Search -
The Growth of English Industry and Commerce in Modern Times
The Growth of English Industry and Commerce in Modern Times Author:William Cunningham Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: A.D. 1776 —1850. The concentration of labour involved the decay of cottage employment and increased the differentiation of town and country so that t... more »he weaver ceased to have subsidiary sources of income, Riding and other areas where water-power could be had, and the comparative desertion of low lying and level districts. The application of steam-power caused a farther readjustment in favour of the coal-producing areas; but this new development did not resuscitate the decaying industries of the Eastern Counties, since they were as badly off for coal as they were for water-power. 245. The introduction of machinery rendered it necessary to concentrate the labourers in factories where the machines were in operation; the new methods of work were incompatible with the continued existence of cottage industry. The man who worked in his own house, whether as a wage- earner under the capitalist system or as an independent tradesman under the domestic system, was no longer required, so soon as it was proved that machine production was economically better. In the same way, the concentration of spinning in factories deprived the women of a by-employment in their cottages. During the greater part of the eighteenth century industrial occupations were very widely diffused, and the interconnection between the artisan population and rural occupation was close1. The severance had already begun; but under the influence of the introduction of machinery it went on with greater rapidity, till the differentiation of town from country employment was practically complete. The divorce of the industrial population from the soil tended on the one hand to the impoverishment of the rural districts, from which manufactures were withdrawn, and on the other to a notable change in the position ...« less