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Selections Illustrating Economic History Since the Seven Years' War
Selections Illustrating Economic History Since the Seven Years' War Author:Benjamin Rand 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: II. THE GREAT INVENTIONS. Fkom Walpole's History Of England,l Vol. I. pp. 50-76. THE manufacturing industries of the country had never previously experienc... more »ed so marvellous a development. The hum of the workshop was heard in places which had previously only been disturbed by the whirr of the grouse; and new forces, undreamed of a century before, were employed to assist the progress of production. The trade of the United Kingdom acquired an importance which it had never previously enjoyed, and the manufacturing classes obtained an influence which they had never before known. The landowners were slowly losing the monopoly of power which they had enjoyed for centuries. Traders and manufacturers were daily obtaining fresh wealth and influence. A new England was supplanting the old country; and agriculture, the sole business of our forefathers, was gradually becoming of less importance than trade. In 1793, the first year of the war, the official value of all the imports into Britain was less than £20,000,000. In 1815, the year of Waterloo, it exceeded £31,000,000. In 1792 the official value of British and Irish exports was only £ 18,000,000; it rose in 1815 to £41,000,000. The official values, however, give only a very imperfect idea of the extent of our export trade. They are based on prices fixed so far back as 1696, and afford, therefore, an inaccurate test of the extent of our trade. No attempt was made to ascertain the declared or real value of the exports till the year 1798, when it slightly exceeded £33,000,000. The declared value of the exports of British and Irish produce in 1815 exceeded £49,000,000. The rise in the value of the exports and imports was attributable to many causes. The predominanceof the British at sea had driven every enemy from the ocean, and had enable...« less