Among the manufactures of the time the woollen business was by far the most important. 'All our measures,' wrote Bishop Berkeley in 1737, 'should tend towards the immediate encouragement of our woollen manufactures, which must be looked upon as the basis of our wealth.' In 1701 our woollen exports were worth *2,000,000, or 'above a fourth part of the whole export trade.' In 1770 they were worth *4,000,000, or between a third and a fourth of the whole. The territorial distribution of the manufacture was much the same as now. This industry had probably existed in England from an early date. It is mentioned in a law of 1224. In 1331 John Kennedy brought the art of weaving woollen cloth from Flanders into England, and received the protection of the king, who at the same time invited over fullers and dyers. There is extant a petition of the worsted weavers and merchants of Norwich to Edward III in 1348. The coarse cloths of Kendal and the fine cloths of Somerset, Dorset, Bristol, and Gloucester are mentioned in the statutes of the same century. In 1391 we hear of Guildford cloths, and in 1467 of the woollen manufacture in Devonshire-at-Lifton, Tavistock, and Rowburgh. In 1402 the manufacture was settled to a great extent in and near London, but it gradually shifted, owing to the high price of labour and provisions, to Surrey, Kent, Essex, Berkshire, and Oxfordshire, and afterwards still further, into the counties of Dorset, Wilts, Somerset, Gloucester, and Worcester, and even as far as Yorkshire.
There were three chief districts in which the woollen trade was carried on about 1760. One of these owed its manufacture to the wars in the Netherlands. In consequence of Alva's persecutions (1567-8) many Flemings settled in Norwich (which had been desolate since Ket's rebellion in 1549), Colchester. Sandwich, Canterbury, Maidstone, and Southampton, The two former towns seem to have benefited most from the skill of these settlers so far as the woollen manufacture was concerned. It was at this time, according to Macpherson, that Norwich 'learned the making of those fine and slight stuffs which have ever since gone by its name,' such as crapes, bombayines, and camblets; while the baiye-makers settled at Colchester and its neighbourhood. The stuffs thus introduced into England were known as the 'new drapery', and included baiye, serges, and other slight woollen goods as distinguished from the 'old drapery,' a term applied to brcloth, kersies, etc.
The chief seats of the West of England manufacture were Bradford in Wilts, the centre of the manufacture of super-fine cloth; Devizes, famous for its serges; Warminster and Frome, with their fine cloth; Trowbridge; Stroud, the centre of the dyed-cloth manufactures; and Taunton, which in Defoe's time possessed 1100 looms. The district reached from Cirencester in the north to Sherborne in the south, and from Witney in the east to Bristol in the west, being about fifty miles in length where longest, and twenty in breadth where narrowest - 'a rich enclosed country,' as Defoe says, 'full of rivers and towns, and infinitely populous, insomuch that some of the market towns are equal to cities in bigness, and superior to many of them in numbers of people.' It was a 'prodigy of a trade,' and the 'fine Spanish medley cloths' which this district produced were worn by 'all the persons of fashion in England.' It was no doubt the presence of streams and the Cotswold wool which formed the attractions of the district. A branch of the industry extended into Devon, where the merchants of Exeter bought in a rough state the serges made in the country round, to dye and finish them for home consumption or export.
The third chief seat of the manufacture was the West Riding of Yorkshire, where the worsted trade centred round Halifax, which, according to Camden, began to manufacture about 1537; and where Leeds and its neighbourhood manufactured a coarse cloth of English wool. In 1574 the manufacturers of the West Riding made 56,000 pieces of brcloth and 72,000 of narrow. It will be seen from this short survey that, however greatly the production of these different districts may have changed in proportion since 1760, the several branches of the trade are even now distributed very much as they were then, the West Riding being the headquarters of the worsted and coarse cloth trade, while Norwich still keeps the crape industry, and the West manufactures fine cloth.
The increased demand for English wool consequent upon the extension of this industry led to large enclosures of land, especially in Northamptonshire, Rutlandshire, Leicestershire, and Warwickshire, which counties supplied most of the combing wools used for worsted stuffs and stockings; but parts of Huntingdon, Bedford, Bucks, Cambridgeshire, Romney Marsh, and Norfolk competed with them, and by 1739 most counties produced the fine combing wool. Defoe mentions the sale of wool from Lincolnshire, 'where the longest staple is found, the sheep of those parts being of the largest breed". and in Arthur Young's time Lincolnshire and Leicestershire wools were still used at Norwich. The Cotswold and Isle of Wight sheep yielded clothing or short wools, 'but they were inferior to the best Spanish wools,' and could not 'enter into the composition without spoiling and degrading in some degree the fabric of the cloth.' Consequently in the West of England, occupied as it was with the production of the finest cloths, Spanish wool was largely used, though shortly before Young's time it was discovered that 'Norfolk sheep yielded a wool about their necks equal to the best from Spain.'
Next in importance was the iron trade, which was largely carried on, though by this time a decaying industry, in the Weald of Sussex, where in 1740 there were ten furnaces, producing annually 1400 tons. The trade had reached its chief extent in the seventeenth century, but in 1724 was still the principal manufacturing interest of the county. The balustrades which surround St. Paul's were cast at Lamberhurst, and their weight, including the seven gates, is above 200 tons. They cost *11,000. Gloucestershire, Shropshire, and Yorkshire had each six furnaces. In the latter county, which boasted an annual produce of 1400 tons, the most famous works were at Rotherham. There were also great ironworks at Newcastle.
In 1755 an ironmaster named Anthony Bacon had got a lease for ninety-nine years of a district eight miles in length, by five in breadth, at Merthyr-Tydvil, upon which he erected iron and coal works. In 1709 the Coalbrookdale works in Shropshire were founded, and in 1760 Carron iron was first manufactured in Scotland. Altogether, there were about 1737 fifty-nine furnaces in eighteen different counties, producing 17,350 tons annually. It has been computed that we imported 20,000 tons. In 1881 we exported 3,820,315 tons of iron and steel, valued at *27,590,908, and imported to the value of *3,705,332.
The cotton trade was still so insignificant as to be mentioned only once, and that incidentally by Adam Smith. It was confined to Lancashire, where its headquarters were Manchester and Bolton. In 1760 not more than 40,000 persons were engaged in it, and the annual value of the manufactures was estimated at *600,000. The exports, however, were steadily growing; in 1701 they amounted to *23,253, in 1751 to *45,986, in 1764 to *200,354. Burke about this time spoke of 'that infinite variety of admirable manufactures that grow and extend every year among the spirited, inventive, and enterprising traders of Manchester.' But even in 1764 our exports of cotton were still only one-twentieth of the value of the wool exports.
The hardware trade then as now was located chiefly in Sheffield and Birmingham, the latter town employing over 50,000 people in that industry. The business, however, was not so much concentrated as now, and there were small workshops scattered about the kingdom. 'Polished steel,' for instance, was manufactured at Woodstock, locks in South Staffordshire, pins at Warrington, Bristol, and Gloucester, where they were 'the staple of the city.' The hosiery trade, too, was as yet only in process of concentration. By 1800 the manufacture of silk hosiery had centred in Derby, that of woollen hosiery in Leicester, though Nottingham had not yet absorbed the cotton hosiery. But at the beginning of the century there were still many looms round London, and in other parts of the South of England. In 1750 London had 1000 frames, Surrey 350, Nottingham 1500, Leicester 1000, Derby 200, other places in the Midlands, 7300; other English and Scotch towns, 1850; Ireland, 800; Total, 14,000. Most of the silk was woven in Spitalfields, but first spun in the North at Stockport, Knutsford, Congleton, and Derby. In 1770 there was a silk-mill at Sheffield on the model of Derby, and a manufactory of waste silk at Kendal. Coventry had already, in Defoe's time, attracted the ribbon business. In 1721 the silk manufacture was said to be worth *700,000 a yew more than at the Revolution.
Linen was an ancient manufacture in England, and had been introduced into Dundee at the beginning of the seventeenth century. In 1746 the British Linen Company was incorporated to supply Africa and the American plantations with linen made at home, and Adam Smith considered it a growing manufacture. It was, of course, the chief manufacture of Ireland, where it had been further developed by French Protestants, who settled there at the end of the seventeenth century.
The mechanical arts were still in a very backward state. In spite of the fact that the woollen trade was the staple industry of the country, the division of labour in it was in Adam Smith's time 'nearly the same as it was a century before, and the machinery employed not very different.' According to the same author there had been only three inventions of importance since Edward IV's reign: the exchange of the rock and spindle for the spinning-wheel; the use of machines for facilitating the proper arrangement of the warp and woof before being put into the loom; and the employment of fulling mills for thickening cloth instead of treading it in water. In this enumeration, however, he forgot to mention the fly-shuttle, invented in 1738 by Kay, a native of Bury, in Lancashire, the first of the great inventions which revolutionised the woollen industry. Its utility consisted in its enabling a weaver to do his work in half the time, and making it possible for one man instead of two to weave the widest cloth.
'The machines used in the cotton manufacture,' says Baines, 'were, up to the year 1760, nearly as simple as those of India; though the loom was more strongly and perfectly constructed, and cards for combing the cotton had been adapted from the woollen manufacture. None but the strong cottons, such as fustians and dimities, were as yet made in England, and for these the demand must always have been limited.' In 17S8 John Wyatt invented spinning by rollers, but the discovery never proved profitable. In 1760 the manufacturers of Lancashire began to use the fly-shuttle. Calico printing was already largely developed.
The reason why division of labour was carried out to so small an extent, an invention so rare and so little regarded, is given by Adam Smith himself. Division of labour, as he points out, is limited by the extent of the market, and, owing chiefly to bad means of communication, the market for English manufactures was still a very narrow one. Yet England, however slow the development o* her manufactures, advanced nevertheless more rapidly in this respect than other nations. One great secret of her progress lay in the facilities for water-carriage afforded by her rivers, for all communication by land was still in the most neglected condition. A second cause was the absence of internal customs barriers, such as existed in France, and in Prussia until Stein's time. The home trade of England was absolutely free.
Arthur Young gives abundant evidence of the execrable state of the r. It took a week or more for a coach to go from London to Edinburgh. On 'that infernal' rbetween Preston and Wigan the ruts were four feet deep, and he saw three carts break down in a mile of r At Warrington the turnpike was 'most infamously bad,' and apparently 'made with a view to immediate destruction.' 'Very shabby,' 'execrable,' 'vile,' 'most execrably vile,' are Young's ordinary comments on the highways. But the water routes for traffic largely made up for the deficiencies of the land routes.
Attempts to improve water communication began with deepening the river beds. In 16S5 there was a project for rendering the Avon navigable from its junction with the Severn at Tewkesbury through Gloucestershire, Worcestershire, and Warwickshire, but it was abandoned owing to the civil war. From 1660 to 1755 various Acts were passed for deepening the beds of rivers. In 1720 there was an Act for making the Mersey and Irwell navigable between Liverpool and Manchester. About the same time the navigation of the Aire and Calder was opened out. In 1755 the first canal was made, eleven miles in length, near Liverpool. Three years later the Duke of Bridgewater had another constructed om his coal mines at Worsley to Manchester, seven miles distant. Between 1761 and 1766 a still longer one of twenty-nine miles was completed from Manchester through Chester to the Mersey above Liverpool. From this time onwards the canal system spread with great rapidity.
When we turn to investigate the industrial organisation of the time, we nd that the class of capitalist employers was as yet but in its infancy. A large part of our goods were still produced on the domestic system. Manufactures were little concentrated in towns, and only partially separated from agriculture. The 'manufacturer, was, literally, the man who worked with his own hands in his own cottage. Nearly the whole cloth trade of the West Riding, for instance, was organised on this system at the beginning of the century.
An important feature in the industrial organisation of the time was the existence of a number of small master-manufacturers, who were entirely independent, having capital and land of their own, for they combined the culture of small freehold pasture-farms with their handicraft. Defoe has left an interesting picture of their life. The land near Halifax, he says, was 'divided into small Enclosures from two Acres to six or seven each, seldom more, every three or four Pieces of Land had an House belonging to them;... hardly an House standing out of a Speaking distance from another;... we could see at every House a Tenter, and on almost every Tenter a piece of Cloth or Kersie or Shaloon.... 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 youngest to the oldest.... Not a Beggar to be seen nor an idle person.'
This system, however, was no longer universal in Arthur Young's time. That writer found at Sheffield a silk-mill employing 152 hands, including women and children; at Darlington 'one master-manufacturer employed above fifty looms'; at Boyton there were 150 hands in one factory. So, too, in the West of England cloth-trade the germs of the capitalist system were visible. The rich merchant gave out work to labourers in the surrounding villages, who were his employes, and were not independent. In the Nottingham hosiery trade there were, in 1750, fifty manufacturers, known as 'putters out,' who employed 1200 frames; in Leicestershire 1800 frames were so employed. In the hand-made nail business of Staffordshire and Worcestershire, the merchant had warehouses in different parts of the district, and give out nail-rod iron to the nail-master, sufficient for a week's work for him and his family. In Lancashire we can trace, step by step, the growth of the capitalist employer. At first we see, as in Yorkshire, the weaver furnishing himself with warp and weft, which he worked up in his own house and brought himself to market. By degrees he found it difficult to get yarn from the spinners; so the merchants at Manchester gave him out linen warp and raw cotton, and the weaver became dependent on them. Finally, the merchant would get together thirty or forty looms in a town. This was the nearest approach to the capitalist system before the great mechanical inventions.
Coming to the system of exchange, we find it based on several different principles, which existed side by side, but which were all, as we should think, very simple and primitive. Each trade had its centre in a provincial town. Leeds, for instance, had its market twice a week, first on the bridge over the Aire, afterwards in the High Street, where, at a later time, two halls were built. Every clothier had his stall, to which he would bring his cloth (seldom more than one piece at a time, owing to the frequency of the markets). At six or seven o'clock a bell rang, and the market began; the merchants and factors came in and made their bargains with the clothiers, and in little more than an hour the whole business was over. By nine the benches were cleared and the hall empty. There was a similar hall at Halifax for the worsted trade. But a large portion of the inland traffic was carried on at fairs, which were still almost as important as in the Middle Ages. The most famous of all was the great fair of Sturbridge, which lasted from the middle of August to the middle of September. Hither came representatives of all the great trades. The merchants of Lancashire brought their goods on a thousand pack-horses; the Eastern counties sent their worsteds, and Birmingham its hardware. An immense quantity of wool was sold, orders being taken by the wholesale dealers of London. In fact, a large part of the home trade found its way to this market. There were also the four great annual fairs, which retained the ancient title of 'marts,' at Lynn, Boston, Gainsborough, and Beverley.
The link between these fairs and the chief industrial centres was furnished by travelling merchants. Some would go from Leeds with droves of pack-horses to all the fairs and market-towns throughout England. In the market-towns they sold to the shops; elsewhere they would deal directly with the consumer, like the Manchester merchants, who sent their pack-horses the round of the farmhouses, buying wool or other commodities in exchange for their finished goods. Sometimes the London merchants would come to the manufacturers, paying their guineas down at once, and taking away the purchases themselves. So too in the Birmingham lock trade, chapmen would go round with pack-horses to buy from manufacturers; in the brass trade likewise the manufacturer stayed at home, and the merchant came round with cash in his saddle-bags, and put the brasswork which he purchased into them, though in some cases he would order it to be sent by carrier.
Ready cash was essential, for banking was very little developed. The Bank of England existed, but before 1759 issued no notes of less value than *20. By a law of 1709 no other bank of more than six partners was allowed; and in 1750, according to Burke, there were not more than 'twelve bankers' shops out of London.' The Clearing-House was not established till 1775.
Hampered as the inland trade was by imperfect communications, extraordinary efforts were made to promote exchange. It is striking to find waste silk from London made into silk-yarn at Kendal and sent back again, or cattle brought from Scotland to Norfolk to be fed. Many districts, however, still remained completely excluded, so that foreign products never reached them at all. Even at the beginning of this century the Yorkshire yeoman, as described by Southey was ignorant of sugar, potatoes, and cotton; the Cumberland dalesman, as he appears in Wordsworth's Guide to the Lakes, lived entirely on the produce of his farm. It was this domestic system which the great socialist writers Sismondi and Lassalle had in their minds when they inveighed against the modern organisation of industry. Those who lived under it, they pointed out, though poor, were on the whole prosperous; over-production was absolutely impossible. Yet at the time of which I am speaking, many of the evils which modern Socialists lament were already visible, especially in those industries which produced for the foreign market. Already there were complaints of the competition of men who pushed themselves into the market to take advantage of high prices; already we hear of fluctuations of trade and irregularity of employment. The old simple conditions of production and exchange were on the eve of disappearance before the all-corroding force of foreign trade.
The home trade was still indeed much greater in proportion than now; but the exports had grown from about *7,000,000 at the beginning of the century to *14,500,000 in 1760. During that interval great changes had taken place in the channels of foreign commerce. In 1700 Holland was our great market, taking more than one-third of all our exports, but in 1760 the proportion was reduced to about one-seventh. Portugal, which in 1703 took one-seventh, now took only about one-twelfth. The trade with France was quite insignificant. On the other hand, the Colonies were now our chief markets, and a third of our exports went there. In 1770 America took three-fourths of all the manufactures of Manchester. In 1767 the exports to Jamaica were nearly as great as they had been to all the English plantations together in 1704. The shipping trade had doubled, and the ships themselves were larger. In 1732 ships 750 tons were considered remarkable; in 1770 there were many in Liverpool of 900 tons; but in this as in other branches of business progress was still slow, partial, local, thus presenting a striking contrast to the rapid and general advance of the next half-century.
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