conscious that they had interests in common, and they were accustomed to act together in matters affecting the industry as a whole, such as, e.g., ordering cloth made in the city to be dyed and fulled in that city, and not sent out to some other town.

§ 9. Крашение сукна

—The dyeing and fulling industry, however, could not have flourished much in England at this time, for English cloths were mostly sent to be fulled and dyed in the Netherlands; and indeed we cannot consider dyeing as a really English industry till the days of James I., where it will be duly mentioned. At the same time it was not unknown, for we have scarlet, russet, and black cloths of English make in the fourteenth century. But the industry was chiefly carried on in the Netherlands, owing to the progress there made in the cultivation of madder, which forms the basis of so many different dyes. This plant has never been at any time largely cultivated in England, and, moreover, the Dutch for several centuries possessed the sole secret of a process of pulverizing the root in order to prepare it for use. Such being the case, there is no wonder that they far excelled the English in the art of dyeing.

§ 10. Великий переход в английской промышленности

—From the time of this first Flemish immigration in the fourteenth century, we perceive the beginning of an important modification in our home industries. Hitherto England had been almost exclusively a purely agricultural country, growing large quantities of wool, exporting it as raw material, and importing manufactured goods in exchange. But from this period the export of wool gradually declines, while on the other hand our home manufactures increase, until at length they in turn are exported. In fact, manufactured cloth, and not raw wool, becomes the {56} basis of our national wealth, and finally the export is forbidden altogether, so that we may have the more for the looms at home.

Доказательством растущего значения промышленности в этот период является заметная нехватка рабочих и высокие заработные платы, которые они получают, как указано в Акте 7 Генриха IV (т. е. 1406 г.), что указывает на рост числа ткачей во всех частях королевства, что отвлекает рабочих от других занятий.

§ 11. Промышленный класс и политика

—The growing importance of the manufacturing class which was now rapidly springing up, can be clearly traced in the politics of the Tudor period. In spite of two great drawbacks the cloth manufacture was growing. It had naturally been severely checked for a generation or so by the awful national disaster of the Great Plague, which occurred so soon after Edward II. had helped to found it in England, and which for the time utterly paralysed English industry in all its branches. It had been checked again by the long and useless wars which Edward III. and his successors carried on against France, at enormous cost and with no practical results, but which of course were paid for out of the proceeds of our national industries. But after these two checks it developed steadily, even during the Wars of the Roses; for these wars were carried on almost exclusively by the barons and their retainers, in a series of battles hardly any of which were of any magnitude, exaggerated though they have been both by contemporary and later historians. These wars had the ultimate effect of causing the feudal aristocracy to destroy itself in a suicidal conflict, and thus helped to increase the influence of the middle class—i.e. the merchants and manufacturers—as a factor in political life. And thus it became the policy of the Tudor sovereigns, who were gifted with a {57} certain amount of native shrewdness, to hasten the decaying power of the feudal lords by simultaneously supporting, and being supported by, the middle class, and to the alliance thus made between the crown and the industrial portion of the community we owe a rapid increase of the commercial prosperity which laid the foundations of the greatness of the Elizabethan age, and of the great mercantile enterprises that succeeded it.

ГЛАВА III ГОРОДА, ПРОМЫШЛЕННЫЕ ДЕРЕВНИ И ЯРМАРКИ

§ 1. Главные промышленные города

—During the period between the Norman Conquest and the middle of the thirteenth century, the towns, as we saw, had been gradually growing in importance, gaining fresh privileges, and becoming almost, in some cases quite, independent of the lord or king, by the grant of a charter. Moreover they had grown from the mere trading centres of ancient times into seats of specialized industries, regulated and organized by the craft gilds. This new feature of the industrial or manufacturing aspect of certain towns is well shown in a compilation, dated about 1250, and quoted by Professor Rogers in Six Centuries of Work and Wages, which gives a list of English towns and their chief products. Hardly any of the manufacturing towns mentioned are in the North of England, but mostly in the East and South. {58}

В следующей таблице приведены название города и его производство или товары для продажи.

TOWN | PRODUCT
(1) Textile Manufactures
Линкольн | Алое сукно.
Блай | Одеяла.
Беверли | Коричневое сукно.
Колчестер | Руссетовое сукно.
Шафтсбери | Льняные ткани.
Льюис | Льняные ткани.
Эйлсбери | Льняные ткани.
Уорик | Веревки.
Бридпорт | Веревки и пеньковые ткани.
(2) Bakeries
Уиком | Белый хлеб.
Хангерфорд | Белый хлеб.
Сент-Олбанс | Белый хлеб.
(3) Cutlery
Макстед | Ножи.
Уилтон | Иглы.
Лестер | Бритвы.
(4) Breweries
Банбери | Пивоварение.
Хитчин | Пивоварение.
Или | Пивоварение.

TOWN | PRODUCT
(5) Markets
Рипон | Лошади.
Ноттингем | Волы.
Глостер | Железо.
Бристоль | Кожа и шкуры.
Ковентри | Мыло.
Нортгемптон | Шорные изделия.
Донкастер | Подпруги.
Честер | Шкуры и меха.
Шрусбери | Шкуры и меха.
Корф | Мрамор.
Города Корнуолла | Олово.
(6) Fishing Towns
Гримсби | Треска.
Рай | Мел.
Ярмут | Сельдь.
Бервик | Лосось.
(7) Ports
Норидж
Саутгемптон
——
Данвич | Мельницы.

Этот список, очевидно, неполный, так как в нем отсутствуют такие города, как Шеффилд и Винчестер, оба из которых были важны как промышленные города с очень ранних времен, хотя шерстяное производство последнего вскоре было превзойдено производством Халла, Йорка, Беверли, Линкольна и особенно Нориджа. Но такой, какой он есть, этот список любопытен главным образом тем, что показывает, как производства давно покинули свои первоначальные места и были перенесены в города совсем недавнего происхождения.

§ 2. Города-склады и купцы

—It will have been {59} observed that by the time this list was compiled, most towns were either the seat of a certain manufacture, or the market where such manufactures were sold. Now, in the days of Edward I. and Edward II. (1272–1327), several such towns were specially singled out and granted the privilege of selling a particular product, the staple of the district, and were hence called staple towns. Besides a number of towns in England, staples were fixed at certain foreign ports for the sale of English goods. At first Antwerp was selected as the staple town for our produce, and afterwards St Omer. A staple was also set up at Calais when we took it (1347), but at the loss of that town in 1558 it was transferred to Bruges. The staple system thus begun by the first two Edwards, was established upon a firm legal basis by Edward III. The statute 27 Edward III. c. 9 (1354), enumerates all the staple towns of England, and sets forth the ancient customs payable upon staple goods. It enacts that only merchants of a particular staple—i.e. those engaged in a particular trade like wool or hides—may export these goods, and that each staple should be governed by its own mayor and constables. Now, although regulations like these are opposed to our modern ideas of free competition, they were to a certain extent useful in the Middle Ages, because the existence of staple towns facilitated the collection of custom duties, and also secured in some degree the good quality of the goods made in, or exported from, a town. For special officers were appointed to mark them if of the proper quality and reject them if inferior. The system also had the important political result of bringing into prominence the merchants as a class, and of increasing their influence. So much were they a special class, that the sovereign always negotiated with them separately. Thus in 1339, when Edward III. was as usual fighting {60} against France, and, also as usual, in great want of money, he was liberally supplied with loans by Sir William de la Pole, a rich merchant of Hull, who acted on behalf of himself, and many other merchants. Sir Richard Whittington performed similar services for Henry IV. and Henry V.

§ 3. Рынки

—Another class of towns were the country market towns, many of which exist in agricultural districts to-day, in much the same fashion as they did six centuries ago. The control and regulation of the town market was at first in the hands of the lord of the manor, but by this period it had been bought by the corporation or by the merchant gild, or by both, and was now one of the most valued of municipal privileges. The market-place was always some large open space within the city walls, such as, for instance, exists very noticeably in Nottingham to this day. London had several such spaces, of which the names Cornhill, Cheapside, the Poultry, still remain. The capital was indeed a perpetual market, though of course provincial towns only held a market on one or two days of the week. It is curious to notice how these days have persisted to modern times. The Wednesday and Saturday market of Oxford has existed for at least six centuries, if not more. The control of these markets was undertaken by the corporation for various purposes. The first of these was to prevent frauds and adulteration of goods, and for this purpose special officers were appointed, as in the staple towns, or like the “aulnager” of Norwich mentioned before (p. 54). This was possible in a time when industry was limited, and the competitive idea was as yet unborn, and one cannot help thinking that it must have been of great use to purchasers. The second object of the regulators of the market was to keep prices at a “natural {61} level,” and to regulate the cost of manufactured articles. The price of provisions in especial was a subject of much regulation, but our forefathers were not very successful in this point, laudable though their object was.﻿20

§ 4. Великие ярмарки

—Now, besides the weekly markets there were held annually in various parts of the kingdom large fairs, which often lasted many days, and which form a most important and interesting economic feature of the time. They were necessary for two reasons: (1) because the ordinary trader could not and did not exist in the small villages, in which it must be remembered most of the population lived, nor could he even find sufficient customers in a town of that time, for very few contained over 5000 inhabitants; (2) because the inhabitants of the villages and towns could find in the fairs a wider market for their goods, and more variety for their purchases. The result was that these fairs were frequented by all classes of the population, from noble and prelate to the villein, and hardly a family in England did not at one time of the year or another send a representative, or at least give a commission to a friend, to get goods at some celebrated fair. They afforded an opportunity for commercial intercourse between inhabitants of all parts of England, and with traders from all parts of Europe. They were, moreover, a necessity arising from the economic conditions of a time when transit of goods was comparatively slow, and when ordinary people disliked travelling frequently or far beyond the limits of their own district. The spirit of isolation which is so marked a feature of the mediæval town or village encouraged this feeling, and except the trading class few people travelled about, and those who did so were regarded with suspicion. Till the epoch of modern railways, in fact, fairs were a {62} necessity, though now the rapidity of locomotion and the facility with which goods can be ordered and despatched, have annihilated their utility and rendered their relics a nuisance. But even in the present day there are plenty of people to be found in rural districts who have rarely, and sometimes never, been a dozen miles from their native village.

20 См. примечание 9, стр. 245, об ассизе хлеба и эля.

§ 5. Ярмарки в Винчестере и Стурбридже

—Fairs were held in every part of the country at various parts of the year. Thus there was a fair at Leeds, which for several centuries served as a centre where the wool-growers of Yorkshire and Lancashire met English and foreign merchants from Hull and other eastern ports, and sold them the raw material that was to be worked up in the looms of Flanders. But there were a few great fairs that eclipsed all others in magnitude and importance, and of these two deserve special mention, those at Winchester and Stourbridge. (1) That at Winchester was founded in the reign of William the Norman, who granted the Bishop of Winchester leave to hold a fair on St Giles’ Hill, for one day in the year. Henry II., however, granted a charter for a fair of sixteen days. During this time the great common was covered with booths and tents, and divided into streets called after the name of the goods sold therein, as, e.g., “The Drapery,” “The Pottery,” “The Spicery.” Tolls were levied on every bridge and roadway to the fair, and brought in a large revenue. The fair was of importance till the fourteenth century, for in the Vision of Peres the Plowman, Covetousness tells how

“To Wye and to Winchester I went to the fair.”

Но она пришла в упадок со времен Эдуарда III, главным образом из-за того, что шерстяная торговля Нориджа и других восточных городов стала гораздо важнее, в то время как, с другой стороны, Саутгемптон оказался более удобным местом для ведения дел флотом венецианских купцов (стр. 93).

(2) Стурбриджская ярмарка — Но самой великой из всех английских ярмарок, дольше всех сохранявшей свою репутацию и значение, была ярмарка в Стурбридже, близ Кембриджа. Она была известна в Европе и длилась целый месяц, с конца августа до конца сентября. Ее важность объяснялась тем, что она находилась в пределах легкой досягаемости от портов восточного побережья, которые в то время были очень доступны и часто посещаемы. Сюда приходили венецианские и генуэзские купцы с запасами восточных товаров — шелками и бархатом, хлопком и драгоценными камнями. Фламандские купцы привозили тонкое полотно и сукна из Брюгге, Льежа, Гента и других промышленных городов. Французы и испанцы присутствовали со своими винами; норвежские моряки — со смолой и дегтем; а могущественные торговцы ганзейских городов выставляли на продажу меха и янтарь для богатых, железо и медь для фермеров, лен для их жен; в то время как домотканый фустиан, букирам, воск, сельдь и парусина странным образом смешивались в их палатках с диковинными, далекими восточными пряностями и украшениями. А взамен английские фермеры — или торговцы от их имени — привозили на ярмарку сотни огромных тюков шерсти, чтобы одеть народы Европы; или ячмень для фламандских пивоварен, а также зерно, лошадей и скот. Свинец привозили с рудников Дербишира, а олово — из Корнуолла; даже немного железа из Сассекса, но оно считалось уступающим импортному металлу. Все эти товары, как и в Винчестере, выставлялись в лавках и палатках на длинных улицах, некоторые из которых были названы в честь различных народов, стекавшихся туда, а другие — в честь вида товаров, выставленных на продажу. Эта огромная ярмарка просуществовала до XVIII века с прежней силой и в то время была описана Даниэлем Дефо в работе, ныне легко доступной для всех, которая содержит интереснейшее описание всех событий этого оживленного месяца. Прошло не многим более ста лет с тех пор, как одни только ланкаширские купцы отправляли свои товары в Стурбридж на тысяче вьючных лошадей, но теперь вьючные лошади и ярмарки ушли, а их место заняли телеграф и железная дорога.

21 См. примечание 10, стр. 246, о Стурбриджской ярмарке.

22 Tour through the Eastern Counties (Cassell’s National Library, 3d.).

§ 6. Английские средневековые порты

—In the last paragraph mention was made of the east coast having ports of great prominence in this period. It will be convenient here to notice what were the chief ports of England, and to remark how few of them have retained their old importance. The chief port was of course London, which has always held an exceptional position, and the other principal ports were on the east and south coast. Southampton was from early times the chief southern harbour, and next to it Dartmouth, Plymouth, Sandwich, and Winchelsea, Weymouth, Shoreham, Dover, and Margate. They were connected with the trade in French and Spanish goods. On the western coast Bristol was almost the only port much frequented, and was the centre and harbour for the western fisheries, and also a place of export for hides and the cloth manufactures of the western towns. In the fifteenth century Bristol fishermen penetrated through the Hebrides to the Shetland and Orkney Islands and the northern fisheries, where they found that the Scarborough men had long preceded them. On the eastern coast, indeed, Scarborough was one of the most enterprising ports. Boston, Hull, Lynn, Harwich, {65} Yarmouth, and Colchester were also very flourishing, and were concerned in the Flemish and Baltic trade. Farther north Newcastle was the centre for the coasting trade in coal, and Berwick was a fisherman’s harbour. But the southern and eastern ports were the most frequented, as being suitable to the light and shallow craft that did a coasting trade, or ran across to the Continent in smooth weather.

§ 7. Временный упадок промышленных городов

—We have now noticed the chief markets, fairs, ports, and manufacturing towns of mediæval England, and it will be seen that commercial prosperity was certainly developing. So too were home manufacturing industries, but their growth brought about a curious effect in the decay of certain towns, and the rise of industrial villages in rural districts. To the decay of towns we find frequent reference in the Statutes of Henry VII. and his successor—i.e. from 1490 or 1500 onwards. This decay was due to two causes: (1) to the growth of sheep farming, mentioned above (p. 45), and (2) to the fact that the industrial disabilities imposed upon dwellers in towns, in consequence of the corporate privileges of the gilds, now far exceeded the advantages of residence there. The days of usefulness for the gilds had gone past; their restrictions were now only felt to cramp the rising manufacturing industries. Hence we find the manufacturers of the Tudor period were leaving the towns and seeking open villages instead, where they could develop their trade free from the vexatious restrictions of old-fashioned corporations. Of course laws were passed to check this tendency, and to confine particular industries to particular towns. Thus, in Norfolk, no one was to “dye, shear, or calendar cloth” anywhere but in the town of Norwich (Act of 14 and 15 Henry VIII.); no one in the {66} northern counties was to make “worsted coverlets” except in York (Act of 33 and 34 Henry VIII.).

§ 8. Рост промышленных деревень. Зародыши современной фабричной системы

—Such protective enactments were, however, as protective enactments must generally be, utterly in vain. Henry VII. tried to remedy the supposed evil by limiting the privileges of interference of the gilds, but even this step was useless. Manufactures were slowly and surely transferred to various villages, and in several industries a kind of modern factory system can be traced at this time. Master manufacturers, weary of municipal and gild-made restrictions, organized in country places little communities solely for industrial purposes, and so arranged as to afford greater scope for the combination and division of labour. The system of apprenticeship was a powerful element in this scheme, and supplied ready labour for these small factories. The goods were made not as formerly only for local use, but for the purposes of trade and profit throughout the kingdom. The master was bound to his workmen rather more closely than the mill-owner of the present day to his “hands,” for the spirit of personal sympathy and obligation still survived in these small labour communities. But the germs of the modern system were there; for this new system was not that of domestic or cottage industry, as had been the rule in previous periods, but a system of congregated labour organized upon a capitalistic basis by one man—the organizer, head, and owner of the industrial village—the master clothier. Among the famous master clothiers of the woollen industry, we read of Cuthbert of Kendal, Hodgkins of Halifax, Brian of Manchester, each of whom “kept a great number of servants at work—carders, spinners, weavers, dyers, shearers, and others.” {67} Perhaps the greatest of them was John Winchcombe, or “Jack of Newbury,” as he was called, of whom it is recorded that a hundred looms always worked in his house, and he was rich enough to send a hundred of his journeymen to Flodden Field, in 1513. His kerseys were famous all over Europe. It was from communities such as these that the villages of Manchester, Bolton, Leeds, Halifax, and Bury took their rise, and afterwards developed into the great factory towns of to-day. But these workshops, large though they seemed then, were utterly insignificant compared with the huge factories of to-day, where the workmen are numbered in thousands, and are, to the capitalist-employer or joint-stock company that owns the mill, merely a mass of human machines, more intelligent though not so durable as other machines, and possessed of an unpleasant tendency to go out “on strike,” for reasons that naturally appear to their employer insufficient and subversive of the whole industrial system. However, the industrial system is not subverted, though the workmen can hardly be said to be upon the same pleasant footing with their employers as they used to be in the old industrial village.

ГЛАВА IV ВЕЛИКАЯ ЧУМА И ЕЕ ЭКОНОМИЧЕСКИЕ ПОСЛЕДСТВИЯ

§ 1. Материальный прогресс страны

—In the preceding chapters we have attempted to give an idea of the state of industry and commerce in England in the Middle Ages. We now come to a most important landmark in the history of the social and industrial condition of the {68} people—viz. the Great Plague of 1348 and subsequent years. Almost two centuries had elapsed since the death of Stephen (1154), and the cessation of those great civil conflicts which harried England in his reign. These two centuries had witnessed on the whole a continuous growth of material prosperity. The wealth of the country had increased; the towns had developed and had aided the growth of a prosperous mercantile and industrial middle class, who regulated their own affairs in their gilds, and also had a voice in municipal management. The country at large was mainly devoted to agricultural and pastoral pursuits, and the mass of the people were engaged in tilling the ground or feeding cattle. The mass of the people too were now better fed and better clothed than those of a similar class on the Continent, and a great proof of their general prosperity is to be found in the nature of their food. It is a significant economic fact that wheaten bread was then, and has generally since been, the staple food of the English labourer. In most other lands, bread made from rye and other cereals was generally good enough for the working classes. If rye failed they had nothing to fall back upon, and thus famines were frequent. But the English labourer always had some other cereal besides wheat in reserve.

§ 2. Социальные изменения. Вилланы и наемные рабочие

—Besides the growth of material prosperity in these two centuries, we find that the commutation of villeinage services into money payments to the lord of the manor—a tendency frequently commented upon—had been growing apace. This commutation had been going on for a long time, in fact ever since the Conquest, if not before, and the villeins in general had freed themselves not only from labour-dues, but from the vexatious customary fines or “amercements” which they had to {69} pay to the lord of the manor on certain social occasions—such as the marriage of a daughter, or the education of a son for the Church. But of course this freedom was not complete, though it is important to notice its growth, for we shall see that it formed the occasion of a great class struggle some years after the Great Plague.

Существует еще одна особенность, которая также имеет значение и которая становилась все более заметной в течение последних двух столетий. Я имею в виду увеличение числа тех, кто жил трудом своих рук и был нанят и получал заработную плату, подобно рабочим сегодняшнего дня. Ранее уже упоминалось, что они вышли из класса коттаров, у которых не было достаточно земли, чтобы занять все свое время, и которые поэтому были готовы продать свой труд работодателю. Эти две особенности — замена трудовых повинностей денежными платежами и возникновение класса наемных рабочих — тесно связаны, ибо было естественно, что когда лорд манора соглашался получать деньги от своих арендаторов в вилланидже вместо труда, он должен был получать другой труд извне и оплачивать его деньгами, полученными таким образом при замене. Тенденция этих социальных изменений была в значительной степени в пользу вилланов, чье социальное положение неуклонно улучшалось, и чья аренда в вилланидже все больше становилась «свободной» арендой. Вилланы, будь то сравнительно зажиточные йомены или сельскохозяйственные рабочие, также не были так привязаны к манору, как раньше, ибо по мере того, как их трудовые повинности переставали быть необходимыми, их лорд позволял им покидать манор и искать работу или заниматься каким-либо промышленным производством в другом месте. Вилланы (или крепостные) всегда могли сделать это при уплате небольшого штрафа (capitagium), и несомненно, что по мере того, как денежные платежи становились все более модными, лорд не возражал против получения этого дополнительного платежа, если только, быть может, ему не требовалось выполнить много работы на своей собственной земле.

§ 3. Голод и чума

—The position of the labouring class had been further improved by the effects of the famines which occurred in A.D. 1315–16. Of course they suffered great hardships and their numbers were considerably thinned, but at the same time this loss of life and diminution in their numbers caused their services to become more valuable in proportion to their scarcity, and they gained a rise of some 20 per cent. in wages. From this date till the coming of the Great Plague, some thirty years later, they and the rest of the English people enjoyed a period of great prosperity. It was on the whole a “merry England” on which the Great Plague suddenly broke. The prosperity of the people was reflected in the splendour and brilliancy of the court and aristocracy, and the national pride had been increased by the recent victory of Crecy, and by the other successes in the French war, which brought not only glory but occasionally wealth, in the shape of heavy ransoms. But in 1348 the prosperity and pride of the nation was overwhelmed with gloom. The Great Plague came with sudden and mysterious steps from Asia to Italy, and thence to Western Europe and England, carried some say by travelling merchants, or borne with its infection on the wings of the wind. It arrived in England at the two great ports of Bristol and Southampton in August 1348, and thence spread all over the land. Its ravages were frightful. Whole districts were depopulated, and about one-third of the people perished. Norwich and London, being busy and crowded towns, suffered especially from the pestilence, and though the {71} numbers of the dead have been grossly exaggerated by the panic of contemporaries and the credulity of modern historians,﻿23 there can be no doubt that the loss of life was enormous.

§ 4. Влияние чумы на заработную плату

—The most immediate consequence of the Plague was a marked scarcity in the number of labourers available. For being of the poorest class they naturally succumbed more readily to famine and sickness. This scarcity of labour naturally resulted in higher wages. The land-owners began to fear that their lands would not be cultivated properly, and were content to buy labour at higher prices than would have been given at a time when the necessity of the labourer to the capitalist was more obscured. Hence the wages of labourers rose far above the customary rates. In harvest-work, for example, the rise was nearly 60 per cent., and what is more it remained so for a long period; the rise in agricultural wages generally was 50 per cent. So it was also in the case of artisans’ wages, in the case of carpenters, masons, and others. It seems the upper classes and the capitalists of that day very strongly objected to paying high wages, as they naturally do. The king himself felt deeply upon the point. Without waiting for Parliament to meet, Edward III. issued a proclamation ordering that no man should either demand or pay the higher rates of wages, but should abide by the old rate. He forbade labourers to leave the land to which they were attached, and assigned heavy penalties to the runaways. Parliament assembled in 1349 and eagerly ratified this proclamation, {72} in the laws known as the Statutes of Labourers. But the demand for labour was so great that such legislative endeavours to prevent its proper payment were fortunately ineffective. Runaways not only found shelter, but also good employment and high wages. Parliament fulminated its threats in vain; and in vain increased its penalties, by a later Statute of 1360 ordering those who asked more than the old wages to be imprisoned, and, if they were fugitives, to be branded with hot irons. For once the labourer was able to meet the capitalist on equal terms.

23 Хронисты XIV века утверждали, и с тех пор это часто повторялось, что только в Норидже умерло почти 60 000 человек. На самом деле, все графство Норфолк, включая этот город, едва ли насчитывало 30 000 человек.

§ 5. Цены на продовольствие

—Now, although there was a great rise in the price of labour, the price of the labourers’ food did not rise in proportion. The price of provisions, indeed, was but little affected, for food did not require much manual labour in its production, and hence the rise of wages would not be much felt here. What did rise was the price of all articles that required much labour in their production, or the cost of which depended entirely upon human labour. The price of fish, for instance, is determined almost entirely by the cost of the fisherman’s labour, and the cost of transit. Consequently we should under these circumstances expect a great rise in the price of fish, and such indeed was the case. So, too, there was an enormous increase in the prices of tiles, wheels, canvas, lead, ironwork, and all agricultural materials, these being articles whose value depends chiefly upon the amount of labour spent over them, and upon the cost of that labour. Hence, both peasant and artisan gained higher wages, while the cost of living remained for them much the same; and those who suffered most were the owners of large estates, who had to pay more for the labour which worked these estates, and more too for the implements used in working them.

§ 6. Влияние чумы на землевладельцев

—The fact that the larger land-owners found the cost of working their land doubled or even trebled caused important economic changes. Before the Plague the cost of harvesting upon an ordinary estate, quoted by Professor Rogers, was £3, 13s. 9d.: afterwards it rose to £12, 19s. 10d. Moreover, the landlord had to consent to receive lower rents, for many tenants could not work their farms profitably with the old rents, and the new prices for labour and implements. And, as rent is paid out of the profits of agriculture, it was obvious even to the landlord that smaller profits meant lower rents. Now, in this state of things, the landlord had two courses open to him. He could turn off the tenant and cultivate all his land himself; or he could try and exist upon the smaller income gained from lower rents. It was obviously impossible for him to cultivate all his land himself, for he would have to employ a large number of bailiffs for his various manors, and trust to their honesty to do their best for him. Moreover, he would have to pay his bailiffs, while after all his tenants paid him something, though less than formerly. So he decided to allow his tenants to pay him a smaller rent. What is more, he decided under the circumstances to give up farming altogether, and let even the lands which he had reserved for his own cultivation. The landlords, in fact, had not apparently either the ability or the inclination to superintend agriculture under these changed conditions, and gave up trying to work their land themselves. So that one great result of the Plague was that landlords to a large extent gave up capitalist farming upon their own account, and let their tenants cultivate the soil, and also pay them for continuing to do so.

§ 7. Возвышение класса арендаторов-фермеров или йоменов

—The {74} natural effect of this change on the part of the land-owners was that the small peasant farmers greatly increased in numbers. The circumstances of the time favoured them, for the rise in the price of labour was not so severely felt by them, since they could and did use the unpaid labour of their families upon their holdings. Then, when they had tided over the immediate results of the Plague, they took larger holdings as they grew richer. They were helped in this by the stock and land lease system already referred to (p. 42), which gave them the use of a larger quantity of agricultural capital than they could otherwise have commanded. But when the tenant farmer’s wealth increased he found himself able, as a rule, to keep his own stock.

§ 8. Эмансипация вилланов

—The gradual amelioration of the conditions of villeinage or serfage received a forcible impetus from the Great Plague. Those villeins who had not already become free tenants, and especially those who lived on wages, shared in the advantages now gained by all who had labour to sell. Their labour was more valuable, and they were able with their higher wages to buy from their lord a commutation of those exactions which interfered with their personal freedom of action, with their right to sell their labour to other employers, or with their endeavours to reach a better social position. Serfage or villeinage gradually became practically extinct after the Plague,﻿24 though the landowners, backed up by the lawyers, interposed many obstacles in the path of emancipation, and a great Revolt was necessary to enable the villeins to show their power. This Revolt and its success must now engage our attention.

24 См. примечание 11, стр. 246, о пережитках.

ГЛАВА V. КРЕСТЬЯНСКОЕ ВОССТАНИЕ 1381 ГОДА И ПОСЛЕДУЮЩЕЕ ПРОЦВЕТАНИЕ РАБОЧЕГО КЛАССА

§ 1. Новые социальные доктрины

—By no means the least important among the effects of the Great Plague was the spirit of independence which it helped to raise in the breasts of the villeins and labourers, more especially as they now gained some consciousness of the power of labour, and of its value as a prime necessity in the economic life of the nation. There was indeed a revolutionary spirit in the air in the last quarter of the fourteenth century, and the villeins could not help breathing it. The social teaching of the author of Peres the Plowman, with his outspoken denunciation of those who are called the upper classes; the bold religious teaching of Wiklif and the wandering friars, and the marked political assertion of the rights of Parliament by the “Good Parliament” of 1376, were all manifestations of this spirit. It was natural, too, that, feeling their power as they did, the villeins should become restive when they heard from the followers of Wiklif that, as it was lawful to withdraw tithes from priests who lived in sin, so “servants and tenants may withdraw their services and rents from their lords that live openly a cursed life.”

§ 2. Приход нищенствующих орденов. Уиклиф

—Such indeed was the teaching that Wiklif promulgated, and it was carried throughout all England by that great association of wandering friars which he founded under the title of the “poor priests.” These men were like the {76} mendicant friars who had come to England a century before﻿25 to work in the poorer parts of the English towns; only Wiklif’s priests generally wandered out into the isolated and remote country villages, and spread abroad the independent doctrines and the revolutionary spirit of the times. Spending their lives in moving about among the “upland folk,” as the country people were called, clad in coarse, undyed brown woollen garments, they won the confidence of the peasants, and what is more, helped them to combine in very effectual trade unions. They acted as treasurers for the common funds of these peasants’ unions, and served as messengers between those in different parts of the country, having passwords and a secret language of their own. Their preaching was similar to that of the celebrated priest of Kent, John Ball, who for twenty years before the great rising (1360–80) openly spoke words like these: “Good people, things will never be well in England so long as there be villeins and gentlemen. By what right are they whom we call lords greater than we? On what grounds have they deserved it? Why do they hold us in serfage? They have leisure and fine houses: we have pain and labour, and the wind and rain in the fields. And yet it is of us and our toil that these men hold their estate.” These searching questions as to the rights of the lords, and the bold but true statement that it was the villeins and labouring classes who supported—and paid for—their high estate, came closely home to the peasants. They were encouraged too by the independent religious views of the Lollards, and it is said that half England held their views. And this independence of social and religious tenets was hardly calculated to make the villeins bear {77} with equanimity the exactions of their lords after the Great Plague.

25. Черные монахи (доминиканцы) прибыли в 1221 году, а серые монахи (францисканцы) — в 1224 году.

§ 3. Возобновление поборов со стороны землевладельцев

—For it must be remembered that the Great Plague did not immediately emancipate the villeins, or cause the land-owners to give up farming on their own account. The process, of course, took a few years, and in these few years the land-owners made desperate efforts to avoid paying higher wages than formerly for labour. As it had now become costly, they insisted more severely upon the performance by their tenants of such labour-dues as were not yet commuted for money payments. They even tried to make those tenants who had emerged from a condition of villeinage to a free tenancy, return back to villeinage again, with all its old labour-dues and casual services. If a man could not prove by legal documentary evidence that he held his land in a free tenancy, the land-owner might pretend he was a villein tenant, and subject to all a villein’s services, although these services might long ago have been commuted for a money rent without any legal formality. There is much reason to believe, moreover, that they abused their power of inflicting “amercements,” or fines, upon their tenants in the manor courts for trivial breaches of duty. So at least Wiklif and the author of Peres the Plowman tell us. The villeins naturally resisted this attempt to make a retrograde movement, which would force them back into the old bondage from which they had redeemed themselves; the free tenants supported them, for they knew their turn would come next if the serfs failed; and the labouring classes eagerly joined the movement also, in hopes of getting rid of the vexatious Statutes of Labourers.

§ 4. Крестьянское восстание

﻿26—The crisis came in 1381, and was perhaps precipitated by the oppressive manner in which the poll-tax was collected. But the poll-tax itself was not the real cause of the revolt. The rising had long been foreseen, and arrangements had been duly made among the peasants’ unions by the poor priests, their agents and messengers, who formed the connecting links between all the labour organizations of the land. A sudden rising took place, as unanimous as it was unanticipated, throughout all England, from Scarborough to Kent and Devon. Almost simultaneously the peasants showed their combined strength, and a large body of them under Wat Tyler marched upon London. It is well known how they met the young King Richard II. at Mile-end, and demanded of him the petition which shows the real meaning of the movement: “We will that you free us for ever, us and our lands,” they asked; “and that we be never named or held as villeins.” “I grant it,” said the king, with regal diplomacy, and the peasants believed him. But they very soon learned how vain a thing it is to put one’s trust in princes, for after the peasant armies in the various parts of England had quieted down, and the Essex men, among others, claimed the fulfilment of his royal promise, Richard openly broke faith. “Villeins you were,” said the king, “and villeins you are. In bondage shall you abide, and that not your old bondage, but a worse!” Fortunately this never happened. Although suppressed, the rising was practically successful, for it had shown the power of the combination of labour, in the great strife between labour and capital. A few of the ringleaders were imprisoned and executed, among them being several priests. The {79} authorities of course blustered, and swore they would never give in. Equally of course they did give in; no further attempts were made to exact labour-dues or corvées; and within a generation or so villeinage or serfage became practically extinct﻿27; and the villeins became known as copyholders or tenants by custom.

26. О других взглядах на это восстание см. в моей книге «Промышленность в Англии», гл. XII.

27. О пережитках см. примечание 11, стр. 246.

§ 5. Положение английского рабочего

—After this great insurrection came what has been termed the golden age of the English labourer, and it lasted all through the fifteenth century. Food was cheap and abundant; wages were amply sufficient. True, the employers of labour still tried, by various petitions and Acts (e.g. 7 Henry IV., 4 Henry V., 23 Henry VI., 11 Henry VII.), to enforce the Statute of Labourers, but they were practically unsuccessful, and prosperity was progressive and continuous till the evil days of Henry VIII. The wages of a good agricultural labourer, before the Plague, had been £2, 7s. 10d. per year as an average, including the labour of his wife and child; after the Plague his wages would be £3, 15s., and the cost of his living certainly not more than £3, 4s. 9d. An artisan, working 300 days a year, would get, say, £3, 18s. 1⁠½d. before 1348, and after that date £5, 15s. 7d., which was so far above the cost of maintenance as to give him a very comfortable position. His working day, too, was not excessive, while the fixed rents of the time were very low. These low rents were also one great cause of the prosperity of the new yeoman, or tenant farmer class (p. 73) that had arisen after the collapse of the capitalist land-owners in consequence of the Plague. This class remained for at least two centuries the backbone of English agriculture.

§ 6. Недостатки

—There were, however, a few drawbacks in this “golden age,” as various critics have told {80} us. The ordinary hardships of human life were in many respects greater than they are now—disease was more deadly, and the risks of life more numerous﻿28; but from this very fact the extremes of poverty and wealth were less widely distinguished and less acutely felt; and, although it cannot be asserted that people did not occasionally die of want in very bad times, yet the grinding and hopeless poverty just above the verge of actual starvation, so often prevalent in the present time, did not belong to mediæval life. The chief hardships to be encountered were in the winter, for, owing to the absence of winter roots, stock could only be kept in limited quantities, and the only meat procurable was that which had been previously salted. It is certain that much of mediæval disease is traceable to the excessive use of salted provisions. The houses, also, were rudely built of mud, clay, or even wattled material, for brickmaking was a lost art, and stone was only used for the manor-houses and the dwellings of the wealthy. But food was abundant and cheap. The cost of living was not more than one-tenth of what it is at the present day. Three pounds of beef could be bought for a penny; a pig cost about fourpence; beer was only a halfpenny a gallon. Employment was fairly constant and regular, and in addition to their wages, labourers still possessed the valuable old manorial common rights of common pasture and forest.

28. Этот вопрос более подробно рассматривается в книге «Промышленность в Англии», гл. XII (конец).

§ 7. Закат Средневековья

—So things went on happily after the Great Revolt, and in the days of the fourth and fifth Henries. The brilliant, but useless, French victories of the latter monarch were paid for partly by the prosperous middle and lower classes, and {81} partly by the French themselves; and very costly they were. England was still mainly agricultural, but manufactures were growing. Though wool was still exported, much was being worked up in the towns and villages. Artisans earned about 3s. a week, which would certainly be worth more than 30s. a week at present. Industry, as will be remembered, was organized in the craft gilds, and apparently the gild system was a success till its restrictions in towns began to cramp the growing manufactures. The fifteenth century was a period of prosperity and content, in spite of both civil and foreign wars; and even the wasteful reign of Henry VI., with its unsuccessful war with France, and huge subsidies to Rome, though it made the Government unpopular and caused widespread national discontent and occasional insurrections in Kent and Wiltshire, did not materially injure the general prosperity. The king himself, however, was nearly bankrupt. The Wars of the Roses which followed (1455–86) did not affect the country at large, being fought in a series of much exaggerated skirmishes by small bodies of nobles and their followers. They ended in the very desirable consummation of the ruin of the remnants of the feudal aristocracy, and at the same time opened a further path for the influence of the industrial classes, whose favour Henry VII. had the wisdom to court, and in return was supported by them in his policy of weakening the power of the great barons. He encouraged commerce,﻿29 and aided the prosperity of his kingdom, thereby amassing for his own treasury considerable wealth. In his reign the feudal system was dying out, the nation prospered, and the Middle Ages came to a close in a wealthy and industrious England (A.D. 1500). {82}

29. Ср. примечание 7, стр. 244.

Но еще до завершения следующего столетия часть нации обнищала, рабочие были унижены и ограблены, а расточительность и экстравагантность Генриха VIII оставили стране долгое наследие пауперизма и нищеты.

ПЕРИОД IV. ОТ ШЕСТНАДЦАТОГО ВЕКА ДО НАКАНУНЕ ПРОМЫШЛЕННОЙ РЕВОЛЮЦИИ (1509–1760)

ГЛАВА I. БЕЗОБРАЗИЯ ГЕНРИХА VIII И ЭКОНОМИЧЕСКИЕ ПЕРЕМЕНЫ В ШЕСТНАДЦАТОМ ВЕКЕ

§ 1. Расточительность Генриха VIII

—Henry VIII. came to the throne in 1509. He succeeded to a full treasury left by his thrifty father, and replenished by contributions from the general prosperity of the country at the close of the fifteenth century. But he soon dissipated the whole of these accumulations. He spent a great deal of money in subsidizing the needy Emperor of Germany, Maximilian, and in interfering in foreign affairs which were better left alone, in the hope of winning for himself a military reputation. His Continental wars and alliances cost him dear, or rather they cost the English people dear, for they gave him liberal grants of money (as e.g. in 1513) before he set out on his fruitless expeditions. But even in time of peace his expenditure was equally extravagant. The cost of his household establishments, and those of his children, was simply enormous; for the establishments of Mary, Edward, and even Elizabeth were each more costly than the whole annual charge of his father’s household. His extravagance was monumental, though where his money went he could not himself discover. Wolsey {84} said of him, “Rather than miss any part of his will, he will endanger one-half of his kingdom.” As a matter of fact he succeeded in impoverishing the whole of it.

§ 2. Роспуск монастырей

—He soon wasted the carefully accumulated treasures of his father, and sought for further supplies. They were gained at first by increased taxation, but as this money was spent in the French wars, Henry was soon in difficulties again. Then he tried another expedient. The monasteries suggested themselves to him as an easy prey, and he knew that an attack upon them would not displease the growing Protestant party in the country. These institutions were in many cases not fulfilling their ancient functions properly, and were often far from being the homes of religious virtue. So excuses were easily found, and in 1536 the smaller monasteries with an income below £200 a year were suppressed, and in 1539 the larger ones were similarly treated. About 1000 houses were suppressed, the annual income of which was £161,000, equivalent to more than two millions sterling of our present money. Half-a-dozen bishoprics and a few grammar schools were founded out of the proceeds of this spoliation, in order to blind the eyes of the people at large. But with these paltry exceptions the whole of that vast capital and revenue was granted to courtiers and favourites, sold at nominal prices, or gambled away by the king and his satellites.

§ 3. Результаты подавления

—Although the mass of the people did not protest very vigorously against this piece of royal robbery, many of them witnessed with silent dismay the destruction of ancient institutions that had formed so integral a part of the national life. A few even expressed their discontent in open insurrection, and risings took place in Lincolnshire and Yorkshire,﻿30 but these {85} were put down. The economic disturbances which resulted were not so clearly seen, but were far more severe. They were acute enough from the mere fact of so much wealth having suddenly changed hands and being spent with reckless prodigality. It is said that one-fifth, or even one-third, of the land in the kingdom was held by the monasteries, and it was now transferred from the holding of the Church into the hands of a new set of nobles and landed gentry, created from the dependants and time-servers of Henry’s court. These were enriched, but the former tenants of the monasteries and the poorer class of labourers suffered greatly. Hence serious results followed. Nearly all monastic lands were held by tenants upon the “stock and land lease” system, spoken of before; but, when these monastic lands were suddenly transferred into the clutches of Henry’s new and needy nobility, the stock was confiscated and sold off, while the money rent was raised. The new owners did not care for the slow, though really lucrative, system of providing the tenant with a certain amount of stock for his land, but simply wished to get all the money they could without delay. The result was that the poorer tenants were almost ruined, and it seems probable that pauperism was greatly increased. What small amount of pauperism had previously existed had been sufficiently relieved by the monasteries, who, owing their wealth to charitable offerings, could not well refuse charity to those that needed it; but on their dissolution pauperism had no longer such relief, and very soon we shall see it became necessary to provide that relief by law. With the dissolution the history of English legal pauperism may be said to begin, although of course other causes contributed to its growth. But among these causes the spoliation of the monasteries had no unimportant place.

30. Например, «Благодатное паломничество», 1536 г.

§ 4. Выпуск неполноценной монеты

—Four years after the dissolution, Henry was in difficulties again. He dared not ask his Parliament for further supplies so soon after his last piece of plunder, so he betook himself to a still more wicked kind of robbery. In 1543 he began to debase the currency, and repeated this criminal action in 1545 and 1546. This debasement forms a landmark in English industrial history as disastrous as the other landmark of the Great Plague. Its effect was not felt immediately, but it was none the less real. The chief point that concerned the labourer was that prices rapidly rose, but that, as is always the case, the rise of wages did not coincide with this inflation, and when they did rise they did not do so in a fair proportion. The necessaries of life rose in proportion of one to two and one-half; wages, when they finally rose, only in the proportion of one to one and one-half. When too late it was recognized that the issue of base money was the cause of dearth in the realm, and Latimer lamented the fact in his sermons. Meanwhile, the mischief had been done.

§ 5. Конфискация земель гильдий

—What Henry did with his gains thus obtained by underhand robbery cannot be accurately discovered. But it soon went, for he again required a supply of money.

Оставался еще один способ ограбления промышленных классов, и хотя Генрих умер, его министры не замедлили им воспользоваться. Этим шагом стала конфискация земель гильдий, задуманная Генрихом VIII, но окончательно осуществленная опекуном его сына, Сомерсетом. Эти земли были приобретены ремесленными гильдиями как в городах, так и в сельской местности, частично за счет завещаний членов, а частично путем покупки на средства гильдий. Доходы от этих земель использовались для беспроцентного кредитования беднейших членов гильдий, обучения бедных детей ремеслу, выплаты пенсий вдовам и, прежде всего, для помощи нуждающимся членам цеха. Таким образом, рабочий того времени имел в фондах гильдии своего рода страховой капитал, а сама гильдия выполняла все функции общества взаимопомощи. Генрих VIII добился принятия закона о конфискации этой и другой собственности, но умер до того, как его план был осуществлен. Именно Сомерсет добился принятия акта для совершения этого правонарушения — под предлогом того, что эти земли использовались для суеверных целей. Нетронутой осталась только собственность лондонских гильдий. В Средние века гильдии облегчали пауперизм, способствовали стабилизации цены на труд и формировали центр для ассоциаций, которые удовлетворяли потребности, ныне лишь частично покрываемые современными профсоюзами. Их упразднение стало тяжелым ударом для английского рабочего.

Вопрос о том, почему это упразднение не вызвало более широкого возмущения, представляет определенный интерес. Во-первых, религиозные и ремесленные гильдии были подавлены одновременно под вышеупомянутым предлогом, и таким образом различие между ними было стерто. Затем, лондонские гильдии были пощажены из-за своей силы, и поэтому им стало выгодно не препятствовать уничтожению своих провинциальных собратьев. Дворян подкупили подарками, полученными из фондов гильдий. Более того, ремесленные гильдии в провинциальных городах становились закрытыми корпорациями, преимуществами которых часто пользовались лишь несколько влиятельных членов. Это привело, как мы видели, к распространению суконного производства из городов в промышленные деревни в сельских районах, где, возможно, основная масса населения, не осознавая полного значения этого акта, не возражала против меры, нанесшей удар по городским «цехам». Тем не менее, это вызвало большое недовольство. Сомерсет стал очень непопулярным, и во многих частях страны вспыхнули восстания, наиболее опасные из которых произошли в Корнуолле, Девоншире и на Западе. Они были вызваны не только этим грабежом, но и аграрным недовольством, однако для их подавления были привлечены немецкие и итальянские наемники, и протесты народа были повсюду утоплены в крови.

§ 6. Аграрная ситуация

—Such were the acts instigated or actually performed by that miserable monarch, whom nevertheless not a few people who write history seek to glorify. Possibly they do so in ignorance of the facts. This much is certain, that Henry VIII.’s reign witnessed growing pauperism in a country which had been a few years previously in a state of considerable material comfort. But before the close of his reign the labouring classes became impoverished, and tenant farmers were ruined with high rents exacted by the new nobility. The landed gentry and nobility, however, profited by this, and the merchants grew rich by their accumulations in foreign trade. But those who depended directly upon the cultivation of the land for their living suffered severely. There had been for some years past a steady rise in the price of wool for export, partly because the manufacturers of the Netherlands were so flourishing, and partly owing to a general rise of prices on the Continent since the great discoveries of silver in South America. Land-owners saw that it was more immediately profitable to turn their arable land into pasture, and go in for sheep farming on a large scale. They therefore did three things. They evicted as many as possible of their smaller tenants, and as Sir Thomas More tells us: “in this way it comes to pass that these poor wretches, men, women, husbands, orphans, parents with little children—all these emigrate from their native fields without knowing where to go.” Then they raised the rents of the larger tenants, the {89} yeomen and farmers, so that, as Latimer mentions, land for which his father had paid £3 or £4 a year, was in 1549 let at £16, almost to the ruin of the tenant. Thirdly, the large land-owners took from the poor their common lands by an unscrupulous system of enclosures. Wolsey had in vain endeavoured to stop their doing this, for he had sagacity enough to perceive how it would pauperize the labourers and others who had valuable rights in such land. But enclosures and evictions went on in spite of his enactments, with the inevitable result of social disorders.

Самое важное из этих восстаний произошло в Норфолке, где огораживания проводились в огромных масштабах. Кет, богатый дубильщик из Нориджа, возглавил (в 1549 году) большую группу из примерно 16 000 арендаторов и рабочих, которые требовали отмены недавних огораживаний и реформы других местных злоупотреблений. Граф Уорик разбил восставших в сражении, подавил восстание и повесил Кета в Норвичском замке. Фермеры и крестьяне были таким образом запуганы и приведены к покорности.

§ 7. Другие экономические изменения

—From these facts it became evident that the old mediæval industrial system was breaking up in England. The new life created by the Renaissance caused a keener and more eager spirit among all classes of men. Competition began to operate as a new force, and men made haste to grow rich. The merchants were becoming bolder and more enterprising in their ventures. The discoveries of America by Columbus (1492) and by Cabot (1497), and of the sea-route to India by Vasco da Gama (1498), had kindled a desire to share largely in the wealth of these newly accessible countries. At home the lords of the manors no longer remained in close personal relationships with their tenants. The tenants were no longer villeins, but were nominally {90} independent, and had certain rights. But the lords of the manors had small respect for rights that were only guarded by custom; and evicted or oppressed their tenants to such an extent that multitudes of dispossessed and impoverished villagers flocked to the towns. In fact Sir Thomas More tells us that the tenants “were got rid of by fraud or force, or tired out by repeated wrongs into parting with their property.”

Многих рабочих также можно было встретить бродящими с места на место, просящими милостыню или грабящими. Старая устойчивая деревенская жизнь с ее изоляцией и прочными семейными узами переживала насильственную трансформацию. Постоянная работа и регулярная заработная плата становились делом прошлого. Заработная плата рабочего не позволяла приобрести прежнее количество провизии при новых высоких ценах, вызванных обесцениванием валюты и открытиями серебра в 1540–1600 годах; ибо заработная плата, хотя в конечном итоге и следует за ценами, делает это очень медленно, и даже тогда не всегда пропорционально.

§ 8. Резюме изменений шестнадцатого века

—Such were the events which caused so great an economic transition in this period. They resulted in the pauperization of a large portion of the working classes, and the impoverishment of the small farmers. On the other hand, the nobles and land-owners gained considerable wealth. The merchants also were exceedingly flourishing, and foreign trade was growing. In summing up, then, we may say that the suppression of the monasteries, and the creation of a new nobility from the adventurers of Henry VIII.’s court, who obtained most of the monastic wealth; the debasement of the coinage and the exaltation in prices, aided largely (1540–1600) by the discovery of new silver mines in South America; the rise in the price of wool both for export and home manufacture, coupled {91} with the consequent increase in sheep farming and the practice of enclosure of land—all produced most important economic changes in the history of English labour and industry. To these we must add, towards the end of the sixteenth century, the great immigration of Flemings, chiefly after 1567, owing to the continual persecutions of Alva and other Spanish rulers. This gave a great impetus to English manufactures, its effects, however, being chiefly felt in the seventeenth century, when another immigration took place. Finally, in the sixteenth century were laid the foundations of our present commercial enterprise and maritime trade, by the voyages of Drake and other great sea-captains of Elizabeth’s reign. Their expeditions, it is true, were mainly buccaneering exploits, but they created a spirit of maritime enterprise that bore good fruit in the following reigns. Nor indeed was trade even in the previous centuries entirely insignificant, but had considerably developed, as the following chapter will show.

ГЛАВА II. РОСТ ВНЕШНЕЙ ТОРГОВЛИ

§ 1. Расширение торговли. Новый дух

—Just as the beginning of the sixteenth century marks what may be called an economic revolution in the home industries of the country, so too it marks the beginning of international commerce upon the modern scale. The economic revolution, of which the new agricultural system and the practice of enclosures was the most striking feature, was a change from the old dependent, uncompetitive, and regulated industrial system, to one under {92} which Capital and Labour grew up as separate forces in the form in which we recognize them now. Labour had become nominally independent after the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381, and at the same time it consciously felt that it was in opposition to capitalist and land-owning interests. In its desire for freedom it had also begun to shake off even its self-imposed restrictions, and the power of the gilds had rapidly waned. A new and eager spirit came with the Renaissance and the Reformation, a spirit which on the economic side showed itself in the development of competition, the shaking off of old restraints, and in more daring and far-seeing enterprises. Especially was this the case among the merchants, fired as they were by the great discoveries of the latter end of the fifteenth century, and hence we notice, throughout the sixteenth century and especially at its close, that our foreign trade becomes more extensive than it had ever been before, and the foundations of our present international commerce were securely laid.

§ 2. Внешняя торговля в пятнадцатом веке

—At this point we must look back for a moment at our foreign trade before this new epoch. Although our enterprises were by no means large, there was yet a fairly considerable trade done with the countries in the west of Europe—i.e. France, Spain, and the Baltic lands, and especially with the Low Countries. As England was then almost entirely an agricultural country, our chief export was wool for the Flemish looms to work up; but there was also other agricultural produce exported; and likewise some mineral products. In fact England supplied nearly all Western Europe with two most important metals, tin and lead; the former coming chiefly from Cornwall and the latter from Derbyshire, though in neither case exclusively from those counties. Bodmin was, however, the staple town {93} for the export of tin. Our huge mineral wealth in coal and iron was hardly yet touched, even for home use, and none was exported. Our imports were numerous and varied, their number being balanced, as they must always be, by the greater bulk and value of our exports of wool and lead.

Довольно оживленная торговля велась с Португалией и Испанией, которые поставляли нам железо и боевых коней; Гасконь и другие части Франции присылали свои вина; богатые бархаты, полотна и тонкие ткани импортировались из Гента, Льежа, Брюгге и других фламандских промышленных городов. Корабли ганзейских купцов привозили сельдь, воск, лес, мех и янтарь из стран Балтии; а генуэзские торговцы приезжали с шелками, бархатом и итальянским стеклом. И все они встречались друг с другом, как мы видели ранее, на великих ярмарках, таких как Стурбриджская, или в великом торговом центре западного мира — Лондоне.

§ 3. Венецианский флот

—But our most important trade in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries centred round the annual visit of the Venetian fleet to the southern shores of England. This was a great company of trading vessels, which left Venice every year upon a visit to England and Flanders.﻿31 Our English vessels did not at this time venture into the Mediterranean, and so all the stores of the Southern European countries, and more especially the treasures of the East, came to us through the agency of Venice. Laden with silks, satins, fine damasks and cottons, and other then costly garments, together with rare Eastern spices and precious stones, camphor and saffron, this fleet sailed slowly along the shores of the Mediterranean, trading at the ports of Italy, South France and Spain, till it passed through the Straits of Gibraltar, and at length came up the Channel, and {94} reached our southern ports. When it had reached the Downs, the fleet broke up for a time, some vessels putting in at Sandwich, Rye, and other towns, and a large number stopping at Southampton. Others went on to Flanders. Several days, sometimes weeks, were spent in exchanging their valuable cargoes for English goods, chiefly wool, the balance being paid over in gold, and then the various portions of the great fleet would reunite again, and set sail for Venice, from which they were often absent for nearly a twelvemonth. This annual visit was very convenient for English traders, before our own merchants ventured far away from our coasts. But it is a sign of the increased commercial enterprise of England in the sixteenth century that this visit then became unprofitable, and the last time the Venetian fleet came to our shores was in 1587.

31. Отсюда сами венецианцы называли его «Фландрским флотом».

§ 4. Станция Ганзейского союза в Лондоне

—While our commerce was, however, not yet so greatly developed, there existed another important institution carried on by foreign merchants, this time from Germany. The Hanse, or Hanseatic League, was started in the twelfth century by some of the leading trading towns of Germany, such as Hamburg and Lübeck, and after a time these towns formed themselves into a League for mutual protection among the constant Continental wars, and became a sort of republic (1241). In another century (by 1360) it had grown so large and powerful that ninety cities belonged to the confederacy, and it had branches or depots in every important town of Northern Europe. Of course there was also a branch at London, in the “Steelyard,” on which spot the Cannon Street Station now stands. This branch had existed from very early times, and a warehouse was there in which the German merchants stored their goods. In Richard II.’s time this building was {95} enlarged, and so it was again in the reign of Edward IV. Round it dwelt the foreign merchants who formed quite a little colony in the very heart of mediæval London. Here they held a kind of chamber of commerce, presided over by an alderman, with two co-assessors, and nine council-men, and meeting regularly on Wednesday mornings in every week. The Steelyard colony existed for some hundreds of years, and taught many valuable commercial lessons to our English merchants. It provided for us a regular supply of the produce of Russia, Germany, and Norway, especially timber and naval stores, and also corn when our English harvest fell short. But as our own merchants grew more prosperous and their commerce extended, they became jealous of the German colony. Attacks were made upon it by London mobs, and Edward VI. actually rescinded its charter. That was the beginning of the end. Mary restored it for a time, but towards the close of Elizabeth’s reign (1597) it was finally abolished. This, too, was another sign of the growth of our own foreign trade.

§ 5. Наша торговля с Фландрией. Антверпен в пятнадцатом и шестнадцатом веках

—We have mentioned before how the eastern ports and harbours of England used to swarm with small, light craft that plied all the summer through between our own country and Flanders. We have seen too that this continuous trade was due to the fact that we supplied the Flemish looms with wool. Up to the fifteenth century the great Flemish emporium, to which our English ships plied, was Bruges, but in the sixteenth century this town quite lost its former glory, and Antwerp took its place. The change was due to the action of Maximilian, the Emperor of Germany, to whom Henry VIII. was allied, and who, in revenge for a rebellion in which Ghent and Bruges took part, caused the canal {96} which connected Bruges with the sea to be blocked up at Sluys (1482), and thus English and other ships were compelled to direct their course to Antwerp, which then became a great and flourishing port. Antwerp remained without a rival till near the close of the sixteenth century, and every nation had its representatives there. Our own consul, to use a modern term, was, at the close of the fifteenth century, Sir Richard Gresham; and later, in the reign of Henry VIII., his celebrated son, the financier and economist, Sir Thomas Gresham. The fact of our having these representatives there is again a proof of the growth of trade in the sixteenth century. An Italian author, Ludovico Guicciardini (who died in 1589), gives a very precise account of our own commerce with Antwerp at this period, and it is interesting to note how varied our commerce has by this time become. This is what he says as to our imports: “To England Antwerp sends jewels, precious stones, silver bullion, quicksilver, wrought silks, gold and silver cloth and thread, camlets, grograms, spices, drugs, sugar, cotton, cummin, linens fine and coarse, serges, tapestry, madder, hops in great quantities, glass, salt, fish, metallic and other merceries of all sorts; arms of all kinds, ammunition for war, and household furniture.” As to our exports he tells us: “From England Antwerp receives vast quantities of coarse and fine draperies, fringes and all other things of that kind to a great value; the finest wool; excellent saffron, but in small quantities; much lead and tin; sheep and rabbit skins without number, and various other sorts of the fine peltry (i.e. skins) and leather; beer, cheese, and other provisions in great quantities; also Malmsey wines, which the English import from Candia. It is marvellous to think of the vast quantity of drapery sent by the English into the Netherlands.” {97}

Этого списка достаточно, чтобы показать обширность торговли, и мы прокомментируем один или два его пункта в следующей главе. Здесь нам нужно лишь отметить значительный рост английского производства тканей.

§ 6. Упадок Антверпена и возвышение Лондона как западного торгового центра

—But the prosperity of Antwerp did not last quite a century. Like all Flemish towns it suffered severely under the Spanish invasion, and the persecutions of the notorious Alva. In 1567 it was ruinously sacked, and its commerce was forced into new channels, and the disaster was completed by the sacking of the town again in 1585. Antwerp’s ruin was London’s gain. Even in 1567, at the time of the first sacking, many Protestant Flemish merchants fled to England, where, as Sir Thomas Gresham promised them, they found peace and welcome, and in their turn gave a great impulse to English commercial prosperity. Throughout Elizabeth’s reign, in fact, there was a continual influx of Protestant refugees to our shores, and Elizabeth and her statesmen had the sagacity to encourage these industrious and wealthy immigrants. Besides aiding our manufactures, as we shall see later, they aided our commerce. In 1588 there were 38 Flemish merchants established in London, who subscribed £5000 towards the defence of England against the Spanish Armada. The greatness of Antwerp was transferred to London, and although Amsterdam also gained additional importance in Holland, London now took the foremost position as the general mart of Europe, where the new treasures of the two Americas were found side by side with the products of Europe and the East.

§ 7. Купцы и морские капитаны елизаветинской эпохи в Новом Свете

—It is thus of interest to note how the great Reformation conflict between Roman Catholic and Protestant in Europe resulted in the commercial {98} greatness of England. Interesting, also, is the story of the expansion of commerce in the New World, owing to the attacks of the great old sea-captains, Drake, Frobisher, and Raleigh, upon the huge Catholic power of Spain. These attacks were perhaps not much more than buccaneering exploits, but the leaders of them firmly believed that they were doing a good service to the cause of Protestantism and freedom by wounding Spain wherever they could. And possibly they were right. Their wondrous voyages stimulated others, likewise, to set out on far and venturesome expeditions. Men dreamt of a northern passage to India, and although Willoughby’s expedition failed, one of his ships under Richard Chancellor reached Archangel, and thus opened up a direct trade with Russia; so that in 1554 a company was formed specially for this trade. It was, too, in Elizabeth’s reign that the merchants of Southampton entered upon the trade with the coast of Guinea, and gained much wealth from its gold-dust and ivory. Sir John Hawkins engaged in the slave-trade between Africa and the new fields of labour in America. Bristol fishermen sailed across the dreaded Atlantic to the cod-fisheries off Newfoundland, and at the close of Elizabeth’s reign English ships began to rival the Portuguese in the Polar whale-fisheries.

Это правление ознаменовалось также возникновением великих коммерческих компаний. Компания купцов-авантюристов действительно существовала со времен Генриха VII, будучи сформированной по образцу Ганзейского союза. Русская компания 1554 года была создана по модели этой более ранней компании; а затем последовало основание великой Ост-Индской компании. Это стало результатом знаменитого кругосветного путешествия Дрейка, которое длилось три года, 1577–1580. Вскоре после его возвращения было предложено основать «компанию для тех, кто торгует за экваториальной линией», но последовала долгая задержка, и, наконец, была зарегистрирована компания с более конкретной целью торговли с Ост-Индией. Датой этой знаменитой инкорпорации стал 1600 год, а в 1601 году капитан Ланкастер совершил от ее имени первое регулярное торговое плавание. Этому скромному началу мы обязаны нашей нынешней Индийской империей.

§ 8. Замечания о признаках и причинах расширения торговли

—Now, if we look at the broad features that mark the growth of sixteenth century trade, we shall see that it was closely connected with England’s decision to abide by the Protestant cause. It was that which won her the friendship of the Flemish merchants; it was the religious disturbances in Flanders that gained for London the commercial supremacy of Europe; it was our quarrel with Roman Catholic Spain that inspired the voyages of Drake and Hawkins, and thus caused others to venture forth into new and perilous seas, over which in course of time the English merchants sailed almost without a rival. And, as we have shown, the signs of the expansion of England are seen in the fall of the Hanse settlement in London, and the stoppage of the visits of the Venetian fleet. On the other hand the rapid growth of the port of Bristol in the west witnessed to fresh trade with the New World; and the rise of Boston and Hull﻿32 on the east coast is significant as showing the development of our Northern and Baltic trade, even to the extent of rivalling the great Hanse towns. A great stimulus had arisen, and England was now taking a leading position among the nations of the world. It is now our business to survey it as it existed in the time of Elizabeth.

32. Они всегда были важны (ср. стр. 64).

ГЛАВА III. ЕЛИЗАВЕТИНСКАЯ АНГЛИЯ

§ 1. Процветание и пауперизм

—The reign of Elizabeth is generally regarded as prosperous, and so upon the whole it was. But she had come to the throne with a legacy of pauperism from her father, Henry VIII., and from her father’s counsellors, who guided her weak brother, Edward VI. Nor had Mary helped to alleviate it. Social discontent was at Elizabeth’s accession prevalent, and it is to her credit as a sovereign that at her death danger from that source had passed away. This was partly due to the growth of wealth and industry throughout the kingdom, to the great gains of our foreign trade, and to the rapid expansion of our manufactures. But pauperism was now a permanent evil, and legal measures had to be taken for its relief. One abiding cause of it was the persistent enclosures which still went on, together with the new developments in agriculture. Nevertheless, before the close of her reign the bulk of the people became contented and comfortable, owing to the prolonged peace which prevailed. The merchants and landed gentry were rich; the farmers and master-manufacturers were prosperous; even the artisans and labourers were not hopelessly poor, though to call them well-off would be a misstatement. We may now see how the wealth of the first two classes was produced.

§ 2. Рост мануфактур

—The economic transition before alluded to (p. 55), by which England developed from a wool-exporting into a wool-manufacturing country, had in Elizabeth’s reign almost been completed. {101} The woollen manufacture had become an important element in the national wealth. England no longer sent her wool to be manufactured in Flanders, although a good deal of it was dyed there. It was now worked up at home, and the manufacturing population was not confined to the towns only, but spread all over the country; and both spinning and weaving afforded direct employment for an increasing number of workmen, while even in agricultural villages it was a frequent bye-industry. The worsted trade, of which Norwich was still the centre, spread over all the Eastern counties. The broad-cloths of the West of England took the highest place among English woollen stuffs. Even the North, which had lagged so far behind the South in industrial development, ever since the harrying it underwent at the hands of William the Norman, began now to show signs of activity and new life. It had, in this period, developed special manufactures of its own, and Manchester friezes, York coverlets, and Halifax cloth now held their own amongst the other manufactures of the country.

§ 3. Монополии промышленных городов

—One important sign of the growth of manufactures is seen in the fruitless attempts made in the sixteenth century to confine a particular manufacture to a particular town. This is a sure sign that the manufacture of that article was increasing in country districts, and that competition was operating in a new and unexpected way upon the older industries. An example of this may be seen in the monopoly granted by Parliament in Henry VIII.’s reign (1530) to Bridport in Dorsetshire, “for the making of cables, hawsers, ropes, and all other tackling.” This monopoly was granted upon the complaint made by the citizens of Bridport, that their town “was like to be utterly {102} decayed,” owing to the competition of “the people of the adjacent parts,” who were therefore by this monopoly forbidden to make any sort of rope. The only result of this measure, however, was to transfer the rope-making industry from Dorset to Yorkshire, and Bridport was in a worse plight than before.

В то же правление (1534 г.) жители Вустера, Ившема, Дройтвича, Киддерминстера и Бромсгроува, тогда единственных городов в Вустершире, жаловались, что «различные лица, проживающие в деревушках, поселках и селах графства, производят всевозможные ткани и занимаются стрижкой, валянием и ткачеством в своих собственных домах, к великому обезлюдению города и поселений». Городам была предоставлена монополия, единственным результатом которой стало то, что их положение ухудшилось, а значительная часть местной промышленности переместилась в Лидс. Чуть позже (1544 г.) горожане Йорка жаловались на конкуренцию со стороны «различных злонамеренных лиц и учеников», которые «удалились из города в сельскую местность» и конкурировали с Йорком в производстве покрывал и одеял. Йорк получил монополию, но его мануфактуры от этого ничего не выиграли. Далее, в 1552 году Эдуард VI постановил, что производство шляп, покрывал и дамаста должно быть ограничено Нориджем и рыночными городами Норфолка. Елизавета предоставила многочисленные торговые монополии на продажу специальных товаров, но монопольная система противоречила новому духу конкуренции той эпохи. В 1601 году многие из наиболее одиозных монополий были отменены, и к тому времени их осталось немного в сфере производства товаров. Приведенные выше примеры, однако, интересны тем, что показывают рост мануфактур во всех частях королевства и в сельских районах (ср. стр. 65). Они также полезны как яркие примеры глупости протекционистских постановлений.

33. См. примечание 11а, стр. 246, о монополиях.

§ 4. Наш экспорт промышленных товаров

—Besides these monopolies we have ample evidence of the growth of our cloth manufactures in the statements made by Ludovico Guicciardini (1523–89), as to our exports to Antwerp. “It is marvellous,” he says, “to think of the vast quantity of drapery sent by the English into the Netherlands, being undoubtedly one year with another above 200,000 pieces of all kinds, which, at the most moderate rate of 25 crowns per piece, is 5,000,000 crowns, so that these and other merchandise brought by the English to us, or carried from us to them, may make the annual amount to more than 12,000,000 crowns,” which is equivalent to some £2,400,000. One great cause of our progress in manufactures was the immigration of persecuted Dutch and Flemish Protestants, previously mentioned, which formed so important a feature in the new growth of manufactures and agriculture in Elizabethan England.

§ 5. Фламандская иммиграция в это правление

—This influx of foreign manufacturers and workmen began to occur soon after Elizabeth’s accession, when the death of Mary had relieved men from the fear of Romish persecution. A numerous body of Flemings came over in 1561, and starting from Deal, spread to Sandwich, Rye, and other parts of Kent. Another body settled in Yarmouth, and over Norfolk generally. In 1570 there were 4000 natives of the Netherlands in Norwich alone. And after the sack of Antwerp in 1585, the immigration largely increased. The new arrivals introduced or improved many manufactures, such as those of cutlery, clock-making, hats, and pottery. But the greatest improvements they made were in weaving and lace-making. They greatly developed “every sort of workmanship in wool and flax.” {104} The lace manufacture was introduced by refugees from Alençon and Valenciennes into Cranfield (Beds), and from that town it extended to Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire, and Northamptonshire; while other immigrants founded the manufacture of the well-known Honiton lace in Devon. It is interesting thus to notice how much we owed to foreign teachers in earlier times, for the reigns of Edward III., Elizabeth, and later of Charles II. were all signalized by large influxes of people from the Low Countries, bringing with them increased skill, and often considerable capital.

Интересное свидетельство влияния этих беженцев приводит Харрисон в своем «Описании Англии» (во времена Елизаветы). Он говорит о нашей шерсти: «В прежние времена использование этого товара состояло по большей части в сукне и камвольных тканях; но теперь, благодаря чужеземцам, нашедшим здесь убежище от преследований на родине, он стал применяться для различных других целей; таких как мокадо, байка, велюр, грогрен и т. д., благодаря чему производители получили немалую выгоду».

§ 6. Сельское хозяйство

—The growth of our manufactures helped of course to promote sheep farming, not only on the part of great land-owners, but even of ordinary moderate farmers. Upon this point also Harrison mentions an important fact: “And there is never an husbandman (for now I speak not of our great sheep-masters, of whom some one man hath 20,000) but hath more or less of this cattle (sheep) feeding on his fallows and short grounds, which yield the finer fleece.” Besides sheep farming, however, which had long since risen into importance, our agriculture had improved in several respects. Here foreign influence is again visible. Already a change in the mode of cultivation had been brought about, not so great as that which took place in {105} the two succeeding centuries, but still quite perceptible. A larger capital was brought to bear upon the land, the breed of horses and cattle was improved, and more intelligent use was made of manure and dressings. It was said that one acre under the new system produced as much as two did under the old. In addition to these improvements, the coming of the Flemings and Dutch introduced several new vegetables. The refugees cultivated in their gardens, carrots, celery, and cabbages, which were previously either unknown or very scarce in this country. The most important service to agriculture, however, was the introduction of the hop, which is said to have been brought to England by some Flemish, as early as 1524, and later in the century, in Elizabeth’s reign, the hop-gardens of Kent had already become famous, and have remained so ever since. The introduction of hops of course led the way to a better method of brewing beer, and from this time forward beer became a national beverage.﻿34

34. Солодовый напиток, конечно, был в широком употреблении гораздо раньше.

§ 7. Социальные удобства

—All this increase of the national wealth, in commerce, manufactures, and agriculture, produced important changes in the mode of living. The standard of comfort became higher. Food became more wholesome. As agriculture improved, and animals could be kept through the winter with greater ease, salt meat and salt fish no longer formed the staple food of the lower classes for half the year. Brickmaking had been rediscovered about 1450; and by the time of Elizabeth the wooden, or wattled houses (p. 19) had generally been replaced, at least among all but the poorest class, with dwellings of brick and stone. The introduction of chimneys and the lavish use of glass also helped to {106} improve the people’s dwellings; and indeed the houses of the rich merchants, or the lords of the manors, were now quite luxuriously furnished. Carpets had superseded the old filthy flooring of rushes; pillows and cushions were found in all decent houses; and the quantity of carved woodwork of this period shows that men cared for something more than mere utility in their surroundings. The lavishness of new wealth was seen, too, in a certain love of display, of colour, of “purple and fine linen,” which characterizes the dress of the Elizabethan age. The old sober life and thought of mediæval England had been entirely revolutionized by the sudden opening of the almost fabulous glories of the New World, and men revelled joyously in the new prospects of the wealth of the wondrous West. But yet there were the seeds of pauperism in the land, and all the wealth of the merchants and the adventurers of Elizabethan England did not prevent the sure and inevitable Nemesis that followed upon the crimes and follies of Elizabeth’s father.

§ 8. Положение рабочих

—For it is impossible, in glancing at the condition of labour in the days of Elizabeth, to forget the disastrous economic changes wrought by the criminal follies of Henry VIII. and his followers since the earlier days of the fifteenth century. Compared with the fifteenth century, the poverty of the wage-earners in Elizabeth’s reign was great indeed, though even then not so bad as it subsequently became. But the whole of the next two centuries show a steady deterioration in the lot of the English labourer and artisan. Of course the condition of labour will be best seen by taking examples of the wages then given. In Elizabeth’s reign, then, we may reckon the yearly wages of an agricultural labourer at about £8, 4s., and the cost of living, which now included house rent, formerly {107} unknown, at £8, thus leaving a very narrow margin for contingencies. Daily wages were (in 1564)—for artisans, 8d. a day in winter and 9d. in summer; for labourers, 6d. in winter and 7d. in summer, and in harvest-time occasionally 8d. or even 10d. This is not very much more than the wages paid at the close of the fifteenth century (viz. artisans 3s. a week, and labourers 2s.), but the price of food had risen almost to three times the old average.

§ 9. Оценка заработной платы мировыми судьями. Первый закон о бедных

—Wages in husbandry and in handicrafts were now fixed, under the statute 5 Elizabeth, cap. 4 (1563),﻿35 by the justices in quarter sessions, and of course these employers of labour would hardly fix an unnecessarily high rate of wages; and, what is more, wages did actually conform to their assessments in spite of the continual rise in the price of the necessaries of life. It is not surprising that under these conditions the problem of pauperism in England speedily took a very pronounced form. Even in 1541, under Henry VIII., it was found that some system of relief was necessary; but a system of voluntary contributions was for a time sufficient to meet the difficulty. But in Edward VI.’s reign pauperism began to increase alarmingly, though now we see that it was only natural; and finally Elizabeth found it necessary to institute a regular system of poor-law relief. In 1601, therefore, by Act 43 Elizabeth, cap. 3, it was legally enacted that all property should be duly assessed by regular assessors, in order that rates might be levied for the relief of pauperism. After a few renewals this law was made permanent in Charles I.’s reign (1641), and continued legally in force till 1812; and its general principles lasted till 1835. The effect of this poor law {108} was to keep the wages of labour at the very lowest possible level, for now the employers (chiefly, at that time, the land-owners) knew that if a labourer’s wages could not maintain him, he would have to be relieved from the rates. In other words, part of the labourers’ wages would be, and was, paid by the general public, and thus expense would be saved to individual employers. This state of things did not, perhaps, ensue immediately upon the passing of this law, but became more common later. The results of the system were seen more clearly in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, to which we shall subsequently refer.﻿36

35. Широко известен как «Акт об ученичестве» (ср. примечание 12, стр. 247).

36. См. примечание 12, стр. 247, о «Намерении Акта».

§ 10. Население

—The marked improvement in agriculture and the increase of wealth brought with them, at the close of the sixteenth century, an equally marked increase of population. We saw that at the time of Domesday the population of England was under two millions. When the poll-tax of 1377 was levied, in the last year of Edward III.’s reign, it had not much increased, being at most not more than two and a quarter millions, according to careful calculations based upon the returns of this tax. But by the end of Elizabeth’s reign it had rapidly risen to some 5,000,000 souls, at which figure it remained for some hundred and fifty years longer. The bulk of the population was still in the southern half of the country, although the north was now becoming more prosperous, owing to the extension of manufactures. It will be seen that England was by no means overcrowded, and yet people were found who complained of the increase of population. William Harrison in his Description of England (written between 1577–87) remarks: “Some also do grudge at the great increase of people in these days, thinking a necessary brood of cattle far better than {109} a superfluous augmentation of mankind. But,” he adds severely, “I can liken such men best unto the Pope or the Devil,” and adds that in case of invasion they will find “that a wall of men is far better than stacks of corn and bags of money.” Even without the fear of invasion before our eyes, it is well for us to-day not to forget this latter sentence in the modern international race for wealth.

ГЛАВА IV. РАЗВИТИЕ СЕЛЬСКОГО ХОЗЯЙСТВА В СЕМНАДЦАТОМ И ВОСЕМНАДЦАТОМ ВЕКАХ

§ 1. Резюме прогресса с тринадцатого века

—It will be remembered that great agricultural changes had taken place since Henry III.’s reign. For a century or so after his death (1272) the land-owner was also a cultivator, living upon his land and owning a large amount of capital in the form of stock, which he let out under the stock and land lease system. But after the Great Plague (1348) this method of cultivation by capitalist land-owners ceased, except in the one case of sheep farming; the land-owner became generally a mere rent receiver; and agriculture consequently suffered. Marling, for instance, fell into disuse, and the breed of sheep, it is said, deteriorated somewhat. The great feature of the change was the transformation of large tracts of arable land into pasture for sheep, and the growth of enclosures for the sake of the same animal. The landlords rapidly proceeded to raise their rents, till, in the sixteenth century, extortionate renting became so common that Bishop Latimer, and Fitzherbert, the {110} author of a useful work on surveying, complained about it both in sermons and other writings. Hence English agriculture did not materially improve between the days of Henry III. and of Elizabeth. But in this queen’s reign, as we saw, several improvements were made under the influence of foreign refugees. For the inhabitants of the Low Countries and Holland have been our pioneers not only in commerce and finance, but in agriculture also. It was now these people who introduced into England the cultivation of artificial grasses and of winter roots, the want of which, it will be remembered, greatly embarrassed the English farmer in the mediæval winter. The introduction of hops also was of great importance.

§ 2. Прогресс в правление Якова I. Влияние землевладельцев

—Of course the greatest industrial progress of this period was made in the direction of foreign trade, and in James’s reign progress in agriculture was slow as compared with that in commerce, but it was substantial—substantial enough, at any rate, for the landlords to exact an increased competitive rent, as we know from Norden’s work, The Surveyor’s Dialogue (1607). It was even complained that the actions of the landlords tended to discourage progress, for when a tenant wished to renew a lease he was threatened with dispossession if he did not pay an increased rent for the very improvements he had made himself. However, from the facts given by Norden, and also by another writer—Markham, the author of The English Husbandman (1613)—it is evident that there was considerable improvement, development, and variety now shown in English agriculture. The special characteristic feature of the seventeenth century is the utilization of the fallow for roots, though these had been known in gardens in the previous century. Land was still largely cultivated in common fields, and was, of course, {111} much subdivided. The most fertile land was to be found in Huntingdon, Bedford, and Cambridge shires, the next best being in Northampton, Kent, Essex, Berkshire, and Hertfordshire.

§ 3. Авторы о сельском хозяйстве. Улучшения. Дичь

—Oxen were still preferred to horses; but a noticeable improvement is the attention now paid to the various kinds of manures, on which subject Markham was the first to write specially. The fact that agriculture was now made the topic of various treatises proves that important development was taking place. Besides the works already mentioned, we have the Systema Agriculturæ by Worridge, a farmer of Hampshire, the second edition of which appeared in 1675. He is a strong advocate of enclosures, as against the old common field system, on the plea that the former is more conducive to high farming; but he also is in favour of small enclosed farms. Though at first local and somewhat spasmodic, and hindered by the landlord’s power of appropriating the results of increased skill on the part of the tenant, under the head of “indestructible powers of the soil,” yet the progress made was sufficient to double the population of England. A curious fact in the agriculture of the seventeenth century may be here mentioned; I mean the existence of a very large amount of waste land, and the use made of it for purposes of breeding game. At that time it is evident that killing game was not the exclusive right of the land-owners, but was a common privilege. Large quantities of game were sold, and at a cheap price, and “fowling” must evidently have been an important item in the farmer’s means of livelihood.

§ 4. Осушение болот

—A most important feature in the development of agriculture in the Eastern counties was the drainage of the fens—i.e. all that large district {112} which extends inward from the Wash into the counties of Lincoln, Cambridge, Northampton, Huntingdon, Norfolk and Suffolk. This district had been reclaimed by the Romans, and had been then a fertile country. But in the time of the Domesday Book it was once again a mere marsh, owing to incursions of the sea, which the English at that time had not the ability to prevent. Although even in 1436, and subsequently, partial attempts had been made to reclaim this vast area, the first effectual effort was begun only in 1634, by the Earl of Bedford, who got 95,000 acres of the reclaimed land as a reward for his undertaking. The contract was fulfilled in 1649, and a corporation was formed to manage the “Bedford level,” as it was now called, in 1688. The reclaiming of so much land naturally increased the prosperity of the counties in which it stood, and their agriculture flourished considerably in consequence, Bedfordshire for instance being now the most exclusively agricultural county in the kingdom.

§ 5. Рост цен на зерно и арендной платы

—The price of corn, meanwhile, was now steadily rising. From 1401 to 1540—i.e. before the rise in prices and the debasement of the coinages—the average price had been six shillings per quarter; after prices had recovered from their inflation and settled down to a general average once more, taking the price from 1603 to 1702, corn was forty-one shillings per quarter. The average produce had apparently declined since the fifteenth and before the improvements of the seventeenth century. In the former period it was about twelve bushels per acre, and in the fourteenth century eleven bushels; but Gregory King, writing in the seventeenth century, only gives ten bushels as the average of his time. His estimate, however, is doubted. At the same time, rent had risen from the sixpence per acre of the fifteenth century to four shillings, according {113} to Professor Rogers, or even 5s. 6d. according to King, who says the gains of the farmer of his time are very small, and that rents were more than doubled between 1600 and 1699. We will reserve the topic of the rise of rent, however, for a separate section, and keep to the agricultural developments of the period.

§ 6. Особенности восемнадцатого века. Популярность сельского хозяйства

—As the use of winter roots had been the special feature of the seventeenth century, so the feature of the eighteenth was the extension of artificial pasture and the increased use of clover, sainfoin, and rye-grass; not, of course, that these had been hitherto unknown, but now their seeds are regularly bought and used by any farmer who knew his business. At first, like all other processes of agriculture, the development was very slow and gradual, but it went on steadily nevertheless. A great stimulus to progress was given by the fact that the English gentlemen of the eighteenth century developed quite a passion for agriculture as a hobby, and it became a fashionable pursuit for all people of any means, citizens and professional men joining in it as a kind of bye-industry, as well as farmers and land-owners who made it their business. Arthur Young, the great agricultural writer of this century, declares that “the farming tribe is now made up of all classes, from a duke to an apprentice.” But two important mistakes were made in the eighteenth century, and they have not ceased to exist in the nineteenth, causing very largely the distress under which English agriculture has for some time been labouring. They are the mistakes of occupying too much land with insufficient capital, and of not keeping regular and detailed accounts. Still, between 1720 and 1760, progress was very rapid, and noble land-owners made great efforts to improve their estates, in {114} order thereby to raise their rents and increase their profits, in the hope of outdoing the great merchant princes who had now appeared upon the scene. They thus became in a way the pioneers of agricultural progress, the principal result of their efforts being seen in the increased number and quality of the stock now kept on farms.

§ 7. Улучшение скота и продуктивности земли. Статистика

—The extended cultivation of winter roots, clover, and other grasses, naturally made it far easier for the farmer to feed his animals in the winter; and the improvement in stock followed closely upon the improvement in fodder. The abundance of stock, too, had again a beneficial result in the increased qualities of manure produced, and the utilization of this fertilizer was scientifically developed. The useful, though costly, process of marling was again revived, and was advocated by Arthur Young; soils were also treated with clay, chalk, or lime. So great was the improvement thus made, that the productiveness of land in the eighteenth century rose to four times that of the thirteenth century, when five bushels or eight bushels of corn per acre was the average. Stock, also, was similarly improved; an eighteenth century fatted ox often weighed 1200 lbs., while hitherto, from the fourteenth to the end of the seventeenth century, the weight had not been usually much above 400 lbs. The weight of the fleece of sheep had also increased quite four times. Population being even then small, a considerable quantity of corn was exported, the British farmer being also protected from foreign competition by the corn laws (made in Charles II.’s reign, 1661 and 1664), forbidding importation of corn, except when it rose to famine prices. Young estimated the acreage of the country at 32,000,000 acres (King put it {115} at 22,000,000 in the seventeenth century); its value (at thirty-three and one-half years’ purchase) was, says Young, £536,000,000. The value of stock he places at nearly £110,000,000, and estimates the wheat and rye crop at over 9,000,000 quarters per annum, barley at 11,500,000 quarters, and oats at 10,250,000 quarters. The rent of land had risen to nearly ten shillings an acre.

§ 8. Ущерб, нанесенный мелким землевладельцам Статутом о мошенничестве

—The development and success of English agriculture, from 1700 to 1765 or 1770, was thus remarkable and extensive; but it was not effected without considerable economic changes and great and unnecessary suffering among two important classes of the population—the yeomen or small freeholders, and the agricultural labourers. The decay of the yeomanry, indeed, forms a sad interlude in the growing prosperity of the country. The position of many small land-owners had been greatly and disastrously affected by the Statute of Frauds, passed in the time of Charles II. By this extraordinary and high-handed Act it was decreed that after July 24th, 1677, all interests in land whatsoever, if created by any other process except by deed, should be treated as tenancies at will only, any law or usage to the contrary notwithstanding. The intention, apparently, of those who passed this law—an intention which resulted successfully—was to extinguish all those numerous small freeholders who had no written evidence to prove that they held their lands, as they had done for centuries, on condition of paying a small fixed and customary rent. This Act certainly succeeded in dispossessing many of the class at which it was aimed; but there were yet a certain number against whom it was inoperative; hence, at the end of the seventeenth century, twenty years or so {116} after this Act, Gregory King is able to estimate that there were 180,000 freeholders in England, including, of course, the larger owners. But by the time of Arthur Young these also had disappeared, or at least were rapidly disappearing, and he sincerely regrets “to see their lands now in the hands of monopolizing lords.”

§ 9. Причины упадка йоменов

—The cause was partly political and partly social. After the revolution of 1688, the landed gentry became politically and socially supreme, and any successful merchant prince—and these were not few—who wished to gain a footing sought, in the first place, to imitate them by becoming a great land-owner; hence it became quite a policy to buy out the smaller farmers, and they were often practically compelled to sell their holdings. At the same time, the custom of primogeniture and strict settlements prevented land from being much subdivided, so that small or divided estates never came into the market for the smaller freeholders to buy. It is also certain that this result was accelerated by the fact that small farms no longer paid under the old system of agriculture, and the new system involved an outlay that the yeoman could not afford. Farming on a large scale became more necessary, and this again assisted in extinguishing the smaller men, for large enclosures were made by the landed gentry in spite of feeble opposition from the yeomen, who, however, could rarely afford to pay the law costs necessary to put a stop to the encroachments of their greater neighbours. Thus the yeomen lost their rights in the common lands, and at the same time the new agriculture involved a breaking up of the old common field system, which could not possibly hold its own against the modern improvements.

§ 10. Значительное увеличение огораживаний

—The abolition of {117} the old system was necessary, but the manner in which it was carried out was disastrous. The enclosures of the landed gentry were often carried on with little regard to the interests of the smaller tenants and freeholders, who, in fact, suffered greatly; and in this present age English agriculture is, in a large measure, still feeling the subsequent effects of the change, while many people are advocating a partial return to small holdings, cultivated, however, with the improved experience given by modern agricultural progress. Apparently, this was not the first occasion on which the land-owners had made enclosures and encroached upon the common lands of their poorer neighbours, and not merely upon the waste; but the rapidity and boldness of the enclosing operations in the eighteenth century far surpassed anything in previous times. Between 1710 and 1760, for instance, 334,974 acres were enclosed; and between 1760 and 1843 the number rose to 7,000,000.

§ 11. Преимущества огораживаний по сравнению со старыми общинными полями

—The benefits of the enclosure system were, however, unmistakable, for the cultivation of common fields under the old system was, as Arthur Young assures us, miserably poor. The arable land of each village under this system was still divided into three great strips, subdivided by “baulks” three yards wide. Every farmer would own one piece of land in each strip—probably more—and all alike were bound to follow the customary tillage; this was to leave one strip fallow every year, while on one of the other two wheat was always grown, the third being occupied by barley or oats, pease, or tares. The meadows, also, were still held in common, every man having his own plot up to hay harvest, after which the fences were thrown down, and all householders’ cattle were allowed to graze on it freely, {118} while for the next crop the plots were redistributed. Every farmer also had the right of pasture on the waste. This system produced results miserably inferior to those gained on enclosed lands, the crop of wheat in one instance being, according to Young, only seventeen or eighteen bushels per acre, as against twenty-six bushels on enclosures. Similarly, the fleece of sheep pastured on common fields weighed only 3⁠½ lbs., as compared with 9 lbs. on enclosures. It is noticeable, too, that Kent, where much land had for a long time been enclosed and cultivated, was reckoned in Young’s time the best cultivated and most fertile county in England. Norfolk, also, was pre-eminent for good husbandry, in its excellent rotation of crops and culture of clover, rye-grass, and winter roots, due, said Young, in 1770, “to the division of the county chiefly into large farms,” and, it must be added, to unscrupulous enclosure.

§ 12. Рост арендной платы

—The farmer himself, however, was heavily taxed for his land, and though the high prices he got for his corn up to the repeal of the corn laws enabled him to pay it, his rent was certainly at a very high figure. The rise had begun after the dissolution of the monasteries in the sixteenth century, though in that period the rise was slow. But Latimer asserts that his father only paid £3 or £4 for a holding which in the next generation was rented at £16, the increased figure being only partially accounted for by the general rise in prices. In the seventeenth century, according to King, rents were more than doubled, and the sixpence per acre of mediæval times must have seemed almost mythical. The Belvoir estate, the property of the Dukes of Rutland, who are spoken of as indulgent landlords, forms a good example of the rise of rent in the two following centuries. In 1692 land is found rented at 3s. 9⁠¼d. an acre, and a little {119} later at 4s. 1⁠½d. By the year 1799 the same land had risen to 19s. 3⁠¾d., with a further rise in 1812 to 25s. 8⁠¾d. In 1830 it was at 25s. 1⁠¾d., but in 1850 had risen to 38s. 8d., that is about ten times the seventeenth century rent. This enormous rise was not by any means due solely to increase of skill in agricultural industry, but was largely derived from increased economy in production, or, in other words, from the oppression and degradation of the agricultural labourer.

§ 13. Падение заработной платы

—This degradation was brought about by the system of assessment﻿37 of wages which we noticed in Elizabeth’s reign, a system by which the labourer was forced by law to accept the wages which the justices (generally the landed proprietors, his employers) arranged to give him. It is not the business of an historian to make charges against a class, but to put facts in their due perspective. Therefore without comment upon the action of the justices in this matter I shall merely refer to one or two of these assessments and show their effect upon the condition of labour, especially of agricultural labour, which occupied more than one-third of the working classes. Speaking generally, we may quote Professor Rogers’ remark, that “if we suppose the ordinary labourer to get 3s. 6d. a week throughout the year, by adding his harvest allowance to his winter wages, it would have taken him more than forty weeks to earn the provisions which in 1495 he could have got with fifteen weeks’ labour, while the artisan would be obliged to have given thirty-two weeks’ work for the same result.” To give details, we may first quote, as an example, the Rutland magistrates’ assessment, in April 1610. The wages of an ordinary agricultural labourer {120} are put at 7d. a day from Easter to Michaelmas, and at 6d. from Michaelmas to Easter. Artisans get 10d. or 9d. in summer, and 8d. in winter. Now, the price of food was 75 per cent. dearer than in 1564, while the rate of wages are about the same; and compared with (say) 1495, food was three, or even four, times dearer. Another assessment, in Essex in 1661, allows 1s. a day in winter, and 1s. 2d. in summer, for ordinary labour. But, in 1661, the price of wheat (70s. 6d. a quarter) was just double the price of 1610 (35s. 2⁠½d.). The labourer was worse off than ever. Another typical assessment is that of Warwick, in 1684, when wages of labourers are fixed at 8d. a day in summer, 7d. in winter; of artisans at 1s. a day. At this period Professor Rogers reckons the yearly earnings of an artisan at £15, 13s.; of a farm labourer at £10, 8s. 8d., exclusive of harvest work; while the cost of a year’s stock of provisions was £14, 11s. 6d. It is true that at this period the labourer still possessed certain advantages, such as common rights, which, besides providing fuel, enabled them to keep cows and pigs and poultry on the waste. Their cottages, too, were often rent free, being built upon the waste, while each cottage, by the Act of Elizabeth, was supposed to have a piece of land attached to it, though this provision was frequently evaded. But yet it is evident that, even allowing for these privileges, which, after all, were now being rapidly curtailed, the ordinary agricultural labourer—that is, the mass of the wage-earning population—must have found it hard work to live decently. By the beginning of the eighteenth century his condition had sunk to one of great poverty. The ordinary peasant, in 1725, for instance, would not earn more than £13 or about £15 a year; artisans could not gain more than £15, 13s.; while the cost of the stock of provisions was £16, 2s. 3d. Thus {121} the husbandman who, in 1495, could get a similar stock of food by fifteen weeks’ work, and the artisan who could have earned it in ten weeks, could not feed himself in 1725 with a whole year’s labour. His wages had to be supplemented out of the rates; and there was but little alteration in these rates till the middle of the eighteenth century. But about that time (1750) he had begun to share in the general prosperity caused by the success of the new agriculture and the growth of trade and manufactures. The evil, however, had been done, and although a short period of prosperity, chiefly due to the advance made by the new agriculture, cheered the labourer for a time, his condition after the Industrial Revolution again rapidly deteriorated, till we find him at the end of the eighteenth century and for some time afterwards in a condition of chronic misery.

37. О предполагаемой бесполезности этих оценок см. «Промышленность в Англии», стр. 257.

ГЛАВА V. ТОРГОВЛЯ И ВОЙНА В СЕМНАДЦАТОМ И ВОСЕМНАДЦАТОМ ВЕКАХ

§ 1. Англия как торговая держава

—In glancing over the progress of foreign trade in the time of Elizabeth, we noticed that our war with Spain was due to commercial as well as religious causes. The opening up of the New World made a struggle for power in the West almost inevitable among European nations; the new route to India viâ the Cape of Good Hope, discovered by Vasco da Gama, made another struggle for commercial supremacy as inevitable in the far East. In the reign of Henry VIII. we find, from one of his Statutes, that Malaga had been {122} the farthest port to which at this time English seamen yet ventured. For a century or more after the discoveries of Columbus and da Gama, Spain and Portugal, and a little later on Holland, had practically a monopoly both of the Eastern and Western trade. But now a change had come. The Englishmen of the Elizabethan age cast off their fear of Spain, entered into rivalry with Holland, and finally made England the supreme commercial power of the modern world. The history of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries is a continuous record of their struggles to attain this object.

§ 2. Начало борьбы с Испанией

—In the last quarter of the sixteenth century Elizabeth had entered (1579) into an alliance, offensive and defensive, with Holland against Spain. The motive of the alliance was partly religious, but the shrewdness of the queen and her statesmen no doubt foresaw more than spiritual advantages to be gained thereby. After the alliance, Drake and the other great naval captains of that day began a system of buccaneering annoyances to Spanish commerce. The Spanish and Portuguese trade and factories in the East were considered the lawful prizes of the English and their allies the Dutch. The latter, as all know, were more successful at first than we were, and soon established an Oriental Empire in the Indian Archipelago. But at the very end of her reign England had prospered sufficiently for Elizabeth to grant charters to the Levant Company, and its far greater companion the East India Company. Then, when a fresh war with Spain was imminent, England wisely began to plant colonies in North America, at the suggestion of Sir Walter Raleigh; and after one or two other abortive attempts, Virginia was successfully founded by the London Company in 1609, and became a Crown colony in 1624. {123} After this, as every one knows, colonies grew rapidly on the strip of coast between the Alleghany Mountains and the Atlantic. Meanwhile, on the other side of the world the East India Company was slowly gaining ground, and founding English agencies or “factories,” that of Surat (in 1612) being the most important. As yet we had not come into open conflict with Spain or Portugal; and indeed we owed the possession of Bombay to the marriage of Charles II. with Katherine of Braganza (1661). Then the company gained from Charles II. the important privilege of making peace or war on their own account. It had a good many foes to contend with, both among natives and European nations, among whom the French were as powerful as the Portuguese.

§ 3. Торговые войны Кромвеля

—The monopoly of Spain was first really attacked by Cromwell. James I. had been too timid to declare war, and Charles I. was too much in danger himself to think of trusting his subjects to support him if he did so. But Cromwell was supported both by the religious views of the Puritans and the desires of the merchants when he declared war against England’s great foe. He demanded trade with the Spanish colonies, and religious freedom for English settlers in such colonies. Of course his demands were refused, as he well knew that they would be. Whereupon he seized Jamaica (1655) and intended to secure Cuba; and at any rate succeeded in giving the English a secure footing in the West Indies. He seized Dunkirk also from Spain (then at war with France), with a view to securing England a monopoly of the Channel to the exclusion of our old friends the Dutch. Dunkirk, however, was a useless acquisition, and was sold again by Charles II. Not content with victory in the West, Cromwell with the full consent of mercantile England declared war against the Dutch, who were now {124} more our rivals than our friends. It would have been perfectly possible for the English and the Dutch to have remained upon good terms; but the great idea of the statesmen and merchants of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was to gain a sole market and a monopoly of trade, and so the Dutch had to be crushed. It was a mistake, but mistakes have frequently been made, owing to a lack of that indispensable concomitant of statesmanship, accurate economic knowledge. Cromwell succeeded in his object. He defeated the Dutch and broke their prestige in the two years’ war of 1652–54, and designed to ruin their trade by the Navigation Acts of 1651 (p. 130). The contest between the Dutch and English for the mastery of the seas was already practically decided, and the capture of New Amsterdam (New York as we called it afterwards) in 1664, and the subsequent wars of Charles II.’s reign, completed the discomfiture of Holland.

§ 4. Войны Вильгельма III и Анны

—The continental wars in which England was engaged after the deposition of James II. were rendered necessary to some extent by the tremendous power of France under Louis XIV. William III. saw it was inevitable for the interest of England that Louis XIV. should be checked, and the war of the Spanish Succession (1702–13) was carried on with the object of preventing that king from joining the resources of Spain to those of his own kingdom. For had he done so two disastrous results would have happened. The Stuarts would by his help have been restored to the English throne, and the struggle against absolute monarchy and religious tyranny would unfortunately have been fought over again. Secondly, the growth of English commerce would have been checked if not utterly annihilated. As it was we were preserved from the {125} Stuarts; and when the war was finally over in 1713, found ourselves in possession of Gibraltar, now one of the keys of our Indian Empire, and of the Hudson’s Bay Territory, Newfoundland and Nova Scotia (then called Acadia)—the foundations of our present Canadian dominion. England was also allowed by Spain to trade—in negroes—with Spanish colonies, and to send one ship a year to the South Seas. The war, as far as we were concerned, was a commercial success, though we had to pay rather heavily for it, and were involved in further difficulties in America thereby.

§ 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 trade﻿40 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.[symbol]

§ 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}

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 writes﻿51: “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.

ГЛАВА V СОСТОЯНИЕ РАБОЧЕГО КЛАССА

§ 1. Катастрофические последствия новой промышленной системы

—We have already seen in various preceding chapters that the condition of the labourers deteriorated from the time of Elizabeth onwards, but in the middle of the eighteenth century it had been materially improved owing to the increase of wealth from the new agriculture and from the general growth of foreign trade. But then came the great Continental wars and the Industrial Revolution; and it is a sad but significant fact that, although the total wealth of the nation vastly increased at the end of last century and the beginning of this, little of that wealth came into the hands of the labourers, but went mainly into the hands of the great landlords and new capitalist manufacturers, or was spent in the enormous expenses of foreign war. We saw, too, that the labourer felt far more severely than anyone else the burden of this war, for taxes had been imposed on almost every article of consumption, while at the same time the price of wheat had risen enormously. Moreover, labour was now more than ever dependent on capital, and the individual labourer was thoroughly under the heel of his employer. This, it will be remembered, was the result of the system of Assessment of Wages (p. 107), under which the justices of the peace, including of course chiefly manufacturers and land-owners, fixed the wages of labour for their own districts, and fixed them at so low a figure that they had nearly always to be supplemented out of the rates paid by the general public. The labourer had no redress, for {188} all combination in the form now known as Trade Unions was suppressed, and his condition sank to the lowest depth of poverty and degradation.

§ 2. Система наделов (пособий) для нуждающихся

—This state of things was aggravated by various misfortunes. The latter part of the eighteenth century was marked by almost chronic scarcity, and after 1790 wheat was rarely below 50s. a quarter, and often double that price. The famine was enhanced by the restrictions of the Corn Laws; meanwhile, population was growing with portentous and almost inexplicable rapidity. The factories employed large numbers of hands, but these were chiefly children whose parents were often compelled to live upon the labour of their little ones; and the introduction of machinery had naturally caused a tremendous dislocation in industry, which could not be expected to right itself immediately. Poverty was so widespread that, in 1795, the Berkshire justices, in a now famous meeting at Speenhamland, near Newbury, declared the old quarter sessions assessment of wages insufficient, besought employers to give rates more in proportion to the cost of living, but added that if employers refused to do this they would make an allowance to every poor family in accordance with its numbers. This allowance system succeeded in demoralizing both employers and employed alike, taking the responsibility of giving decent wages off the shoulders of the farmers, and putting a premium upon the incontinence and thriftlessness of the labourers. This method of relief was general from about 1795 to 1834, in fact until the enactment of the New Poor Law. Employers of labour, manufacturing as well as agricultural, put down wages in many parts of the country to what was simply a starvation point, knowing that an allowance would be made to the labourers, upon the {189} magistrates’ orders, out of the poor rates. The wages actually paid to able-bodied men were frequently only five or six shillings a week, but relief to the amount of four, five, six, or seven shillings a week, according to the size of the man’s family, was given out of the rates. Such a system could not fail to have a permanently disastrous influence upon the moral and social condition of those who suffered from it, taking from them all self-reliance, all hope, all incentives to improving their position in life. And as a matter of fact its ill-effects, especially in agricultural districts, are even yet apparent.

§ 3. Ограничения на труд

—What made the condition of the labourers worse still, was the fact that they could neither go from one place to another to seek work, nor could they combine in industrial partnership for their mutual interests. The law of settlement effectually prevented migration of labourers from one parish to another. It began with the Statute of 1662, which allowed a pauper to obtain relief only from that parish where he had his settlement, “settlement” being defined as forty days’ residence without interruption. There were many variations and complications of this Statute made in ensuing reigns, but it remained substantively the same till it was mitigated by the Poor Law of 1834. The law of settlement was further strengthened by what are called the Combination Laws, which prevented workmen from coming together to deliberate over their various industrial interests, or to gain a rise in wages. “We have no Acts of Parliament,” said Adam Smith, with justice, “against combining to lower the price of work, but many against combining to raise it.” Elsewhere he describes the inevitable result of a strike as being “nothing but the punishment or ruin of the {190} ringleaders.” The workmen had, of course, no political influence: they could only show their discontent by riots and rick-burnings. Yet the time of their deliverance was at hand.

Я уже упоминал о связи между Французской революцией и промышленной революцией. Первая, правда, напугала наших государственных деятелей, но она придала смелости рабочему классу и заставила его страстно надеяться на свободу. Вторая революция все теснее концентрировала людей в крупных промышленных центрах, отделяла их от работодателей и пробуждала дух антагонизма, который неизбежен, когда и работодатели, и наемные работники не осознают фундаментального единства своих интересов. Теперь, везде, где скапливаются большие массы людей, происходит быстрое распространение новых идей, новых политических энтузиазмов и социальной активности. И несмотря на отсутствие избирательного права, ремесленники наших крупных городов заставили услышать свои голоса; несомненно, яростно и грубо, через бунты и беспорядки, но у них не было другого способа. В парламенте нашлись государственные деятели, в основном ученики Адама Смита, которые выразили требования рабочих, и благодаря их усилиям в 1824 году были отменены законы о коалициях. Но следующий год доказал, насколько ненадежным было положение рабочих без права голоса. Работодатели смогли убедить парламент в 1825 году дискредитировать себя, объявив незаконным любое действие, которое могло стать результатом тех обсуждений рабочих, которые они легализовали годом ранее. Но все же им было позволено совещаться — как бы странно это сейчас ни казалось, что для этого требовалось разрешение, — и их обсуждения существенно помогли принятию Билля о реформе 1832 года. Ибо как только класс может заставить услышать свой голос, даже если он не может действовать напрямую, другие классы будут принимать это высказывание во внимание.

§ 4. Рост профсоюзов

—But the Reform Bill, though a great step forward, somewhat belied the hopes that had roused the enthusiasm of its industrial supporters. The workmen found that, after all, it merely threw additional power into the hands of the upper and middle classes. Their own position was hardly improved. Then they had to make their voice heard again, and urged on by the misery and poverty in which they were still struggling, they demanded the Charter. The Chartist movement (1838 to 1848) seems to us at the present time almost ludicrously moderate in its demands. The vote by ballot, the abolition of property qualifications for electors, and the payment of parliamentary members were the main objects of its leaders, though they asked for universal suffrage as well. Nevertheless people were frightened, especially when the Chartists wished to present a monster petition at Westminster on April 10th, 1848, and military and police intervention was called in. The movement collapsed, and finally died away when the repeal of the Corn Laws had restored prosperity to the nation. Many have laughed at the working classes for trying to gain some infinitesimal fraction of political power. But the working classes are generally acute, and they saw that this was the ultimate means of material prosperity, nor has the event failed to justify their belief. In the somewhat quieter times which followed the collapse of the Chartists, their influence went on extending, and though the workmen ceased to agitate they were not idle, but continued steadily organizing themselves in Trade Unions. These institutions were not, however, recognized by law till a Commission was appointed, including Sir William Erle, {192} Lord Elcho, and Thomas Hughes, to inquire into their constitution and objects (February, 1867). Their Report disclosed the existence of intimidation with occasional outrages—as was natural when the men had no other way of giving utterance to their wishes. But Trade Unionism triumphed. The Unions were legalized in 1871, and this Act was further extended and amended in 1876. The old law of master and servant had passed away, and employer and employed were now on an equal political footing. It has remained for the men by silent strength to place themselves on an equal footing in other respects. Meanwhile the employers entered into a like combination by forming the National Federation of Employers in 1873, and the long struggle of the working classes for industrial freedom did not result in any lessening of the feeling of class antagonism. But Trade Unions have done much to gain a greater measure of material prosperity for the working classes, and to give them a larger share than formerly in the wealth which the workers have helped to create. When we look back upon the last half-century we can only wonder that trade unionists have been so moderate in their demands, considering the misery and poverty amidst which they grew up.

§ 5. Рабочий класс пятьдесят лет назад

—For it must continually be remembered that the condition of the mass of the people in the first half of this century was one of the deepest depression. Several writers have commented upon this, and have taken occasion to remark upon the great progress in the prosperity of the working classes since that time. It is true they have progressed since then, but it has hardly been progress so much as a return to the state of things about 1760 or 1770. The fact has been that after the introduction of the new industrial {193} system the condition of the working classes rapidly declined; wages were lower and prices were higher; till at length the lowest depth of poverty was reached about the beginning of the reign of Queen Victoria. Since then their condition has been gradually improving, partly owing to the philanthropic labours of men like Lord Shaftesbury, still more owing to the combined action of working men themselves. To quote the expression of that celebrated statistician, Mr Giffen: “it is a matter of history that pauperism was nearly breaking down the country half-a-century ago. The expenditure on poor-law relief early in the century and down to 1830–31 was nearly as great at times as it is now. With half the population in the country that there now is, the burden of the poor was the same.” The following table will show the actual figures of English pauperism at a time when the wealth of the nation was advancing by leaps and bounds. It will be noticed that the rate was highest in 1818, which was shortly after the close of the great Continental War, but fell rapidly after 1830, and since 1841 the rate per head of population has not been much more than six or seven shillings.

Year | Population | Poor Rate raised | Rate per head of Population
| s. | d.
1760 |  7,000,000 | £1,250,000 |  3 |  7 
1784 |  8,000,000 | £2,000,000 |  5 |  0 
1803 |  9,216,000 | £4,077,000 |  8 | 11 
1818 | 11,876,000 | £7,870,000 | 13 |  3 
1820 | 12,046,000 | £7,329,000 | 12 |  2 
1830 | 13,924,000 | £6,829,000 | 10 |  9 
1841 | 15,911,757 | £4,760,929 |  5 | 11⁠¾

Но одни лишь цифры пауперизма, какими бы значимыми они ни были, не могут дать представления об огромном количестве страданий и деградации, которые выпали на долю большинства рабочего класса. Историю их страданий можно прочитать в «синих книгах» и отчетах различных комиссий, которые исследовали состояние промышленной жизни на фабриках, шахтах и в мастерских в период между 1833 и 1842 годами; или же ее можно прочитать на жгучих страницах книги Энгельса «Положение рабочего класса в Англии в 1844 году», которая представляет собой не что иное, как сочувственное резюме фактов, изложенных в официальных документах. Мы слышим о детях и молодых людях на фабриках, которых переутомляли и били, словно рабов; о болезнях и деформациях, встречающихся только в промышленных районах; о грязных, жалких жилищах, где люди ютятся вместе, как дикие звери; мы слышим о девушках и женщинах, работающих под землей в темных недрах угольных шахт, таскающих грузы угля в вагонетках там, где не могли пройти лошади, и запряженных в них, ползающих по подземным путям, словно вьючные животные. Везде мы находим жестокость и угнетение, и во многих случаях рабочие были лишь рабами, обязанными выполнять приказы своего хозяина под страхом увольнения и голодной смерти. Свобода у них была только на словах; свобода голодать и умирать; но не свобода говорить, и тем более не свобода действовать как граждане свободного государства. Их часто даже заставляли покупать еду по непомерным ценам на свои скудные заработки в лавке, принадлежащей работодателю, где, излишне говорить, они платили самую высокую цену за самые худшие товары. Это стало возможным благодаря системе оплаты труда рабочих талонами или заказами в определенные лавки. Это называлось «трак» (система оплаты натурой); и в конечном итоге было осуждено английским законом (1887 г.).

Но хотя на самом деле страдания рабочего класса усугублялись вымогательством работодателей и пристрастностью законодательного органа, который запрещал им принимать общие меры для самообороны, все же существовала одна великая причина, лежавшая в основе всех этих второстепенных причин, и это была война на континенте, закончившаяся в 1815 году. «Тысячи домов голодали, чтобы найти средства для великой войны, расходы на которую фактически покрывались трудом тех, кто продолжал работать и зарабатывать богатство, которое щедро — и под хороший процент для кредиторов — расточалось правительством. Огромные налоги и гигантские займы поступали из запасов накопленного капитала, который работодатели выжимали из скудной заработной платы рабочих или который землевладельцы извлекали из растущих доходов своих арендаторов. На внешний взгляд, борьба велась армиями и генералами; в действительности же ресурсы, на которых основывалась борьба, были лишениями и голодом рабочих, переутомленным и недоедающим детским трудом, низкооплачиваемой и нестабильной занятостью мужчин».

53 Роджерс: «Шесть веков труда и заработной платы».

§ 6. Заработная плата

—And indeed if we examine some of the wages actually paid at the beginning of this century, and again at the beginning of Queen Victoria’s reign, we shall find that they were excessively low. The case of common

Year | Weavers’ Wages* | Wheat, per qr.*
1802 | 13s. 10d.  |  67s.
1806 | 10s.  6d.  |  76s.
1812 |  6s.  4d.  | 122s.
1816 |  5s.  2d.  |  76s.
1817 |  4s.  3⁠½d. |  94s.
| * From Leone Levi. | * From Porter’s Progress.

ткачей была особенно тяжелой в годы великой войны и служит интересным примером вымогательства капиталистических мануфактурщиков того периода. Для сравнения я привожу выше цену на пшеницу и еженедельную заработную плату в те же годы; ибо цена на пшеницу является полезным стандартом, по которому можно оценить реальную стоимость заработной платы, даже если она не потребляется в больших количествах. Видно, что заработная плата была на самом низком уровне сразу после окончания войны, в то время как, с другой стороны, цены на пшеницу были почти голодными. После этого, однако, и до 1830 года заработная плата ткачей снова выросла, так как новые прядильные машины увеличили предложение пряжи гораздо быстрее, чем можно было найти ткачей для ее ткачества, и, следовательно, спрос на ткачей возрос, и они получали пропорционально более высокую заработную плату, при этом средний заработок ткачей шерстяных тканей с 1830 по 1845 год составлял от 14 до 17 шиллингов в неделю, а ткачей камвольных тканей — от 11 до 14 шиллингов в неделю. Но даже эти ставки прискорбно низки.

Заработная плата прядильщиков также была очень низкой, так как работу в основном выполняли женщины и дети, хотя, когда нанимаются мужчины, они получают довольно хорошую плату. Следующая таблица ясно покажет различные ставки, и будет видно, что здесь заработная плата неуклонно падает до 1845 года из-за быстрого производства новых машин. Женская

Spinners | 1808–15 | 1815–23 | 1823–30 | 1830–36 | 1836–45
Мужчины | 24/ to 26/ | 24/ to 26/ | 24/ to 26/ | 24/ to 26/ | 24/ to 26/
Женщины | 13/ to 14/ | 13/ to 14/ | 11/ to 12/ |  8/ to 10/ |  7/ to 9/
Дети | 4⁠/⁠6 to 5⁠/⁠6 | 4⁠/⁠6 to 5⁠/⁠6 | 4⁠/⁠6 to 5⁠/⁠6 | 4⁠/⁠6 to 5⁠/⁠6 | 4⁠/⁠6 to 5⁠/⁠6

заработная плата демонстрирует падение наиболее заметно, при этом детский труд уже в некоторой степени затронут положениями фабричных актов. Что касается сельскохозяйственного рабочего, то он также страдал от низкой заработной платы, средний показатель которой до 1845 года составлял от 8 до 10 шиллингов в неделю, и, как правило, ближе к первой, чем ко второй цифре. Фактически, материальное положение рабочего класса Англии в это время находилось в самых низких глубинах бедности и деградации, и этот факт всегда следует помнить при сравнении заработной платы сегодняшнего дня с заработной платой прошлых времен. Некоторые люди, которые должны были бы знать лучше, очень любят рассуждать о «прогрессе рабочего класса» за последние семьдесят лет; и юбилеи нашей покойной королевы, конечно, предоставили широкую возможность — которой полностью воспользовались — для таких оптимистов поговорить о статистике. Но чтобы правильно сравнить заработную плату, мы должны вернуться более чем на сто лет назад, ибо семьдесят лет назад английский рабочий переживал период страданий, который, будем искренне надеяться, ради нации в целом, больше не повторится. Интересно отметить, хотя здесь невозможно подробно остановиться на этой теме, что в тех отраслях, где рабочие объединились после отмены законов о заговорах в 1825 году и изменения закона о поселениях, заработная плата заметно выросла. Плотники, каменщики и шахтеры служат примерами такого роста. Но там, где не было объединения, примечательно, насколько мало выросла заработная плата по сравнению с увеличением производства современного рабочего и более высокой стоимостью жизни, и рабочий не всегда получает свою должную долю богатства, которое он помогает создавать. О результатах объединений рабочих мы, однако, скажем несколько слов в заключительной главе этой небольшой книги. Но был один класс людей, которому по разным причинам удалось получить очень большую долю национального богатства, и который богател и процветал, пока рабочий класс почти голодал. Несмотря на войну за рубежом и бедность дома, арендная плата землевладельцев увеличивалась, а сельскохозяйственный интерес получил стимул, который привел к вполне естественной реакции. Рост арендной платы и недавний упадок современного сельского хозяйства станут темой нашей следующей главы.

54 Стр. 189 и примечание 18, стр. 251.

ГЛАВА VI ПОДЪЕМ И УПАДОК СОВРЕМЕННОГО СЕЛЬСКОГО ХОЗЯЙСТВА

§ 1. Услуги, оказанные крупными землевладельцами

—Although there have been occasions in our industrial history when one is compelled to admit that the deeds of the landed gentry have called for anything but admiration, we yet must not overlook the great services which this class rendered to the agricultural interest in the eighteenth century. I have already mentioned that the development and the success of English agriculture in the half-century or more before the Industrial Revolution was remarkable and extensive; and this success was due to the efforts of the landlords in introducing new agricultural methods. They took an entirely new departure and adopted a new system. It consisted, as I mentioned before, in getting rid of bare fallows and poor pastures by substituting root-crops and artificial grasses. The fourfold or Norfolk rotation of crops was introduced, the landlords themselves taking an interest in and superintending the cultivation of their land and making useful experiments upon it. The number of these experimenting landlords was very considerable, and in course of time the tenant farmers followed them, and thus agricultural knowledge and skill became more and more widely diffused. The reward of the landlords came rapidly. They soon found their production of corn doubled and their general produce trebled. They were able to exact higher rents, for they had taught their {199} tenants how to make the land pay better, and of course claimed a share of the increased profit. About the years 1740–50 the rent of land, according to Jethro Tull, was 7s. an acre; some twenty years or more afterwards Arthur Young found the average rent of land to be 10s. an acre, and thought that in many cases it ought to have been more. It is probable that the landlord would not have done so much for agriculture if he had not expected to make something out of his experiments; but the fact that he was animated by an enlightened self-interest does not make his work any the less valuable. The pioneers of this improved agriculture came from Norfolk, it being uncertain whether Lord Townshend or Mr Coke, the descendant of the great Chief Justice, was the first. But this much is certain: that Lord Lovell, one of the most distinguished and energetic of the new agricultural school, found that his profits under the new system were 36 per cent., as his accounts, still preserved for the year 1731–32, and a copy of which is extant, bear witness. The new agriculture indeed brought with it a revolution as important in its way as the Industrial Revolution.﻿55 One of the chief features of the change, the enclosures, has been already commented upon. The enclosure of the common fields was beneficial, and to a certain extent justifiable, for the tenants paid rent for them to the lord of the manor. But it was effected at a great loss to the smaller tenant, and when his common of pasture was enclosed as well, he was greatly injured, while the agricultural labourer was permanently disabled. But it was not unnatural that enclosures should rapidly be made when farming, and especially grain-growing, had become so profitable. The reason for the profits of agriculture at this period we can now examine.

55 См. «Промышленность в Англии», стр. 430.

§ 2. Стимул, вызванный экспортными премиями

—The Government of the year 1660 had imposed heavy protective duties upon the importation of grain from abroad, in fact prohibiting it except when wheat was at famine prices, as it happened to be in 1662, when it was 62s. 9⁠½d. a quarter, the ordinary price being 41s. But it did not reach this price again for many years afterwards. The Government of 1688, not content with the foregoing protective measure, added a bounty of 5s. per qr. upon the export of corn from England. But the effect of this bounty was not felt for several years, for happily, soon after the passing of the Bounty Act, a series of plentiful harvests occurred, and corn was very cheap. There were consequently loud outcries from the landlords about agricultural distress, which merely meant that the people at large were enjoying cheap food. The aim of the bounty on corn had been to raise prices by encouraging its export, and thus rendered it scarcer and dearer in England. As a matter of fact, it had the opposite effect, for it served as a premium upon which the wheat-grower could speculate, and thus induced him to sow a larger breadth of his land with wheat. The premium upon production caused producers to grow more than the market required, and so prices fell. Thus, happily for the consumer, the Corn Laws and the bounty were harmless during the greater part of the eighteenth century, for farmers competed one against the other sufficiently to keep down prices. But the inevitable Nemesis of protective measures came at the end of the century, when population was growing with unexampled rapidity and required all the corn it could get. Then the prices of corn rose to a famine pitch, while the duty upon its importation prevented it coming into the country in sufficient quantities. The landlords received enormous rents, and {201} the farmers did not mind paying them, for the profits of both were immense. But meanwhile the mass of the people was frequently on the verge of starvation, and at length the country perceived that things could not be allowed to go on any longer in this way.﻿56 The manufacturing capitalists of the day supported the leaders of the people in their agitation, for they hoped that cheap food might mean low wages. By their aid the landed interest was overcome, and in 1846 the Corn Laws, by the efforts of Cobden and his followers, were finally repealed. Nevertheless the British farmer and his landlords, forgetting, it seems, the days when they got high prices by the starvation of the poor, still frequently clamour for the re-imposition of the incubus of protection.

56 По закону 1773 года ввоз иностранной пшеницы был запрещен, пока английская пшеница стоила не более 48 шиллингов за квартер. В 1791 году была введена пошлина в 24 шиллинга 3 пенса, пока английская пшеница стоила менее 50 шиллингов за квартер; если английская пшеница стоила более 50 шиллингов, пошлина составляла 2 шиллинга 6 пенсов. Однако земельные интересы все еще не были удовлетворены. В 1804 году ввоз иностранного зерна был практически запрещен, если английская пшеница стоила менее 63 шиллингов за квартер; в 1815 году запрет был продлен до тех пор, пока цена на английскую пшеницу не достигала 80 шиллингов за квартер. Затем последовали агитации и бунты 1817–1819 годов, после чего страна погрузилась в отчаяние до образования Лиги против хлебных законов в 1839 году.

§ 3. Сельскохозяйственные улучшения

—The high prices gained by farmers before the repeal of the Corn Laws had, however, one good effect in increasing the development of agricultural skill and of agricultural improvements. The heavy soils of the London clay had at one time been laid out in pasture lands, as being useless for turnip-growing or for root-crops. The corn duties, however, caused these pastures to be broken up for the sake of growing wheat, barley, and clover; the soil was more thoroughly drained, and mangolds were grown as a rotation crop, so that the {202} area of bare fallow was much diminished, while the quantity of food, both for men and cattle, was much increased. In recent years much of this very land has reverted to pasture for dairy-farming. Besides the increase of the area under wheat, special attention was given to artificial manures. The use of bones, at first very roughly broken, became recognized. About 1840–41 dissolved bones and Peruvian guano came into use, particularly in growing turnips, and these were followed very soon by mineral phosphates, and more recently by nitrate of soda and sulphate of ammonia. After the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846 the prospects of English agriculture began to look rather gloomy, or at least the farmers thought so. But the tremendous development of trade and population, the stimulus given to all kinds of commerce by the employment of steam, not only for transit but as a motive power for machinery, had their natural influence upon agriculture, and the farmer did well. Improved agricultural machinery came into use, by which farm work was facilitated, and the outlay for labour was lessened. Makers of these machines showed great enterprise and skill, and many altogether new appliances were placed in the farmer’s hands. Steam power has come to be used with advantage in digging, stirring and harrowing the ground, though it has not been such a success in ploughing. Altogether English agriculture made great strides, and was quite prosperous in the years 1870–73, when the general prosperity of the industrial classes was increasing, and people did not mind paying fairly high prices for farm produce. But afterwards a period of depression set in. A succession of bad years, notably the wet and sunless season of 1879 which ruined many a farmer, together with excessive rain and deficient sunshine, most seriously injured the average harvests. {203} Foreign competition in wheat, imported cattle, and butchers’ meat largely increased. The price of wheat fell between 1880 and 1886 from 50s. to 30s. a qr.; between 1884 and 1887 beef fell from 80s. to 55s. per cwt.; and other produce also fell in proportion. Thousands of farmers were then ruined, and agriculture generally suffered a severe and prolonged depression, and much arable land was then laid down again as pasture, indeed some went altogether out of cultivation. Meanwhile the political false prophets were going about with their usual nostrums, and the flags of Protection and even of Bimetallism were both waved before the bewildered eyes of the British farmer, as if they were signals of salvation.

§ 4. Причина упадка. Рост арендной платы

—Now it is perfectly obvious to an impartial observer of economic facts, that an industry so flourishing as English agriculture was not very many years ago, could not have suffered so severe a collapse unless there had been some great underlying cause, beside the ordinary complaints of bad harvests and foreign competition. Bad harvests are not peculiar to England, and foreign competition, however keen it may be, has first to overstep a very considerable natural margin of protection in the cost of carriage. It costs, for instance, according to that great authority Sir James Caird, 9s. per quarter to transport American wheat from Chicago to London. It is clear that besides these, there must have been other influences of considerable importance, to cause English agriculture to be, in spite of its apparent prosperity, in so insecure a position that it should have sunk to the depressed condition in which it even now remains. We have not to look far for one cause. It is the lack of agricultural capital.

Но как, можно естественно спросить, получилось так, что английский фермер после очень благоприятного периода перед упадком стал страдать от нехватки капитала, нехватки, которая делает почти невозможным для него должным образом обрабатывать свою землю? Ответ прост. Его капитал был значительно уменьшен, верно, хотя и не всегда медленно, огромным увеличением арендной платы. Землевладельцы восемнадцатого века сделали английского фермера передовым аграрием в мире, но их преемники девятнадцатого века подняли его арендную плату непропорционально. Таков, во всяком случае, вердикт выдающихся сельскохозяйственных авторитетов; и землевладельцы были вынуждены ради собственного блага снизить непомерную арендную плату, которую они получали несколько лет назад. К сожалению, внимание других слоев общества до недавнего времени было отвлечено от состояния нашего сельского хозяйства процветанием наших мануфактур. Но эти две отрасли промышленности, производственная и сельскохозяйственная, тесно взаимозависимы и должны страдать или процветать вместе.

Возможно, как я отмечал в другом месте, существуют определенные экономические теории, которые способствовали упадку английского сельского хозяйства. Это рикардианская теория ренты и сомнительный «закон убывающей отдачи». Они заставили многих людей думать, что этот упадок неизбежен, и отвлекли их внимание от главной, хотя и не единственной, причины проблемы — а именно, от увеличения арендной платы. Но отложив в сторону эти сомнительные теории, мы можем более продуктивно заняться рассмотрением фактов дела. Я уже упоминал, что во времена Талла, в начале восемнадцатого века, средняя арендная плата за сельскохозяйственную землю составляла 7 шиллингов за акр, а ко времени Юнга, к концу века, она поднялась до 10 шиллингов за акр. Распространение сельскохозяйственных навыков вызвало рост прибыли, и надежда на участие в этой прибыли побудила фермеров давать конкурентную арендную плату, которую впоследствии землевладельцы старались взыскать в полном объеме и часто увеличивать. Фермеры могли платить более высокую арендную плату благодаря низкому уровню заработной платы, выплачиваемой их рабочим, уровню, который земельное дворянство, как мировые судьи, сдерживало своими оценками. В 1799 году мы видим, что земля приносит почти 20 шиллингов за акр; в 1812 году та же земля приносит более 25 шиллингов; в 1830 году она все еще была на уровне около 25 шиллингов, но к 1850 году она поднялась до 38 шиллингов 8 пенсов, что было примерно в четыре раза больше среднего показателя Артура Юнга. Действительно, 2 фунта стерлингов за акр не были редкостью для хорошей земли несколько лет назад (1885 г.), при этом средний рост английской арендной платы составил не менее 26,5 процентов в период между 1854 и 1879 годами. Теперь, такая арендная плата была огромной и могла быть выплачена только в очень хорошие годы. В обычные годы, и тем более в плохие, она выплачивалась из капитала фермера. Этот процесс оплаты облегчался тем фактом, что фермер этого столетия не вел свои счета должным образом, что является плодотворным источником конечного зла, часто комментируемым сельскохозяйственными авторитетами; а также тем другим фактом, что даже когда он осознавал, что ведет свое хозяйство в убыток, немедленный убыток (около 10 или 15 процентов), связанный с выходом из своего владения, был в большинстве случаев достаточно велик, чтобы побудить его смириться с повышением арендной платы, чем явно терять так много своего капитала.

Невидимый процесс, однако, был столь же верным, если не столь немедленным. Результатом стало то, что средний капитал на акр, используемый сейчас в сельском хозяйстве, составляет всего около 4 или 5 фунтов стерлингов, вместо по крайней мере 10 фунтов стерлингов, как должно было бы быть, и фермер не может позволить себе платить за достаточное количество рабочей силы, так что сельскохозяйственное население серьезно сокращается. Ничто в современном сельском хозяйстве не является столь серьезным, как это сокращение сельского населения, и мы должны здесь посвятить несколько слов рассмотрению сельскохозяйственного рабочего и условий его существования.

57 Ср. статистику в моей статье в «Вестминстер Ревью», декабрь 1888 г., стр. 727.

58 Мои расчеты по этому вопросу можно найти в «Экономисте» от 28 апреля 1888 года, и они тесно совпадают с независимыми заявлениями, сделанными профессором Роджерсом.

§ 5. Рабочий и земля. Заработная плата

—It has been previously mentioned that the Industrial Revolution was accompanied by an equally important revolution in agriculture: the main features of the agrarian revolution being the consolidation of small into large farms, the introduction of new methods and machinery, the enclosure of common fields and waste lands, and discontinuance of the old open-field system, and finally the divorce of the labourer from the land. The consolidation of farms reduced the number of farmers, while the enclosures drove the labourers off the land, for it became almost impossible for them to exist on their low wages now that their old rights of keeping small cattle and geese upon the commons, of having a bit of land round their cottages, and other privileges were ruthlessly taken from them. They have retreated in large numbers into the towns and taken up other pursuits, or helped to swell the ranks of English pauperism. Before the Industrial and Agrarian Revolution, Arthur Young in 1769 estimated that out of a total population of 8,500,000 the agricultural class, “farmers (whether freeholders or leaseholders), their servants and labourers,” numbered no less than 2,800,000—i.e. over one-fourth of the total population. The number of those engaged in manufactures of all kinds he puts at 3,000,000. His figures may be taken as substantially correct, though perhaps not as accurate as a modern census. Now let us look at the agricultural population of to-day. The total number of males and females engaged as agricultural {207} wage-earners is only some 689,000﻿59—that is, very far below the numbers so engaged a century ago, while the proportion has sunk from one person in four to one in twenty-five concerned in agriculture. At the present time our fields have on the average only one man to cultivate twenty-seven acres of land—and that man is very badly paid for his trouble, be he farmer or labourer.

59 Цифры приведены за 1901 год и представляют собой падение на тридцать процентов с 1881 года.

Но не только численность сельскохозяйственного населения сократилась, но и рабочий, как правило, больше не имеет никакой доли в земле. Безусловно, сельскохозяйственный рабочий, по крайней мере на юге Англии, жил гораздо лучше в середине восемнадцатого века, чем его потомки в середине девятнадцатого. Фактически, примерно в 1850 году заработная плата во многих местах была даже ниже, чем в 1750 году, и едва ли в каком-либо графстве она была выше. Но тем временем почти все предметы первой необходимости, кроме хлеба, выросли в цене, и особенно выросла арендная плата, в то время как, с другой стороны, рабочий потерял многие из своих старых привилегий, ибо раньше его общинные права, помимо обеспечения его топливом, позволяли ему держать коров или свиней и домашнюю птицу на пустошах, а овец на парах и стерне, и он обычно мог выращивать свои собственные овощи и садовую продукцию. Все эти вещи составляли существенную прибавку к его номинальной заработной плате. Примерно в 1750 году его номинальная заработная плата составляла в среднем 8 или 10 шиллингов в неделю; в 1850 году она составляла в среднем только 10 или 12 шиллингов, хотя в последний период его номинальная заработная плата представляла все, что он получал, в то время как в первом она составляла лишь часть его общего дохода. С 1850 года, однако, даже сельскохозяйственная заработная плата выросла, и нынешний средний показатель составляет 13 или 14 шиллингов в неделю. Рост, какой бы он ни был, отчасти обусловлен профсоюзами, лидером и пропагандистом которых среди сельскохозяйственных рабочих был Джозеф Арч. Этот замечательный человек родился в 1826 году и в юности и зрелости видел время, когда сельскохозяйственный труд находился на самом низком уровне. Мало того, что заработная плата была низкой, составляя около 10 или 11 шиллингов в неделю, худшие пороки фабричной системы детского труда были перенесены на жизнь в полях. Филантропы, по-видимому, упустили из виду позорные условия системы работы в сельскохозяйственных бригадах, при которой некоторое количество детей и молодых людей собиралось по найму у своих родителей каким-нибудь надсмотрщиком или подрядчиком, который возил их по району в определенные сезоны года для работы на земле тех фермеров, которые хотели их нанять. Лица, составляющие бригаду, подвергались воздействию любой непогоды, не имея домов, куда можно было бы вернуться вечером, люди обоих полов размещались во время действия контракта в сараях, без всякой мысли о приличии или комфорте, в то время как дети часто страдали от всех грубых жестокостей, которые приходили в голову надсмотрщику за их трудом. Их плата, конечно, была жалкой, хотя бригады процветали в то время, когда фермеры и землевладельцы получали огромные прибыли. Но унизительная практика дешевого бригадного труда защищалась как необходимая для прибыльного сельского хозяйства; что означает, что арендаторы были слишком трусливы или слишком тупы, чтобы сопротивляться арендной плате, которую они не могли платить, кроме как используя пауперизированный и деградировавший труд. В такие времена вырос Джозеф Арч, и только в 1872 году (в то время, как мы помним, британские фермеры преуспевали) он начал агитацию, которая привела к созданию Национального союза сельскохозяйственных рабочих. Его трудности в организации угнетенных рабочих были огромны, но он наконец преуспел, несмотря на негодование сельскохозяйственных работодателей. Его усилия уже многое сделали для улучшения материального положения рабочих, и заработная плата определенно выросла по этой и другим причинам. Но их, безусловно, нельзя назвать высокими.

§ 6. Современное состояние британского сельского хозяйства

—It remains to notice briefly the causes which are now influencing our agricultural industry, and to point out in what direction we may expect a revival from the present state of depression. Besides the great fact of the increase of rents we notice an increase of foreign competition, which is of comparatively recent date. Our competitors are mainly Russia, America, and last but by no means least, India. At the time of the Crimean War, and for some years subsequently, Russian competition ceased to exist. When it began it, standing alone, was not very serious, for America had not yet entered the field, and was prevented from doing so by the sanguinary struggles of the Civil War. High prices for grain prevailed therefore till some time after America had ceased her internal conflict, and it was only quite recently that much grain was grown for export in India. But since 1870 or so England has been supplied with grain from these three great agricultural lands, and the English farmer, no longer buoyed up at the expense of the rest of the community by protective measures, has found it impossible to grow wheat at a profit at the old rents. Many farmers have been ruined; and at Sir James Caird’s estimate (in 1886) the loss of the agricultural classes of all ranks in spendable income has been nearly £43,000,000 per annum. According to this well-known authority rents should therefore have been reduced by £22,800,000 instead of by much less than half that amount. Even now the aggregate rental is higher than it was before the Russian war. In course of time it is certain that the economic action of {210} supply and demand will bring rents down to something like their commercial value; meanwhile the English landlords, as Mr W. E. Bear remarks, have the choice between allowing their old tenants to be ruined first, and then accepting reduced rents, or granting reductions soon enough to save men in whom they have hitherto had some confidence as tenants. It will be necessary also to make important changes in the laws and customs of land tenure, so that our farmers may have complete security for their capital invested in improvements, and freedom of enterprise (e.g. in cropping and tilling), in order that they may do their best with the land. An extended system of small holdings and allotments, guaranteed by a thorough measure of Tenant Right, together with free trade in land as well as other commodities, would do much to place moderate farms within the reach of industrious and thrifty yeomen and labourers. Greater facilities for transit, including the abolition of the essentially protective system of preferential railway rates, would enable producers to put their produce with ease upon the home market, for English food requirements guarantee an enormous and steady demand at home for every scrap of food-stuff that the land is capable of producing. The farmer is slow to adapt himself to changed conditions, but a profitable future is open to him even if he gives up wheat-growing and betakes himself more to dairy-farming and market-gardening. But it may not be necessary for him to give up wheat, for it seems probable that the wheat area of the world, except in India, will not increase; since foreign farmers are beginning to find out that they cannot put wheat on the English market at the present low prices. People will see that it is desirable, and that ultimately it will be profitable, to recall capital and labour back to the land which it is evident that it has left; {211} and that it is the height of economic folly to rely, as some do, upon the extension of our manufacturing industries to counteract agricultural depression. Prosperous agriculture means for us prosperous manufactures, and from an economic point of view the interests of the plough and the loom are identical. Neither can be served by protective tinkering. Reforms of a totally different character are needed, foremost among which is a widespread reduction of rent, and a general rearrangement of the relations between landlord and tenant. It is on the face of it ridiculous to assert that, with an unequalled demand in the home market for all he can produce, the English farmer cannot find some means of making the land pay and pay well. But before he can do this he must spend more capital upon it than he has lately been able to do.

1890 INDUSTRIAL ENGLAND

Показывающая население и мануфактуры

Промышленные районы показаны наклонными линиями; крупные промышленные города — черными кружками; а наиболее густонаселенные графства закрашены темнее остальных. Можно заметить, что население с 1750 года значительно сместилось на север и северо-запад Англии, в то время как мануфактуры гораздо более сконцентрированы, чем раньше.

ГЛАВА VII СОВРЕМЕННАЯ ПРОМЫШЛЕННАЯ АНГЛИЯ

§ 1. Рост нашей промышленности

—We have now traced the industrial growth of England from the diffused beginnings of manufactures and agriculture in the isolated manors, and have seen how gradually towns grew up, commerce extended and markets arose, while manufacturers became organized in various centres and regulated by gilds. We have seen that for several centuries the back-bone of our national wealth was wool, but that in time we ceased to export it, and worked it up into cloth ourselves, thereby gaining great national wealth. We have seen, too, how our foreign trade, after its petty beginnings in the Middle Ages, took a fresh start {212} in the buccaneering days of the Elizabethan sea-captains and then rapidly developed, by means of the various great Companies, till England became commercially supreme throughout the world. From commercial beginnings we traced the rise of our Indian Empire, and the growth of the American colonies. Meanwhile at home there came an Industrial Revolution which, happening as it did at the moment that was politically most favourable to its growth, gave England a very useful start over all other European nations in manufacturing industries of all kinds, and enabled her to endure successfully the enormous burdens of the great Continental war. Now comes a time of still greater progress, economic as well as commercial, for the old restrictive barriers to trade are to be swept away, and a new economic policy is to be inaugurated.

§ 2. Состояние торговли в 1820 году

—If we now endeavour to gain some idea of the trade of the country soon after the war, we may look for a moment at its condition in 1820, just before Free Trade measures were begun. The official value of foreign and colonial imports was declared to be £32,000,000, which with a population of about 21,000,000 was at the rate of about thirty shillings a head. The exports of home produce amounted to some £36,000,000. The tonnage of shipping entering and leaving our harbours was 4,000,000 tons, of which 2,648,000 tons belonged to the United Kingdom and its dependencies. Steamers were, of course, as yet unknown. Professor Leone Levi calculates the trade of the country at not more than one-eighth or one-ninth of what it is at the present time. The wealth and comfort accessible to the people in general was much more limited, the consumption of tea, for instance, being only 1 lb. 4 oz. per head, and of sugar 18 lbs. a head. In fact, if we compare {213} the £244,710,066 worth of our exports in 1889–90 with the £32,000,000 worth in 1820 we see at once how gigantic has been the growth of our trade. In 1889, again, the imports (for the first ten months) were £347,985,087, which is more than nine times their value in 1820. But even at the beginning of the century England was far ahead of her old rival France, for French imports were only worth £8,000,000 in 1815, and her exports only about double that amount, or less than half England’s exports, which in that year rose to over £42,000,000 (official value).

§ 3. Начало свободной торговли

—Now the year 1820 is memorable not merely as showing the condition of our trade, but for the great enunciation of Free Trade principles which it witnessed. For in that year the London merchants formulated a noteworthy Petition praying that every restrictive regulation of trade, not imposed on account of the revenue, together with all duties of a protective character, might be at once repealed. At last the teachings of economists were being put into practice by men of business. The Edinburgh Chamber of Commerce sent up a similar petition; a Committee was appointed in Parliament to investigate the wishes of the petitioners of our two capitals; and it brought in a report thoroughly in agreement with the Free Trade principles of the merchants. In the following year Mr Huskisson,﻿60 the President of the Board of Trade, proposed the first measures of commercial reform, and one by one the restrictions upon our trade were removed. The most important of the new measures was the gradual alteration of the old Navigation Laws (cf. p. 130), finally culminating in their total repeal in 1849.

60 См. подробнее примечание 18, стр. 251.

Правда, в период с 1821 по 1830 год внешняя торговля Соединенного Королевства не демонстрировала значительного материального улучшения, но все же наблюдался устойчивый рост. Официальная стоимость импорта выросла с 30 000 000 до 46 000 000 фунтов стерлингов, а стоимость экспортируемых британских мануфактур — с 40 000 000 до 60 000 000 фунтов стерлингов. Но заявленная стоимость экспорта оставалась довольно стабильной на уровне около 37 000 000 фунтов стерлингов. Тем не менее, в самом Соединенном Королевстве торговля быстро росла, и увеличение богатства дало возможность для общего снижения налогов, и наши крайне напряженные финансы были приведены в порядок. Многие из вредных пошлин на сырье и товары британского производства — например, на сырой шелк, уголь, стекло, бумагу и мыло — были отменены, что принесло большую пользу нашим производственным отраслям.

§ 4. Революция в средствах передвижения

—Now, too, another great industrial revolution was effected. I refer to the introduction of railways, steam navigation, and the telegraph, which have done almost as much as the great inventions of the eighteenth century to revolutionize the commerce of the world. In 1830 the Liverpool and Manchester Railway was opened. In 1838 the first ocean passages to New York by steamship were accomplished by the Great Western from Bristol, and the Sirius from Cork; although ever since the beginning of the century small steamers and tugs had been used for coasting purposes, and on the River Clyde. In 1837 Cooke and Wheatstone patented the needle telegraph, and the Electric Telegraph Company was formed in 1846 for bringing the new inventions into general use. In 1840 the penny postage came into operation. Yet more recently the Suez Canal (1869) has shortened immensely the distance to the East. It is obvious to all how incalculably all these inventions and appliances {215} have aided the development, not only of English trade, but of the commerce of all the world.

§ 5. Современные разработки. Наши колонии

—Now I do not propose, in the limits of a little work like this, to go into a detailed account of the growth of commerce since these great modern inventions. There is ample material for the student in larger works; and the statistics of our progress may be consulted in the invaluable pages of Mr Giffen’s and Professor Leone Levi’s books. Here I can only indicate in the broadest outlines the chief features of the recent developments of industry. We have followed the industrial history of England up to a period more prolific in commercial events, and more remarkable for commercial progress than any that preceded it. The experiments and tentative measures of Mr Huskisson and other statesmen paved the way for a bolder and more assured policy on the part of subsequent governments, till at length Sir Robert Peel, urged on by the Anti-Corn Law League (p. 201), and stimulated by great famine in Ireland in 1845, openly adopted the principles of Free Trade. Under his leadership the Corn Laws were repealed (1846); the tariff was entirely remodelled, and the old protective restrictions abolished, Mr Gladstone’s Budget of 1853 being particularly memorable in this direction. A great increase of trade followed the inauguration of the policy which is always associated with the great name of Cobden,﻿61 and the wealth of the country was even further developed. The extension of the railway system was at the same time a cause and an effect of this development, and when the great Exhibition of 1851, the precursor of several others, was held, England was able to show to all the world her immense superiority in productive and manufacturing industries. {216} A further stimulus to trade was supplied by the discovery of gold in California and Australia (1847–51), which supplied a much-needed addition to the currency of the world. Meanwhile, since the war of American Independence, England had been building up a great colonial empire, and she had the sense not to attempt again to levy taxes upon her unwilling offspring. India was taken over from the East India Company (1858). The colonies of Canada and the Cape were gained by conquest; those of Australia and New Zealand were the result of spontaneous settlement. The two former were captured from the French and Dutch, but of the second of them at least we have not made a commercial or even a political success; nor are we likely to do so unless we can contrive to keep on good terms with the original settlers, and to allow no misplaced sentiment about native races to disturb cordial relations between Europeans. As regards our Australasian colonies, they have grown far beyond the expectations of former generations, and gained for themselves entire political freedom, though they have chosen to use it chiefly in carrying on a one-sided war of hostile protective tariffs against their mother-country. As, however, they owe English capitalists a good deal of money, the interest on which is paid in colonial goods, there is a strong commercial bond of union between us and them; a bond which protectionists in England are strangely anxious to break, by placing unnatural obstacles upon the payment in goods of the interest due upon colonial loans.

61 См. примечание 16, стр. 250, о его французском договоре.

§ 6. Англия и войны других наций

—But besides the extension of our colonial relations, English trade has benefited by the quarrels of her competitors. The prostration of Continental nations after 1815 precluded much competition till almost the middle of the century, and {217} then the Crimean War broke out (1854–56). As mentioned before, this war gave a great stimulus to our agriculture, and had a similar effect upon our manufactures. The Indian Mutiny which followed it did not much affect our trade, but it rendered necessary the deposition of the East India Company and the assumption of government by the Crown (1858),﻿62 and thus eventually served to put our relations to that vast and rich empire upon a much more satisfactory and profitable basis. About the same time the Chinese wars of 1842 and 1857, regrettable as they were, established our commercial relations with the East generally upon a firm footing, and since then our trade with Eastern nations has largely developed. Then came the Civil War in America (1861–65), after which there was an urgent demand for English products to replace the waste caused by this severe conflict. The Civil War was succeeded by a series of short European wars, chiefly undertaken for the sake of gaining a frontier, as was the war waged by Prussia and Austria upon Denmark (1864), followed by another struggle between the two former allies (1866). Then in 1870–71 all Europe was shaken by the tremendous fight between France and Germany, and since then the Continental nations have occupied themselves in keeping up an armed peace at an expense almost equal to that of actual warfare. All their conflicts have arrested their industrial development, to their own detriment but to England’s great advantage. Not content however with that, they increase their difficulties by a dogged protectionism. As a result, they are far poorer in general wealth than our own land, and only succeed in competing with us by means of underpaid and overworked labour. But the labourer will not {218} always consent to be overworked and underpaid, and signs are not wanting that his discontent is fast ripening into something more dangerous.

62 См. примечание 17, стр. 250.

§ 7. Нынешние трудности. Коммерческие депрессии

—But although English commerce has reached a height of prosperity considerably above that of other nations, it has not been and is not now without serious occasional difficulties. It has been throughout the century visited at more or less periodic intervals by severe commercial crises. In the earlier portion of the century they occurred in the years 1803, –10, –15, –18, –25, and –36; and were short, sharp, and severe. Since 1837 they have occurred at regular periods of about ten years, namely in 1847, –57, –66, –73, and –82; latterly depression has been most persistent, though with short cessations for special industries. In the last year or two, however, trade has again revived, and on the whole we may now (1896) be said to be enjoying a fair measure of prosperity.

Причины таких депрессий в торговле различны и не всегда очевидны. Они являются, так сказать, дезорганизацией промышленности, возникающей в значительной степени из-за ошибочных расчетов со стороны тех «капитанов индустрии», чье raison d’être (смысл существования) заключается в их способности интерпретировать меняющиеся требования на великом современном рынке цивилизованного мира. Ошибка в их расчетах, небольшая ошибка относительно того, как долго продлится спрос на определенный класс товаров, или относительно количества тех, кто в них нуждается, неизбежно приводит к перенасыщению рынка, к случаю того, что называется (ошибочно) «перепроизводством»; и за этим столь же неизбежно следует период депрессии, иногда оживляемый отчаянными попытками некоторых производителей продать свои товары любой ценой. При таком огромном поле, как международный рынок, не приходится удивляться, что такие ошибки отнюдь не редки, и не кажется, что их можно избежать при нынешней неорганизованной и чисто конкурентной промышленной системе. Они усугубились в Англии верой в то, что наши лучшие клиенты находятся на внешних рынках, и важность устойчивого, хорошо налаженного и хорошо понятного внутреннего рынка не осознается в полной мере. «Фунт внутренней торговли более значим для производственной промышленности, чем тридцать шиллингов или два фунта внешней». Теперь, одной из важнейших отраслей нашей внутренней торговли должно быть снабжение аграриев мануфактурными товарами в обмен на продовольствие. Но когда покупательная способность этого класса общества упала на целых 43 000 000 фунтов стерлингов в год, очевидно, что такая потеря клиентов должна серьезно повлиять на производителей. Опять же, немалая часть нашего внутреннего рынка должна состоять из покупок, совершаемых рабочим классом, однако капиталистическим производителям, по-видимому, не приходит в голову, что если они платят значительной части промышленных классов самую низкую возможную заработную плату и заставляют их работать самые долгие возможные часы, получая таким образом все возрастающее производство товаров, то рано или поздно придется ответить на вопрос: кто будет потреблять товары, произведенные таким образом?

§ 8. Нынешняя капиталистическая система. Внешние рынки

—The answer as far as the capitalist is concerned seems to be: foreign customers in new markets. English manufacturers and capitalists have consistently supported that policy which seemed likely to open up these new markets to their goods. For a long time, as we saw (p. 213), they occupied themselves very wisely in obtaining cheap raw material by passing enactments actuated by Free Trade principles and removing protective restrictions. Cheap raw material having thus been gained, and machinery having now been developed to such an extent as to {220} increase production quite incalculably, England sends her textile and other products all over the world. She seems to find it necessary to discover fresh markets every generation or so, in order that her vast output of commodities may be sold. This policy naturally receives the approval of those engaged in foreign commerce, and most of our wars with countries like China, Egypt, or Burmah, involve commercial interests. But as other foreign nations are also engaging more widely in external trade, the international struggle for new markets is liable to assume at any time a dangerous phase. To-day, indeed, the industrial history of our country seems to have reached a point when production under a purely capitalist system is overreaching itself. It must go on and on without ceasing, finding or fighting for an outlet for the wealth produced, lest the whole gigantic system of international commerce should break down by the mere weight of its own immensity. Meanwhile, English manufacturers are complaining of foreign competition in plaintive tones, which merely means that, whereas they thought some years ago that they had a complete monopoly in supplying the requirements of the world, they are now perceiving that they have not a monopoly at all, but only a good start, while other nations are already catching them up in the modern race for wealth.

§ 9. Перепроизводство и заработная плата

—With all this, too, we hear cries of over-production, a phrase which economically is meaningless, more especially at a time when a very large number of people in the civilized world are daily on the verge of starvation, when the paupers of every civilized country are numbered by thousands, and plenty of people who never complain have not enough clothes to wear and not enough food to eat. Wages are certainly better than they were fifty years ago, but no one who knows {221} the facts of the case will deny that for the average workman—I am not speaking of skilled artisans and the élite of the working classes—it is practically impossible to save anything out of his wages against old age or sickness. It is not the business of a historian to vituperate any particular class, but he may justly point out the mistakes to which classes have as a matter of history been liable. And the great mistake of the capitalist class in modern times has been to pay too little wages.﻿63 It is an old agricultural saying—I believe of Arthur Young’s—that one cannot pay too much for good land, or too little for bad land. The same remark applies to labour. Capitalist employers rarely make the mistake of paying too much for bad labour, but they have constantly, as a matter of history, committed the worse error of paying too little for good labour. At the beginning of this century, as I have shown, the coming of the capitalist and of the capitalist factory system, beneficial as it was ultimately to England, was followed by a time of unprecedented misery and poverty for those whom they employed. The day of the capitalist has come, and he has made full use of it. The day of the labourer will come when he has the wisdom, and, we may add, the self-denial, necessary for a right use of his opportunities.

63 Это сейчас не так верно, как было некоторое время назад.

§ 10. Сила труда. Профсоюзы и кооперация

—But the labourers of to-day are a very different class from their ancestors of fifty or seventy years ago. They have learnt, at least the most advanced among them, the power of combination, a remedy which at one time was forbidden them, but which is now fortunately once more theirs. The steady growth of Trade Unions and of Co-operative Societies has taught them habits of self-reliance and of thrift, and has made them {222} look more closely into the economic conditions of industry. These unions and societies do not yet embrace all the workmen of England, but they contain the best and worthiest of them, and their members are able to preserve a certain independence in treating with their employers. The power of capital is now opposed by the strength of united labour, and some of the great strikes of recent years have shown how great this united strength may be. But the power of labour may often in such cases degenerate into what readily becomes its weakness; and in any event, the attitude of mutual distrust and hostility between employer and employed is one which those who have the best interests of labour at heart cannot fail to deplore. It is true that the labourer can look back in his history to times when the power of his employer was used too selfishly and he himself was miserably oppressed. The miseries of the early days of the Industrial Revolution, the pauperism of agricultural labour in the early days of the nineteenth century, the sad conditions of children’s employment at the beginning of Queen Victoria’s reign—all these show how the greed of gain has rendered masters callous to their workpeople’s welfare. But it must be remembered also that in many cases the workpeople themselves were by no means always anxious for the improvement of these conditions; and both masters and men have been slow to recognize the essential identity of interest, and the equal rights, of Capital and Labour. If the great principle of mutual interest and co-operation between employer and employed were more fully acted upon, then the industrial history of our country would enter upon a new era of well-founded prosperity.

ГЛАВА VIII НОВАЯ ЭПОХА, 1897–1911

§ 1. Промышленная экспансия

—It is impossible in the compass of a brief chapter to deal otherwise than in the barest outline with the industrial developments of the last fourteen years. The period opens with the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria, includes the whole reign of her son, King Edward the Seventh, and closes in the Coronation year of her grandson, George the Fifth. From one point of view the country has during this time made marvellous advances in general prosperity. The population, indeed, which according to the returns of 1911 stands at the figure of 36,075,269 for England and Wales, shows a slower rate of progress than for any other decennial period since the institution of the census in 1801; but in so far as the diminished birth-rate is due to a higher standard of living among the people, such a slackening is itself a token of material well-being. And judging by the ordinarily accepted standards neither the accumulated wealth nor the productivity of our nation has ever before attained so great a height.

Общая сумма дохода, подлежащая обзору Департамента внутренних доходов в 1907–1908 годах (последний год, за который имеются отчеты), впервые составила более 1 000 000 000 фунтов стерлингов, в то время как чистая сумма, доступная для налогообложения, составила более 693 000 000 фунтов стерлингов против 525 000 000 фунтов стерлингов в 1897–1898 годах. Публичные заявки на капитал, зарегистрированные в Лондоне в 1910 году, достигли общей суммы 267 439 100 фунтов стерлингов, огромной суммы, которая превышает все предыдущие рекорды более чем на 75 000 000 фунтов стерлингов, и (помимо большого количества незарегистрированных частных инвестиций) показывает процветание предприятий внутри страны и количество избыточного капитала, доступного для инвестирования за рубежом.

Заработная плата также, которая снижалась с 1901 по 1905 год, все же показывает заметный рост за весь рассматриваемый период, хотя этот рост, к сожалению, в значительной степени номинальный из-за одновременного роста цен и арендной платы за жилье.

Как судоходство, так и железнодорожный транспорт претерпели значительное расширение: статистика внутренних перевозок является главной среди наших немногих данных относительно прогресса внутренней торговли. Внешняя торговля, которую «человек с улицы» под влиянием недавних споров стал считать главным критерием промышленного прогресса, после побития всех предыдущих рекордов в 1907 году, снова превзошла саму себя в 1910 году. Наш общий импорт за этот год составил 678 440 173 фунта стерлингов, а наш экспорт британской продукции составил 430 589 811 фунтов стерлингов. Сравнение с 1897 годом, когда стоимость нашего импорта составляла 451 028 960 фунтов стерлингов, а нашего экспорта — 294 174 118 фунтов стерлингов, показывает, насколько значительным был рост объема нашей внешней торговли. Примечательной особенностью является рост показателей реэкспорта, которые в 1910 году впервые превысили 100 000 000 фунтов стерлингов, тем самым свидетельствуя о сохранении нашей позиции как великого перевозчика и транспортного агента для всего мира.

§ 2. Войны, бедствия и американский кризис

—Yet there is another side to this picture of progress and well-being. During the same period the various quarters of the world were visited by a long series of calamities, both natural and artificial, from which our own dominions were not exempt. The Spanish-American War of 1898, the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–05, and the disastrous earthquakes at San Francisco (1906), Jamaica (1907), and Messina (1908) all caused not only loss of life and great physical suffering, but widespread destruction of capital, the effects of which were felt in all industrial countries. {225} In the earlier years of the period plague and famine in India and a succession of serious droughts in Australia also checked the productive capacity and purchasing power of these great dependencies, and consequently affected our industries at home.

Но самым близким и наиболее пагубным влиянием была Южноафриканская война (1899–1903), которая, после того как поначалу дала видимый импульс отраслям, поставляющим военные боеприпасы, оставила после себя наследие долгов, увеличенных военных и морских расходов и широко распространенную депрессию в торговле с последующей безработицей в «тощие годы», которые последовали за этим. Национальный долг в 1898–1899 годах, до начала войны, составлял 638 000 000 фунтов стерлингов, но к 1903–1904 годам вырос до 798 000 000 фунтов стерлингов, или до уровня 1870 года, тем самым сведя на нет за четыре года кропотливые сокращения долга более чем за тридцать лет.

После нескольких лет депрессии торговля снова оживилась, и по всему миру 1907 год был годом аномально высоких цен и широко распространенных спекуляций, которые кульминировали осенью в остром финансовом кризисе в Соединенных Штатах. Там практически все банки приостановили денежные выплаты на несколько месяцев. Последствия этого шока для кредита ощущались повсюду. Огромные количества золота были отправлены в Соединенные Штаты, и хотя Лондон в то время выдержал нагрузку гораздо лучше, чем любой другой финансовый центр, Банк Англии был вынужден поднять свою учетную ставку до семи процентов. В следующем году Соединенные Штаты и Япония все еще страдали от коммерческой депрессии, а в Индии урожай оказался неудачным. Следовательно, поскольку покупательная способность этих огромных территорий была ограничена, спрос на британские товары упал. Таким образом, объем нашей внешней торговли был значительно сокращен, и средний показатель ежемесячных отчетов о безработице профсоюзов за 1908 год был самым высоким за многие годы, составив 9,1 процента против 4,3 в предыдущем году.

§ 3. Рост государственных расходов

—During the Boer War and since its close there has been an unparalleled growth both in national and municipal expenditure. For every £5 that was required by public departments in 1895 £8 is now expended. The addition to the National Debt, and consequently to the debt charges, has been already noticed, and the following table shows the general figures for the opening and close of the period under review:—

| Expenditure 1897–98 | Estimated Expenditure 1910–11
Армия |  £19,330,000 |  £27,760,000
Флот |   20,850,000 |   40,604,000
Гражданская служба |   23,446,000 |   42,686,000
Национальный долг и другие услуги |   25,000,000 |   36,945,000
Почта, таможня и внутренние доходы |   14,310,000 |   23,852,000
Итого | £102,936,000 | £171,847,000

Эти итоги представляют собой расходы на душу населения всего населения в размере 2 фунтов 11 шиллингов в 1897–1898 годах и 3 фунтов 16 шиллингов в 1910–1911 годах.

Однако мы должны помнить, что расходы почтового ведомства более чем покрываются доходами, получаемыми от этого учреждения, и что значительная часть увеличения сметы гражданской службы обусловлена введением пенсий по старости и расширением обеспечения образования. «Расходы на гражданскую службу возросли как естественный результат умножения и расширения ее деятельности, причем этот рост был особенно значительным в последние два десятилетия, но гражданская служба включает в себя образование, законы о бедных, улучшение дорог и здравоохранения, а также многие другие услуги, способствующие национальному благосостоянию. Она находится на совершенно ином экономическом уровне, чем вооружения, которые представляют собой результат международных раздоров и соперничества». Тем не менее, нет сомнений в том, что во всех ведомствах государственные средства расходуются более свободно и расточительно, чем это было около двадцати пяти лет назад.

Значительное увеличение расходов на военно-морской флот должно быть отнесено отчасти на счет англо-бурской войны, но главным образом на счет нашего недавнего соперничества в области военно-морского строительства с Германией и принятия нами на вооружение линкоров типа «Дредноут». Военные расходы возросли в период между 1897 и 1899 годами из-за серии «малых войн» в Египте и Индии, и после англо-бурской войны мы фактически поддерживали военный режим в мирное время.

Таким образом, мы видим, что из-за роста вооружений и новых расходов на социальные нужды налогоплательщик вынужден нести тяжелое бремя, которое грозит увеличиться по мере замедления темпов роста населения. Любые расходы, превышающие то, что требуется для военной эффективности и социального благополучия, не только расточительны, но и фактически вредны для нашей промышленности и торговли, поскольку они отвлекают капитал от производительных каналов. Нет никаких оправданий для поддержания налогообложения на военном уровне в мирное время. Как сказал мистер Гладстон, деньги лучше оставить приносить доход в карманах людей; или, процитировав его великого оппонента, лорда Биконсфилда, который всегда был согласен с ним в этом вопросе: «чем больше вы уменьшаете бремя народа в мирное время, тем больше будет ваша сила, когда придет час опасности».

Economist, 19 ноября 1910 г.

§ 4. Свободная торговля и протекционизм. Колонии

—Ever since the repeal of the Corn Laws there had been in England a group of agricultural Protectionists, and some thirty years ago a small number of manufacturers began to advocate retaliation against foreign tariffs under the title of “Fair Trade.” Towards the close of Queen {228} Victoria’s reign the growth of Imperial sentiment brought into prominence suggestions for a closer political and commercial union between England and her colonies. In 1903 these various strands of thought were combined by Mr Joseph Chamberlain, then Colonial Secretary, in his campaign on behalf of “Tariff Reform.” This movement (which thus at first contained the inconsistent elements of protection to the British farmer, retaliation against the foreign manufacturer, and colonial preference) met with some acceptance in that year of depressed trade, and has now been adopted as the programme of the Unionist Party, in spite of the opposition of an important minority. In the General Election of 1906 the Protectionists sustained a crushing defeat, and they have not since been able to secure a majority in the House of Commons.

Хотя споры все еще не урегулированы, в настоящее время по разным причинам они несколько приостановлены. Пенсии по старости, которые должны были финансироваться за счет доходов от таможенных пошлин, были предоставлены без прибегания к протекционизму, а другие вопросы заняли политическое поле внутри страны, в то время как недавнее значительное расширение как внутренней, так и внешней торговли, по мнению общественности, опровергло более мрачные прогнозы «сторонников тарифной реформы».

Сторонники этого движения подчеркивают растущее политическое и коммерческое значение наших колоний, а также быстрые успехи, достигнутые Германией и Соединенными Штатами на нейтральных рынках, и указывают на таможенные барьеры, которые блокируют нашу торговлю с иностранными государствами. Сторонники свободной торговли в ответ утверждают, что прогресс Германии и Америки обусловлен сочетанием многих причин, помимо их тарифов. Для целей внутренней торговли они являются крупнейшими зонами свободной торговли в мире. Поскольку торговля между народами взаимозависима, мы не можем страдать от роста коммерческого процветания в других местах, а ответные меры никогда не доказывали свою эффективность как метод борьбы с враждебными тарифами. В заключение они заявляют, что невыполнимая задача ожидает любого государственного деятеля, который возьмется за разработку британского тарифа, одинаково удовлетворительного для фермера, производителя, колоний и Индии, и который не повлек бы за собой повышение цен на продовольствие и другие предметы первой необходимости.

Читателю следует обратиться к более крупным трактатам за подробностями спора, который был сильно обострен партийным духом. Но кажется, по крайней мере, что война статистики и аргументов не доказала, что положение рабочего класса в отношении реальной заработной платы, непрерывности занятости и условий труда лучше в протекционистских странах, чем среди нашего собственного народа: действительно, как постоянно напоминают нам квалифицированные экономисты, вовлечено так много других факторов и сделано так много оговорок, что почти невозможно провести достоверные сравнения такого рода. Не обнадеживающим был и ответ колоний на предложения сторонников преференциальных тарифов. Они недвусмысленно показали, что, как бы высоко они ни ценили свою связь с метрополией, они столь же высоко ценят свою собственную политическую и коммерческую независимость. В 1901 году различные штаты Австралии объединились в Федеративное Содружество, чей тариф является высокопротекционистским, а в 1911 году Канада начала переговоры о взаимных тарифных уступках с Соединенными Штатами, своим ближайшим и важнейшим рынком. Таким образом, наши колонии быстро превращаются в практически независимые государства, связанные с нами, конечно, узами сыновней привязанности и интересов, но решившие самостоятельно определять свою судьбу. Южная Африка только что вступила в самую многообещающую главу своей непростой истории, объединив четыре колонии в Южно-Африканский Союз. Первоначальные поселения Капской колонии и Наталя, а также два бурских государства, завоеванные в последней войне, теперь образуют самоуправляющееся целое — счастливое примирение, которое вряд ли можно было предвидеть в конце войны, что является высокой данью мудрости государственных деятелей метрополии и исцеляющему воздействию времени в Южной Африке.

§ 5. Положение рабочих. Социальное законодательство

—Returns recently published by the Local Government Board and other official statistics show that in the last half-century there has been a very marked improvement in regard to public health and social conditions. The rate of infantile mortality (among children less than one year old) is still sadly high in many town areas, yet, though it stood in 1907 at 118 per thousand for the whole of England and Wales, this figure is lower than that for any Continental country except Holland, and the death-rates from many diseases have also fallen rapidly in recent years. Housing accommodation has improved, statistics of overcrowding in 1901 showing a considerable reduction upon those of the previous census, and pauperism has on the average steadily declined. Wage statistics are inadequate and very difficult of interpretation, but they seem to indicate a marked rise during the last forty years, while the level of prices has fallen 24 per cent. during the same period. A detailed consideration of the last five years, however, reveals a less cheerful picture. The depression of trade resulting from the expenditure of capital during the South African War led to a fall in wages and a serious increase in unemployment. The hardships of the workers were aggravated by a period of rising prices and by the reflex effects of the American crisis. The statistics of pauperism in 1907 and {231} 1908 showed a proportion of 24 per thousand inhabitants against an average of 22 per thousand for the preceding decade. In October and November 1908 the Trade Unions returned 9 per cent. of their members as unemployed, whilst amongst unorganized and casual workers the proportion was no doubt higher.

Тем не менее, в то же время наблюдается значительно возросшая чувствительность общественной совести к положению подавляющего большинства населения, что проявилось как в парламентском законодательстве, так и в неофициальных движениях за социальное улучшение. Среди последних «садовые поселки» и планы жилищного строительства и городского планирования свидетельствуют о признании работодателями и муниципалитетами обязанности обеспечить рабочих и их семьи некоторыми из необходимых условий для «хорошей жизни».

«Государство возникло ради сохранения жизни, но оно продолжает существовать ради хорошей жизни». — Аристотель.

Такие вопросы стали еще более актуальными в связи с недавним быстрым ростом крупных пригородных районов на окраинах наших городов. Это явление, обусловленное стремлением рабочих бежать в регионы с несколько более чистым воздухом и более низкими налогами за пределами муниципальных территорий, подчеркивается в последних данных переписи населения. Согласно им, население боро растет медленнее, чем в соседних графствах, а в самом Лондоне переполнение выражается в сокращении населения во многих боро и увеличении на 33 процента в «Внешнем кольце».

В другом направлении успех Ассоциации рабочего образования и подобных усилий доказывает, что многие представители рабочего класса стремятся использовать возможности для интеллектуального роста. Но именно в недавнем законодательстве мы находим наиболее примечательное свидетельство как силы рабочего движения, так и пробужденной национальной совести, о которой только что упоминалось.

В 1907 году была предпринята попытка остановить отток населения в города, предложив рабочим стимул остаться в сельской местности. Целью Закона о мелких владениях и наделах того года было предоставление ему нескольких акров земли по разумной цене с гарантией владения, и тем самым восстановление мелкого земледельца. Бюджеты с 1906 по 1908 год не только облегчили положение налогоплательщиков за счет сокращения долга и среднего класса за счет дифференциации подоходного налога в пользу заработанных доходов, но и снизили пошлины на чай и сахар, которые ложатся наиболее тяжелым бременем на рабочий класс. Но бюджет 1908 года запомнится прежде всего шагом, предпринятым тогда для помощи престарелым беднякам. Введение пенсий по старости (уже действовавших в течение нескольких лет в наших австралазийских колониях) было горячо осуждено как социалистическая мера, унижающая получателей. Однако до сих пор проверка опытом, по-видимому, не показывает ничего, кроме хороших результатов, и после недавней отмены дисквалификации по получению пособий по бедности наблюдается заметное снижение статистики пауперизма. В 1909 году новый канцлер казначейства, мистер Ллойд-Джордж, представил свой первый бюджет. Его отклонение Палатой лордов, которое ознаменовало кризис долгой борьбы между двумя палатами, сделало его знаменитым в конституционной истории. Но, избегая его спорных положений, мы можем отметить, что этот бюджет также предусматривал небольшую сумму для создания бирж труда по континентальному образцу по всей стране. Эти биржи, которые сейчас работают, направлены на повышение мобильности рабочей силы, на установление контактов между работодателями, нуждающимися в работниках, и работниками, нуждающимися в трудоустройстве, а также на публикацию достоверной информации о состоянии рынка труда. Закон о компенсации рабочим 1897 года, который возложил ответственность за производственные травмы на плечи работодателей, был распространен в 1906 году на всех работников (включая домашних слуг), чей годовой заработок составляет менее 250 фунтов стерлингов. Наконец, в 1911 году была введена далеко идущая схема, согласно которой при государственной поддержке все наемные работники (с доходом не более 160 фунтов стерлингов в год) должны быть застрахованы от болезни (включая пособие по материнству для женщин), и эксперимент по страхованию от безработицы должен быть опробован в строительстве, судостроении и машиностроении — отраслях, которые наиболее остро страдают от периодической нехватки работы.

Мы можем также отметить здесь публикацию в 1909 году исчерпывающего отчета Комиссии по законам о бедных, назначенной в 1905 году. Он примечателен как своим всесторонним осуждением существующей системы законов о бедных, так и своими радикальными предложениями по новому методу решения проблемы бедности и безработицы. Четыре комиссара во главе с миссис Сидни Уэбб, известным социальным писателем, опубликовали свой собственный «отчет меньшинства», который содержит еще более далеко идущую схему государственного контроля. Оба отчета вызвали живой интерес, они повлияли на некоторые из только что описанных законодательных актов, и одна из этих схем или компромисс между ними, несомненно, ляжет в основу ожидаемой реформы законов о бедных.

§ 6. Тред-юнионизм и рабочее движение

—It was remarked in the last paragraph that the social legislation recorded was due in part to the pressure of the organized forces of labour upon politicians. The membership of Trade Unions has risen from 1,688,531 in 1898 to 2,426,592 in 1910; while in Parliament the Labour Party consisted in 1911 of about forty members, the majority of whom were nominated by Trade Unions and {234} maintained out of Trade Union funds. Through these representatives Trade Unionists have been able to exert a considerable influence upon legislation. By the decision, on appeal, of the House of Lords, in the Taff Vale Case (1901), the Trade Unions Act of 1871 was so interpreted as to make it possible for a Trade Union to be sued in tort for the acts of its members, and for Trade Union funds to become liable for any damages that might be awarded. Trade Unionists protested against the decision as contrary to the spirit of the legislation of 1871, and sufficient pressure was exerted by the Labour members to ensure the passage of the Trade Disputes Act in 1906. This restored Trade Unions to their original position under the law of 1871.

Но в 1909 году «решение Осборна» нанесло удар по существованию самой Лейбористской партии. Осборн, член Объединенного общества железнодорожных служащих, подал в суд на должностных лиц этого профсоюза на том основании, что принудительный сбор с членов на содержание парламентских представителей был превышением полномочий (ultra vires) и, следовательно, недействительным. После длительных судебных разбирательств Палата лордов вынесла окончательное решение в пользу истца. Лейбористская партия в парламенте начала настаивать на отмене этого решения и в то же время пыталась смягчить оппозицию, отменив «обязательство», которое все ее члены были вынуждены подписывать. Но очевидные трудности, которые препятствовали людям со скромными средствами, независимо от партии, в их попытках попасть в парламент, привели к другому движению среди либералов, лейбористов и некоторых консерваторов за оплату всех членов парламента из государственных средств, и положение об этом шаге было предусмотрено в бюджете 1911 года.

В последние годы в рабочем мире наблюдается значительное беспокойство, и как работодатели, так и работники понесли большие потери времени и денег из-за производственных споров. Наиболее важными остановками работы были забастовки в угольной промышленности (в Южном Уэльсе в 1898 и 1910 годах и на Севере в 1910 году), в хлопчатобумажной промышленности Ланкашира в 1908 и 1910 годах, в машиностроительных центрах на северо-восточном побережье в 1908 году и в судостроительной отрасли в 1910 году. В августе 1911 года стране пришлось столкнуться с остановками работы в доках Лондона и Ливерпуля, а вскоре после этого — с всеобщей железнодорожной забастовкой, которая началась с уведомлением за двадцать четыре часа. Докеры добились своих требований; железнодорожная забастовка благодаря усилиям правительства длилась всего два дня, так как была немедленно назначена небольшая и беспристрастная комиссия для расследования работы Согласительных советов железных дорог, неэффективность которых в устранении жалоб была выдвинута железнодорожными профсоюзами в качестве причины забастовки. Эти недавние транспортные трудности вызвали очень серьезные торговые убытки и большие неудобства для широкой общественности, а в некоторых частях страны сопровождались серьезными беспорядками и беспорядками. Все споры требовали усилий квалифицированных арбитров (чиновников Торговой палаты или выдающихся частных лиц), но их наиболее тревожной чертой в ряде случаев была тенденция рабочих не соблюдать условия урегулирования и очевидная неспособность профсоюзных чиновников обеспечить такое соблюдение. Действия такого рода могут лишь привести к отчуждению народных симпатий даже в случае подлинных жалоб. Однако большинство наблюдателей признают, что недавний рост цен на важные товары и общий рост уровня жизни среди рабочего класса делают требование о повышении заработной платы и сокращении рабочего времени вполне обоснованным.

§ 7. Недавние изобретения и промышленное развитие

—With regard to industrial machinery recent years have shown rather a greater perfection and rapidity of working than any actually new invention. Perhaps the greatest technical improvements have been made in engineering and steel production, but in many branches of industry the part of the machine constantly increases in importance and that of the individual worker diminishes.

Наиболее поразительные события последних пятнадцати лет связаны с транспортом и связью. Телефон стал деловой необходимостью, а теперь беспроводная телеграфия (связанная с именем М. Маркони) расширила нашу возможность быстрого общения даже до середины океана. Произошло огромное увеличение размеров и скорости торговых судов, наиболее сенсационным доказательством чего являются огромные океанские лайнеры немецких и англо-американских компаний, курсирующие между Европой и Соединенными Штатами. Эти корабли не только сократили путь между Нью-Йорком и Ливерпулем до пяти дней, но и способны перевозить гораздо большие грузы, чем их предшественники, и, таким образом, вдвойне способствуют увеличению объема международной торговли. На суше произошло необычайное увеличение использования автомобильного транспорта как для перевозки грузов, так и для пассажирских перевозок, а недавние успехи авиации, по-видимому, предвещают, что в недалеком будущем воздух станет еще одной магистралью для человеческого общения.

66 The Lusitania and Mauretania are over 31,000 tons burden; the Olympic and the Titanic, 45,000 tons.

Взглянув на изменения в промышленном мире, мы можем отметить тенденцию (обусловленную экономией на маркетинге и управлении) к увеличению размера отдельного бизнеса и объема инвестированного в него капитала. Эта тенденция наблюдается во многих крупных основных отраслях промышленности, таких как текстильная промышленность и мукомольное производство, но также в банковском деле и финансах в целом, где огромные акционерные компании с множеством филиалов поглотили старомодные частные банки с их местными связями. В розничной торговле крупные магазины, предоставляющие товары многих категорий под одной крышей, также оказываются грозными конкурентами мелким лавочникам. Эти магазины обычно управляются как акционерные компании и часто имеют филиалы по всей стране. Тем не менее, главным образом благодаря отсутствию протекционистского тарифа, который защищает рост монополий, Англия сравнительно свободна от доминирования крупных трестов. Существуют некоторые частичные или местные монополии, наиболее очевидными примерами которых являются железные дороги, газетные объединения и «привязанные» пабы, принадлежащие некоторым пивоваренным компаниям. Но, по мнению квалифицированных экспертов, мелкий торговец или производитель удерживает свои позиции во многих отраслях промышленности.

Данные переписи населения, которые показывают изменение занятости в различных группах промышленности, являются хорошим критерием их относительной важности. Данные за 1901 год были проанализированы следующим образом одним недавним автором:

«Отрасли, которые показывают наибольший спад, — это текстильная и швейная. В то время как металлургия, судостроение, гончарное дело, деревообработка, пищевая промышленность и т. д. показывают умеренный рост, производство драгоценных металлов и инструментов, транспортных средств, химикатов, полиграфия показывают большой рост. Еще более пристальное изучение подгрупп данных переписи показывает, что фундаментальные и основные процессы производства стагнируют или снижаются в своем значении, в то время как те, что связаны с завершающими процессами производства, особенно те, что связаны с производством более специализированных изделий, растут».

Мистер Гобсон добавляет, что наиболее примечательный прогресс наблюдается в двух особых группах: в отраслях, связанных со строительством и меблировкой домов, и в тех, которые производят транспортные средства для наземного и водного сообщения. Рост в первой из этих групп подтверждает статистику улучшения жилищных условий, о которой уже упоминалось, в то время как рост во второй знакомит нас с самым значительным движением из всех — огромным увеличением всех профессий, связанных с наземным и водным транспортом. Это, в свою очередь, можно соотнести с уже приведенными цифрами по нашему реэкспорту, поскольку и то, и другое показывает удивительное положение Англии как великого рынка и перевозчика для всего мира.

Гобсон, «Эволюция современного капитализма», стр. 388.

§ 8. Необходимость изучения экономических факторов в истории

—Hitherto our prosperity, great as it is, has frequently had its drawbacks, and has passed through many vicissitudes. Our ancestors and ourselves have made many mistakes, and till recently, as we have seen, the growth of our national wealth has been slow. But a study of industrial history is not without its uses, if it helps us to-day to understand how we have come into our present position, and what faults and follies we must avoid in order to retain it. Unfortunately, few historians have thought it worth their while to study seriously the economic factors in the history of nations. They have contented themselves with the intrigues and amusements of courtiers and kings, the actions of individual statesmen, or the destructive feats of military heroes. They have often failed to explain properly the great causes which necessitated the results they claim {239} to investigate. But just as it is impossible to understand the growth of England without a proper appreciation of the social and industrial events which rendered that growth possible, and which provided the expenses which that growth entailed, so it will be impossible to proceed in the future without a systematic study of economic and industrial affairs. Many of the great political questions of our day derive most of their difficulty from economic causes; while international politics tend more and more to centre round matters of commercial and industrial importance. After all, the means by which we gain our daily bread form for the majority of mankind the most pressing of problems; and what is true of the individual is true on a larger scale of the nation also. Man is by no means a purely economic animal, but the material wants of human life must be satisfied, and much of human activity must be directed toward their fulfilment. The history of mankind is the history of man’s activity, and so long as human nature and men’s material conditions are what they are, so long must economic and industrial factors have a potent influence in the course of political and social life. We have seen in these pages how such factors have influenced the growth of our own nation and contributed towards bringing us into our present position; and it is only reasonable to believe that commercial and industrial considerations must weigh more and more heavily with us if that position is to be secured and maintained. And those of us who wish to help in maintaining and advancing our national progress must seek carefully to answer the economic questions that are forcing themselves continually upon us, by looking at them in the light afforded by the industrial history of a great industrial nation.

Этот параграф первоначально составлял заключение к тому доктора Гиббинса.

ПРИМЕЧАНИЯ И УКАЗАТЕЛЬ

ЗАМЕЧАНИЕ ОБ ИСТОЧНИКАХ ПО ПРОМЫШЛЕННОЙ ИСТОРИИ

Для более ранних периодов английской промышленной истории обычный студент найдет полезными «Рост промышленности» Каннингема и «Введение в английскую экономическую историю и теорию» Эшли. Помимо этого, ему следует всеми силами постараться прочитать «Книгу Страшного суда», перевод или копию которой можно найти в большинстве публичных библиотек. Хорошо известные истории Стаббса и Фримена также являются большим подспорьем. Затем, для всего периода от Генриха III до восемнадцатого века, большой труд «История английского сельского хозяйства и цен» (в шести томах) профессора Торольда Роджерса представляет собой настоящий кладезь информации. «Шесть веков труда и заработной платы» и «Экономическая интерпретация истории» того же автора абсолютно незаменимы для любого, кто хочет понять не только нашу промышленную, но и нашу общую историю. Время, потраченное на эти две книги, окупается с лихвой. Для восемнадцатого и девятнадцатого веков, в частности, необходимо прочитать «Промышленную революцию» Тойнби и «Историю торговли» Леоне Леви, а также следует ознакомиться с «синими книгами» того периода.

Помимо этих работ современных авторов, «Северные и южные туры по Англии» Артура Янга и «Тур» Дефо дают ценную картину английской промышленности в прошлом веке, как и «Богатство народов» Адама Смита. Существует также полезная небольшая «История британской торговли» с древнейших времен, написанная Дж. Л. Крейком (опубликованная в 1844 году Чарльзом Найтом, но давно вышедшая из печати), которую я нашел очень полезной и довольно полной.

Для политической части нашей истории «История английского народа» Грина, вероятно, будет достаточной для широкого круга читателей; и она иногда содержит ссылки на промышленные события. Следует прочитать «Конфликт капитала и труда» мистера Джорджа Хауэлла, поскольку он дает ясное представление о старых гильдиях и их современных потомках — тред-юнионах; и ни один студент современных промышленных вопросов не должен упускать возможности ознакомиться с «Историей кооперации» мистера Холиока. Небольшая книга под названием «Романтика торговли» дает ряд интересных промышленных фактов в разрозненном виде, и ее можно прочитать с пользой, когда студент знает общие контуры промышленной истории. «Елизаветинскую Англию» Харрисона (теперь опубликованную в серии Camelot Classics) можно прочитать аналогичным образом, как дающую картину жизни шестнадцатого века.

Я должен признать свою признательность всем вышеперечисленным работам, которые я свободно использовал в этой небольшой истории, и особенно работам профессора Торольда Роджерса, без которых невозможно было бы написать полную промышленную историю. Я также использовал в некоторых местах материал, уже существующий в моем собственном «Кратком отчете о росте английской промышленности» в «Кооперативном ежегоднике» за 1890 год и в моей статье об английском сельском хозяйстве в «Вестминстерском обозрении» за декабрь 1888 года. Я предпочел указать в этой заметке более доступные работы, которые я изучил, опустив другие, которые не являются непосредственно необходимыми для обычных читателей, вместо того чтобы обременять свои страницы постоянными сносками и ссылками. Я надеюсь, что указанные здесь работы помогут направить студентов экономической истории к чтению далеко за пределами тех рамок, которыми неизбежно ограничен этот краткий очерк.

Я также более подробно рассмотрел эту тему в более крупной работе под названием «Промышленность в Англии» (Methuen: Лондон, 1896).

Г. де Б. Г.

В последние годы были опубликованы некоторые стандартные работы по «Книге Страшного суда», включая «Феодальную Англию» Раунда, «Книгу Страшного суда и далее» Ф. У. Мейтленда, «Вилланидж в Англии» Виноградова и «Дознание Страшного суда» Балларда — последняя является отличным резюме. «Промышленная демократия» и «История тред-юнионизма» Уэбба, «Эволюция современного капитализма» Гобсона и монументальный труд Бута «Жизнь и труд народа Лондона» — все они посвящены современному периоду. Ни один серьезный студент не должен упускать из виду публикации правительственных ведомств и королевских комиссий, касающиеся вопросов торговли, промышленности и социального прогресса. Данные переписи населения и текущие статистические сборники также полезны. «Элементарное руководство по статистике» Боули дает ценную помощь в интерпретации этих публикаций.

М. Э. Х.

ПРИМЕЧАНИЯ

1. Население римской Британии

(p. 2)—It is, of course, impossible to state this accurately. Much of the land that supported a large population in Roman times afterwards fell waste—e.g. the fens of the eastern counties (p. 111); but the numerous Roman remains still left to us testify to a considerable economic development. (Cf. also the facts given in Cunningham’s Growth of English Industry, p. 53).

2. Рынки на границах

(p. 3)—A good example of this is Moreton-in-Marsh, an ancient market town situated on the boundaries of the four counties of Oxford, Gloucester, Worcester and Warwick shires. This fact is recorded by a stone, known as “the four shires’ stone,” and situated about a mile from the town on the London Road. The religious origin of many markets, alluded to in the case of Glasgow, should not be forgotten. (Cf. Cunningham’s Growth of English Industry, p. 76.)

3. Датское влияние на торговлю

(p. 4)—The Danes, before ever they came to England, were enterprising navigators, as is shown by their very early commerce with Russia, their colonization of Iceland (A.D. 874), and discovery of Greenland (A.D. 985), and the coast of the (now) Eastern United States. They settled chiefly in the north of England, in very large numbers and formed an active industrial population, many of them becoming leading merchants. They were instrumental in causing English trade to develop in the north of Europe, and generally speaking gave a stimulus to navigation. (Cf. Cunningham’s Growth of English Industry, p. 83 sqq.—1890 ed.)

4. Манориальные суды

(p. 19)—The court baron was composed of a kind of jury of freeholders and was concerned with civil proceedings. The court leet was composed of all tenants, both free and serf, who acted as a jury in criminal cases, minor offences, and so forth. Both courts were presided over by the lord of the manor or his bailiff. Thus local discipline and law was concentrated in the hands of the inhabitants of the parish themselves, and the {244} manorial courts were a very useful means of education in local self-government. Unfortunately their power, utility, and educational influence declined with the decay of the whole manorial system. (Cf. Rogers’ Work and Wages, pp. 63 and 420.—1889 ed.)

5. Упадок манориальной системы

(p. 22)—The decay of this social and economic system begins most clearly and markedly with the changes made by the Black Death (1348), and by the social revolution which followed it, of which the Peasants’ Revolt was the first and most startling symptom (cf. pp. 73, 74–77). The legislation of Edward I. forms, again, another epoch from which to date the decay of manorial institutions. As Dr Cunningham says (Growth of Industry, p. 243), “In regard to commerce, manufactures, and to agriculture alike, the local authorities were gradually overtaken and superseded by the increasing activity of Parliament, till in the time of Elizabeth the work was practically finished.” The essentially local and personal relations of the manor gave way to the more general and impersonal relations of national government and national economy.

6. Евреи

(p. 36)—It appears that this expulsion of the Jews was not absolutely complete, and Jewish tradition gives the year 1358 as the date of final expulsion; but in 1410 a Jewish physician, Elias Sabot, was certainly allowed to practise in England. There seems to have been a certain immigration of Jews to England, when they were expelled from Spain by Ferdinand and Isabella (1492), for there are notices of them recovering debts in English law-courts. Their presence in this country was, however, only first publicly sanctioned by Cromwell; and during the Commonwealth and the reign of Charles II. they came back here in considerable numbers. (Cf. Wolf’s Anglo-Jewish Exhibition Papers, p. 57; and my own History of Commerce in Europe, p. 99.)

7. Торговые отношения с Фландрией

(p. 49)—We may add to the notices here given the treaty of 1274 between Edward I. and the Countess of Flanders, protecting the export of English wool to Flanders, and the well-known case of Perkin Warbeck. This impostor was supported by the dowager Duchess of Burgundy, and was well received in Flanders, then ruled by the Archduke Philip. As Philip, at the instigation of the Duchess, encouraged Warbeck, Henry VII. took the step of banishing all Flemings from England (1493), and as Philip replied by expelling all the English from Flanders, commercial intercourse between the two countries was almost entirely suspended. The result was, as {245} Bacon tells us, this interruption “began to pinch the merchants of both nations very sore,” and they besought their respective sovereigns “to open the intercourse again.” Philip withdrew his support from Warbeck and the impostor was left without resources, so that his subsequent appearance in England was a complete failure. The want of English wool thus altered the policy of the Flemish rulers, and before long the “great treaty,” or Intercursus Magnus, was made between the two nations (1496), by which trade was once more allowed to proceed unchecked, and “the English merchants came again to their mansion at Antwerp where they were received with procession and great joy.”

Генрих VII также заключил торговый договор с Данией (1490 г.) и с Республикой Флоренция, обеспечив этому городу оговоренные поставки английской шерсти каждый год. (Ср. «Торговля в Европе», стр. 98.)

8. Другие источники дохода

(p. 50)—Of course we must not forget that the kings who fought against the French got money for their wars by other means as well. Large amounts were extorted from the Jews; enormous debts were contracted by Edward III. with the great Florentine bankers the Bardi; and his repudiation of them in 1345 caused the failure of that firm. Edward III. also pawned his crown and jewels, which were in pledge at Cologne, and could not redeem them, till the Hansa merchants in England came to his rescue and lent him the necessary cash in return for trading privileges in London. (Cf. Commerce in Europe, §§ 44 and 62. The question of taxation, etc., may be studied from larger political histories.)

9. Ассиза хлеба и эля

(p. 61)—The best example of such regulation is found, perhaps, in the Act 13, Rich. II., st. 1, c. 8 (1389–90), which ordains: “Forasmuch as a man cannot put the price of corn and other victuals in certain, the justices of the peace shall every year make proclamation “by their discretion,” according to the dearth of victuals, how much every mason, carpenter, tiler, and other craftsmen, workmen, and other labourers by the day shall take by the day, with meat and drink or without meat and drink, and that every man shall obey such proclamations from time to time, as a thing done by statute.” Finally, provision is made for the correct keeping of the assize, or assessment from time to time, of the prices of bread and ale. The earliest notice of an “assize” in England is found in the Parliament Rolls for 1203, but the practice is probably much {246} older; and the most ancient law upon the subject is the 51st Hen. III. (A.D. 1266), “Assisa Panis et Cerevisiæ.” The assize of bread was in force till the beginning of the nineteenth century, and was only then abolished in London.

10. Стурбриджская ярмарка

(p. 63)—This Stourbridge or Sturbridge is now almost in Cambridge itself, the relics of the fair being held in a field near Barnwell, about a mile and a half from the city. In ancient times it was very easy for merchants to come up the River Ouse in barges or light boats, as water-transport was much more used then than now, and even the sea-going ships were very light craft. Probably a Flemish merchant would find no difficulty in sailing all the way from Antwerp to Cambridge in a light ship.

11. Пережитки вилланиджа

(pp. 74, 79)—Of course an ancient and universal custom could not die out all at once, but its decay after 1381 was certainly rapid. Dr Cunningham (Growth of Industry, p. 360) quotes cases to prove that villeinage existed in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, but he himself says that Fitzherbert (On Surveyinge, 1539) “laments over the continuance of villanage as a disgrace to the country”; and Fitzherbert would surely not have spoken thus if it was a recognized institution, instead of a decaying survival. Again, in 1574 Elizabeth enfranchised all bondmen on her estates; and she would hardly have done this if it had been the universal custom to retain villeins in their old bondage. We may readily admit that there were plenty of survivals of villeinage, although the old institutions were practically obsolete.

11а. Монополии

(p. 102)—These had been used by the crown partly in order to raise money by their sale and partly as a convenient method of paying or rewarding ministers or court favourites. Thus Elizabeth’s favourite, Essex, had a monopoly of sweet wines. But by Elizabeth’s time they had become so unpopular, and people saw so clearly the taxes which they inflicted on all articles thus monopolized that Parliament demanded (in 1601) their abolition. So determined was the House that the Queen gave way, though she was no doubt within the legal limits of her prerogative. James I., however, used his prerogative to create so many new monopolies that Parliament again protested (in 1609), and he also revoked them all. But after the suspension of Parliamentary government in 1614 monopolies were granted again, till in 1621 their revocation was one of the main points mentioned among the grievances which the House {247} of Commons proceeded to redress, and monopolies were then once more abolished. The three patents (or monopolies) chiefly complained of were those on (1) inns and hostelries, (2) alehouses, (3) gold and silver thread. The Act abolishing monopolies is the 21 Jac. I. cap. 3 (1624). This Parliamentary struggle about monopolies shows very clearly the beginnings of the great fight between Parliament and the Crown, the former trying to regain rights which had for some time (especially under the Tudors) been in abeyance, and the Crown to keep prerogatives which had hitherto been exercised unchecked.

12. Закон о бедных Елизаветы

(p. 107)—There is no doubt that the original intention of the Act was beneficent, and its framers are not to be held responsible for the use made of it in later times.

Закон об ученичестве, попутно фиксирующий заработную плату путем оценки, в основном касался отношений мастеров к их подмастерьям и ученикам; и также постановлял, что никто не должен заниматься ремеслом или торговлей, если он не был обучен этому в течение семи лет.

13. Банковское дело и приостановка выплат казначейства

(p. 130)—Banking was now becoming a regular business, carried on especially by goldsmiths, who often advanced money to the sovereign upon the security of taxes or personal credit. A pamphlet of 1676, called “The Mystery of the Newfashioned Goldsmiths or Bankers Discovered,” shows how banking and money-lending had become a regular business, and gives the year 1645 as about the time when commercial men began regularly to put their cash in the hands of goldsmiths. It also states that “the greatest of them (i.e. of the goldsmiths) were enabled to supply Cromwell with money in advance upon the revenues, as his occasions required, at great advantage to themselves.” Similarly the famous goldsmith George Heriot had frequently obliged James I. It is well known how the London goldsmiths advanced Charles II. as much as £1,300,000, at 8 to 10 per cent. interest, upon the security of the taxes; and how (in 1672) he suddenly refused to pay them, saying they must be content with the interest, and closed the exchequer, thus causing a serious commercial panic.

Неудовлетворительный метод получения займов у золотых дел мастеров и других частных лиц был отчасти причиной проекта Уильяма Патерсона, ныне известного как Банк Англии (1694 г.). Патерсон предложил предоставить правительству Вильгельма III 1 200 000 фунтов стерлингов, которые должны были быть погашены за счет налогов на пиво или другие спиртные напитки и за счет сборов с судоходства, в то время как те, кто подписался на эти деньги, были объединены в регулярную компанию, которая должна была получать 8 процентов годовых, а также 4000 фунтов стерлингов в год за управление. Таким образом, вопрос о займах был впервые поставлен на надлежащую основу, и банк, таким образом сформированный и поддерживаемый государственным кредитом, сразу занял ведущее положение в английской торговле. (Ср. «Первые девять лет Банка Англии» Роджерса.)

14. Государственный долг

(p. 145)—This loan, mentioned in the last note, was the beginning of a regular National Debt, the system of contracting loans upon the security of the supplies or upon Government credit, and of paying them off gradually in succeeding generations. (Cf. my Commerce in Europe, p. 145, and Grellier’s National Debt.)

Восстановление валюты произошло благодаря Монтегю, канцлеру казначейства. Вплоть до времен Карла II серебряные деньги изготавливались путем простого разрезания металла ножницами, придания формы и чеканки молотком. Поэтому было довольно легко снова обрезать или срезать монеты, не будучи обнаруженным, а затем сбыть их ничего не подозревающему человеку по их полной номинальной стоимости. Так монеты становились все меньше и меньше, и люди часто обнаруживали, предъявляя их в банке или где-либо еще, что они стоят лишь половину своей номинальной стоимости. Сначала, при Карле II, считалось достаточным выпускать новые монеты с рифленым или «фрезерованным» краем, но единственным результатом этого было то, что хорошая монета переплавлялась или экспортировалась, а (как это всегда бывает) неполноценные деньги оставались дома. Тогда Монтегю и сэр Исаак Ньютон (мастер Монетного двора) поняли, что единственный путь — это отозвать старую чеканку и выпустить совершенно новую и настоящую фрезерованную валюту. Расходы на эту перечеканку, которая стоила около двух с половиной миллионов, были покрыты налогом на оконные стекла. (Ср. «Экономическая интерпретация истории» Роджерса, стр. 200.)

Новая хартия Ост-Индской компании была предоставлена 7 октября 1693 года Вильгельмом III и восстановила все прежние полномочия и привилегии компании. Монополия этой компании на торговлю с Индией часто нарушалась частными торговцами, и к ней в целом относились с такой большой враждебностью, что Палата общин в 1692 году попросила короля распустить компанию на основании бесхозяйственности и поведения, наносящего ущерб национальным интересам. Однако враги компании потерпели неудачу, и все ее привилегии были подтверждены Хартией 1693 года. Ее монополия, тем не менее, все еще часто игнорировалась, а ее законность отрицалась парламентом, несмотря на благосклонность короля. В 1698 году была даже сформирована Новая компания, но через несколько лет две конкурирующие компании были объединены (1708 г.).

15. Экспорт слитков

(p. 169)—“In form the prohibition on the export of gold and silver coin continued to 1816. People were allowed to export gold in bars, foreign coin, and bullion the produce of foreign coin; and an oath had to be taken that exported bars were of this character. People were hired to swear that they were so, and sworn-off gold, as it was called, was worth 1⁠½d. an ounce more than other gold was. Three-halfpence an ounce was the bullion-dealer’s payment for perjury” (Rogers’ Economic Interpretation of History, p. 187).

Потребности их восточной торговли вынудили Ост-Индскую компанию приобретать большие запасы слитков и экспортировать их в Индию, несмотря на любые запреты об обратном; и их торговля с ее огромными прибылями была, таким образом, очень ясным примером ошибочного характера теории, которая учила, что золото и серебро нельзя экспортировать из страха обеднения страны. Этот факт в случае с торговлей с Ост-Индией был замечен некоторыми экономистами в начале восемнадцатого века и был тогда ясно изложен автором в газете под названием «Британский купец» (i. 26), который оценил экспорт слитков в Индию и Китай в 400 000 или 500 000 фунтов стерлингов в год (в 1764 году он составлял 369 831 фунт стерлингов, а в 1790 году — 532 705 фунтов стерлингов). «Британский купец» был впервые опубликован в 1713 году.

16. Важные коммерческие события

(p. 125)—Among the important commercial events of this period one ought certainly to include the Darien Scheme and the Union of England and Scotland, although these belong more fitly to a History of Commerce than of Industry. The Darien scheme was a project originated by William Paterson, the founder of the Bank of England, who proposed to colonize the Isthmus of Darien and use it as “the key of the Indies and door of the world” for commerce. English capitalists, however, would not support his scheme and it was denounced by the English Parliament. Nevertheless a company was formed in Scotland, called “The Scottish African and Indian Company,” a charter was given it by the Scotch Parliament in 1695, and a capital of £900,000 was ultimately raised, £400,000 coming from Scotland, then a very poor country, and the rest from English and Dutch merchants. The hostility of the East India Company, the Levant Company, and of the Dutch in {250} general, however, never ceased, and it was owing to their influence that, when the ill-fated colony at last set out for Darien in July 1698, the settlers were left quite unaided against the attacks of the Spaniards, who claimed the monopoly of South American trade. In fact, Spanish attacks and the climate, so utterly unsuited for European colonists, sealed the fate of the expedition, and few who went out ever returned. This failure had the most serious effect in impoverishing the Scotch, who could then ill afford the loss, but there is little doubt that it greatly helped to bring about the subsequent Act of Union between England and Scotland, in which William Paterson was largely concerned (1707). The Union proved of considerable benefit to Scotland, as, by it, trade between the two countries became free, English ports and colonies were thrown open to the Scotch, and Scotland found a large market for woollen and linen goods and cattle in England.

Дата Метуэнского договора — 1703 год, и он был организован Джоном Метуэном между Англией и Португалией. Было решено, что британские шерстяные товары будут допускаться в Португалию и ее колонии при условии, что португальские вина всегда будут допускаться в Англию при двух третях пошлины (какой бы она ни была), взимаемой с французских вин. Результатом стало значительное увеличение торговли с Португалией, но еще большее сокращение торговли с Францией, в то время как пристрастие к вину наших высших классов приняло совсем другое направление, ибо портвейн, который до тех пор был почти неизвестен в Англии, стал типичным напитком английского джентльмена, и в Соединенное Королевство отправлялось больше портвейна, чем во всю остальную Европу вместе взятую. Только ко времени торгового договора 1860 года с Францией высокие пошлины на легкие французские вина были снижены, а вместе с ними и пошлины на французские промышленные товары. До тех пор, как сказал Гладстон в своей речи по этому поводу в 1862 году, «почти считалось делом долга рассматривать французов как традиционных врагов», не только в политике, но и в торговле. Этот договор был лишь одной из многих великих заслуг Кобдена перед торговлей своей страны.

17. Упразднение Ост-Индской компании

(p. 217)—In June, 1858, the East India Company ceased to exist, the territories of India were transferred to the Crown of England, and the Queen was proclaimed sovereign of India on November 1st, 1858. The Company’s army became part of the Queen’s army, and Lord Canning, who had been Governor-General, became the first Viceroy. All the powers hitherto exercised by the East India {251} Company, or by the Board of Control, were vested in the Secretary of State for India, assisted by a Council of fifteen members appointed by the Crown.

18. Реформы Хаскиссона

(p. 213)—It was Huskisson who in 1823 passed a “Reciprocity of Duties Bill,” by which English and foreign ships had equal advantages in England whenever foreign nations allowed the same to English vessels in their ports. He threw open the commerce of our colonies, under certain restrictions, to other nations. He reduced the duties on silk and wool in 1824, and in the same year the Acts fixing wages (cf. p. 107), and limiting the free travelling about of workmen (p. 189) were repealed. So also were all laws controlling combinations of either masters or workmen; though combinations of workmen to intimidate employers were made illegal in 1825.

УКАЗАТЕЛЬ

Accounts, bailiffs’ mediæval, 18; modern farmers’ lack of, 113, 205

Acreage of England (A. Young), 114

Adam Smith, 150, 189

Сельское хозяйство, раннее объединенное, 8; до и после Великой чумы, 71, 73; средневековое, 40–45; в 16-м, 17-м и 18-м веках, 109–117; современное, 198–201; депрессия в, 202, 209

Сельскохозяйственные улучшения, 104, 113, 201; банды, 208; рабочий, 40, 71, 79, 119, 142, 150, 188, 205, 208; реформы, 210; заработная плата, 79, 119–121; богатство, 152, 209; население, 150, 153, 206; писатели, 42, 110; союз, 208

Alfred, 4, 5

Allowance system of relief, 188

American War, 170

Anglo-Saxon trade, 3

Antwerp, 59, 95; decay of, 97

Apprentices, in gilds, 29; in factories, 179, 181

Arable land in a manor, 6, 20

Arch, Joseph: his work, 207, 208

Aristocracy: feudal, 32; land-owning, 143, 198

Arkwright’s inventions, 159

Ремесленники: средневековые, 29; современные, 174, 190, 221; заработная плата, 71, 79, 120, 150, 162, 174, 187, 195; гугеноты, 134, 135

Assessments of wages, 107, 119, 187

Aston, manor of, 12

Australian colonies, 216, 225, 229

Aviation, 236

Bailiffs’ Accounts, 18, 42

Baltic trade, development of our, 99

Bank of England, 144, 173, 223

Barons’ wars, 31

Beaconsfield, 227

Beggars (Defoe’s remark), 149

Berlin decree, 173

Birmingham, 152

Черная смерть. См. Великая чума

Blincoe, Robert, on factories, 181

Bodmin, staple for tin, 92

Bombay, 123, 127

Bordars, 12

Boston, port, 64

Boulton’s inventions, 165

Bounties on corn, 200

Bradford, 161, 163, 183

Bread, wheat, 68, 150; price of, 150

Brickmaking, 105, 142

Bristol, 23, 39, 64

Britain in Roman times, 1, 2

Bruges, 95; staple at, 59

Burslem, 140

Bye industries, 155

Calais, our staple town, 59

Cambridge, coal at, 138

Canada, 125, 128, 216, 229

Cape Colony, 216, 230

Capital, 223

Capital in agriculture (A. Young), 115; to-day, 205; loss of farmers’, 203

Capitalist agriculture, 42; cessation of, 73; artisans, 147; manufacturers, 147, 174, 176

Capitalist manufacture, epoch of, 162; present system of, 219

Capitalists and workmen, 221, 222; the coming of, 146, 162; mistakes of (Mercantile Theory), 168

Captains of industry, 218

Cartwright’s inventions, 160

Carucate of land, 16 (note)

Castles, growth of towns near, 23

Cattle in mediæval times, 44; improvements in breed of, 114

Census, 237

Chamberlain, 228

Champaign land, 43

Charlemagne, commercial treaty with, 5

Charles I. and coal trade, 137

Charter, the Great, 34

Charters of towns, 25, 28; of companies, 98

Chartism, 191

Cheese, consumption of, 151

Chester a Roman town, 2, 24

Chinese wars, 217

Cistercian monks wool-growers, 42, 49

Civil Service, 226

Civil War in England, its effect, 134

—— in America, 217

Climate, our, useful for manufactures, 133

Closes, 21, 43

Cloth trade, 54, 55, 135. See Manufactures

Clover, introduction of, 113

Coal trade, 136, 137; influence on manufactures, 164 and map

Cobbett, 175

Cobden, 201, 215

Colonies, our, 122, 128, 167, 170, 215

Combination Laws, 189, 190; power of, 221; of workmen, 191; Combination of peasants in the Peasants’ Revolt, 76, 78

Commerce, early, 4; our first treaty of, 5. See Trade

Commerce and war, 121–129, 169, 216

Commercial progress, 129; depressions, 218, 225

Common fields, 8, 20; enclosure of, 116, 199; pasture, 20

Communal land, 8, 43

Commutation of services for money payments, 16, 41, 74

Companies, formation of trading, 98, 129, 212

Company, East India, 98; Levant, 129; Hudson’s Bay, 131

Competition, appearance of, 92; checked by feudalism, 32; foreign, 209, 220; modern, 219

Положение народа. См. Заработная плата, Ремесленники и Сельскохозяйственные рабочие

Conquest, England after Norman, 37, 39

Continental War, 171, 195

Co-operation, growth of, 221

Corn Laws, 200, 201, 215; Repeal of, 186, 201, 227

Cort’s inventions, 165

Cottars, 12

Cotton manufacture, 164

Графства, Восточные, суконная торговля в, 57, 135, 163; Северные, запустение в средневековье, 38; Северные, перемещение населения в, 163 и карта; Южные, наиболее густонаселенные, 11, 37, 152

Craft gilds, 27, 29

Crisis (United States), 225

Cromwell’s commercial wars, 123

Crusades, 26, 33

Currency, debasement of, 86

Cuxham manor, 17, 18

Dairy Farming, 210; dairyman, 43

Debasement of currency, by Henry VIII., 86

Defoe, references to his Tour, 64, 145, 148

Demand for labourers after Great Plague, 71

Discoveries of Columbus and others, 89

Dissolution of monasteries, 84

Distress of working classes after 1815, 174, 192

Distribution of wealth before Industrial Revolution, 153, 156

Книга Страшного суда, ее историческая ценность, 10; состояние Англии, показанное в ней, 11 и карта; города в, 24; маноры в (Какшем и Астон), 16, 17; население в, 12, 13

Drawbacks of mediæval life, 79, 80

Dreadnought, 227

Голландцы, сельскохозяйственные улучшения благодаря, 105, 110; другие улучшения, 140; войны с (Кромвеля), 123, 130; торговля перевозками, когда-то в руках, 130

Dyeing, 55, 133

Earthquakes, 224

East, development of trade with, after Crusades, 33; in James I.’s reign, 129

East India Company, 98, 127, 145, 216

Eastern counties, manufactures in, 57, 135, 163

Economic folly, 170, 203, 211

Economics, importance of, in history, 238

Economist, 226

Edward I. and Edward III., usefulness of wool to them, 49; their alliances with Flanders, 49

Edward III. and Statute of Labourers, 71; and manufactures, 53

Edward VI. and the Hansa in London, 95

Eight Hours’ Movement, 186, 235

Elizabethan England, 100–109; sea-captains, 97, 122

Emancipation of villeins, 74

Employers, capitalist, 67, 146, 192, 221; their assessments of wages, 107

Enclosures, 46, 116

Англия до нормандского завоевания, 1–9; после него, 11, 37; в Средние века, 68, 81; в правление Елизаветы, 100; современная, 211 и далее; торговая держава, 121

Англия и войны других наций, 216

Estone manor, 16

Expenditure, public increase of, 226

Export of corn, 200

Экспорт в римские времена, 2; в 12-м веке, 33; шерсти, 36, 48, 51, 92; экспорт в 15-м веке, 92, 96; позже, 103, 130, 131, 132, 166, 174, 212

Factories set up, 161

Factory Acts, 181–185

Factory children, 179, 182

Factory system, germs of, 66; growth of, 176–181, 186

Fairs, 53, 61–63

Famine of 1315, 70

Farmers, losses of, 209

Fens, the, 38; drainage of, 111

Feudal system, 8; effects of, 31

“Firma Burgi,” the, 25

Flanders, its manufactures, 48, 52; our trade with, 95, 132, 169

Flemish weavers in England, 36, 37, 53, 103

Foreign competition, 134, 209, 216, 220

France and England, 123, 126, 157, 167, 172, 213

Frauds, Statute of, 115

Free Trade, 212, 213, 227

Friars, the coming of the, 75

Game, 111

Gangs, agricultural, 208

Germany, 134, 167, 217, 227, 228

Gilds, 27–30; in cloth trade, 54

Gild lands, confiscation of, 86

Gladstone’s budget of 1853, 215, (quoted), 227

Glasgow, 3

Gold, discoveries of, 216

Greshams, the, 96

Guicciardini on trade, 96, 103

Hansa, the, factory in London, 94, 95

Hargreaves, 159

Harrison’s Elizabethan England, 104, 108

Henry of Huntingdon (quoted), 33

Henry II., 31; Henry V., 49; Henry VIII., 83–91

History, economic questions in, 238

Hobson, 237, 238

Holland, 122, 123, 168, 230. See Dutch

Home trade, value of, 219

Houses, mediæval, 19

Housing and town-planning, 230

Huguenots in England, 134

Hull, 64

Huskisson and Free Trade, 213

Imports, 34, 63, 93, 212. See Trade

Income-tax, 223

India, 5, 127, 225

Промышленная революция. См. Революция

Industrial transition in 14th century, 55

Industrial villages (mediæval), 65

Industries, manual, 142

Industry, growth of, 212

Infant mortality, 230

Inhabitants of a manor, 12, 13

Inventions, 138, 140, 159, 160, 165, 236

Iron trade, 138, 139, 164

Jews in England, 35

Jewries, 35

John, King, 39

Joint-Stock Companies, 237

Ket’s Rising, 47

King, Gregory, referred to, 112, 114, 116

“Knight’s Fee,” a, 18

Labour, power of, 221

Труд. См. Сельскохозяйственный рабочий, Производственное население и Ремесленники; также Заработная плата и Капиталист

Labour Exchanges, 232

Labour Party, 233

Labourer, the “Golden Age” of, 79

Lace, 103

Land, different kinds of, in a manor, 21

Landlords, 73, 77; rapacity of, 109, 204; their gains, 198; services of, 198, 204

Latimer on rent, 118

Leeds, 151, 156, 163

Liverpool, 152, 236

Lloyd-George, 232

London, 2, 24, 39; the Western emporium, 97

Lord of the manor, 7, 11

Manchester, 152

Manor, 7, 12

Manufacturers and politics, 56, 145; large and small, 147

Manufacture, domestic system of, 155

Manufactures, 36, 51, 100, 135

Manufacturing towns, mediæval, 57; decay of, 65; monopolies of, 101; population, 149, 152, 178, 231

Marconi, 236

Mark, the, 5, 6; mark-moot, 6

Markets, 3, 38, 60; “a sole market,” 168; new, 219

Master clothiers, 66

Meadow land valuable, 21

Members, payment of, 234

Mercantile Theory, the, 168

Merchant gilds, 27, 28

Middle Ages, close of, 81

Mining, 141, 164; women in mines, 194

Misery of working classes, 194

Monasteries, dissolution of, 84, 85

Money, 3

Monopolies, 101, 237

More, Sir Thomas, evidence of, 88, 90

Motor transport, 236

Napoleon I., 173

National Debt, 145, 173, 225

Navigation Acts, 130, 169, 213

Newcastle (coals), 130, 137

New World, discoveries in, 89

Norfolk, 46, 51, 112; agriculture in, 199

Northern counties, desolation of, 38; growth of, 162

Norwich, 26, 39

Nottingham, 24, 58, 60

Oastler, Richard, 183

Old Age Pensions, 226, 228, 232

«Решение Осборна», 234

Over-production, 220

Oxford, origin of, 23, 25

Pauperism, 100, 192, 193, 232

Peasants’ Revolt, 78

Petition, the Merchants’, in 1820, 213

Pigs, 45

Pitt, 171

Plague, the Great, 70; its effects, 71, 73

Ploughing, 44

Politics and industry, 49, 55, 144, 175, 222

Poor Law Commission Report, 233

Poor Laws, the, 107, 188. See Allowance and Assessments

Poor priests, the, 76

Population of England, 37, 41, 108, 151, 162

Ports, mediæval, 64

Post Office, 226

Pottery trade, 140

Prices after the Plague, 72; mediæval, 80; later, 90, 112, 174, 202; inflation of, 90, 225

Productiveness of land, 41

Protectionism, 169, 216, 227, 237

Protestant refugees to England, 97, 103, 110, 134

Railways, 214, 224

Reforms, needed agricultural, 210

Rent, mediæval, 15, 22

Rent, rise of, 88, 112, 118, 119, 204, 224

Restrictions on labour, 189

Revolution, the Industrial, 144 sqq., 157, 161, 164, 190; the French, 157, 171, 190; the Agricultural, 158, 206

Rights of villeins, 13, 43

Rush for new markets, the, 219

Salt, 142

Seamen, the Elizabethan, 91, 97

Serfs, 13

Services due to a lord, 14, 15

Settlement, law of, 189

Shaftesbury, Lord, 183

Sheep, 45

Sheep farming, 46

Sheffield, 58, 152

Silver, discoveries of, 90

Sixteenth century, changes of, 88, 90

Slave, 13; in modern England, 179

Small Holdings, 232

Smith, Adam, 150, 189

Social movements, 68, 75, 142, 146, 190

Social comforts, 105

Soke-men, 15

South Africa, 225, 229

Southampton, 25, 64

South Sea and other Companies, 125

Spain and England, 121, 126, 167

Speenhamland Act, 188

Staple towns, 59

Steam and machinery, 160

Steamers, 214, 236

Steelyard, the, 94

“Stock and Land Lease,” the, 42, 85

Stourbridge fair, 63

Strikes, 235

Taff Vale Case, 234

Tax on wool, 49, 50

Taxation, 174, 232

Telegraphs, 214

Telegraphy, wireless, 236

Telephone, 236

Ten Hours’ Bill, 185

Tenants of a manor, 11; free tenants, 15

Town, life in a mediæval, 30

Towns: in Domesday, 11; origin of, 21; growth in England, 23; charters of, 25; mediæval, 58; staple, 56

Township, 7

Toynbee, Arnold, 186

Trade, Anglo-Saxon, 3, 4, 5; later, 33; expansion of, 91–99, 103, 125, 129, 131, 173, 212, 224

Trade Unions, 191, 207, 221, 231, 233

Trading clauses in the Great Charter, 34

Transit, means of, 214, 224

Truck Act, 194

Trusts, 237

Tyler’s Revolt, 78

Unemployment, 230

United States, 225, 228

Venetian Fleet, the, 63, 93

Village, a mediæval, 19; industrial, 65

Villeinage, land in, 20

Villeins, 13, 41, 68; emancipation of, 74, 79

Virgate, 12

Wage-earning class, rise of, 40, 69

Wages, 71, 79, 106, 119, 120, 150, 174, 195, 206, 220, 224, 230

Walter de Henley on farming, 42, 44

War, South African, 225, 230

War, the Thirty Years’, 134; the Continental, 171, 195

—— cost of, 173

Wars and industry, 81, 122–129, 134, 166, 167–175, 216, 224

“Waste,” the, 6, 20

Watt’s inventions, 138, 160, 165

Weavers’ gilds, 29, 54

Wedgwood, 141

Wheat, prices of, 174, 195, 200, 203; and see Wages

Wiklif, 75

Winchester fair, 62

Women and girls in mines, 194

Women’s wages, 196

Wool, 47, 50, 104, 136

Workers’ Educational Association, 231

Рабочий класс. См. Ремесленники, Сельскохозяйственный рабочий и Производственное население; также 187–197

Workmen’s Compensation, 233

Worsted industry, the, 53

Writers on commerce, 130

Yeomen, rise of the, 73; decay of, 115–116

Young, Arthur, referred to, 114, 117, 150, 153, 199, 206, 221

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE

Оригинальное написание и грамматика были в основном сохранены, за некоторыми исключениями, отмеченными ниже. Оригинальные номера печатных страниц показаны так: {52}. Сноски были перенумерованы 1–68 и перемещены изнутри параграфов в близлежащие места между параграфами. Транскрибатор создал изображение обложки и настоящим передает его в общественное достояние. Знаки повтора были удалены и заменены на ссылочный текст. Оригинальные изображения страниц доступны на archive.org — поиск по «industrialhistor00gibb».

Страница 135. «Norfork» на «Norfolk».

Страница 170. «with South America,» на «with South America.»

Страница 245. В этом предложении есть непарная двойная кавычка: ««Forasmuch as a man cannot put the price of corn and other victuals in certain,» the justices of the peace shall every year make proclamation «by their discretion,» according to the dearth of victuals, how much every mason, carpenter, tiler, and other craftsmen, workmen, and other labourers by the day shall take by the day, with meat and drink or without meat and drink, and that every man shall obey such proclamations from time to time, as a thing done by statute.»». Это издание опускает ту, что следует за «certain,», но это лишь догадка.

Страница 246. «Parlamentary» на «Parliamentary».