manifestations, feeble and somewhat foolish as they were, caused a veritable panic in the country. The Habeas Corpus Act was suspended, and all opposition silenced in imprisonment.1 In the war, Pitt was indomitable till his death (in 1805), inspiring and subsidising 2 coalitions against France, or guiding England unflinchingly when she had to fight single-handed against the world. At times, as in 1796, Britain was threatened with invasion by the French, and the Irish, or, rather, a certain section of them, assisted her would-be invaders. At another time (1806), English industry was threatened with ruin by Napoleon's Berlin and Milan Decrees, forbidding Continental nations to trade with us.* 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.

§ 216. Its Effects upon Industry and the Working

Classes.

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. Yet the French Revolution, and the consequent wars, had not retarded to a very great extent the development of our industries, though the contest required a large portion of the wealth produced by the new industrial system to pay for it.5 But in one thing we had had 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 1 Green, History, iv. 315.

2 Rogers, Economic Interpretation, p. 201, remarks that Pitt "hired the European monarchs in succession, and made very unsuccessful bargains." Elsewhere he is very severe on Pitt (p. 470) for "plunging the country" into this twenty-two years' war. This is not quite fair to Pitt, who seems rather to have tried to avoid war.

3 Cf. Lecky, History, VII. chs. xxvii, and xxviii.

Cf. my British Commerce, pp. 94, 95; Commerce in Europe, p. 177;

and Craik, History of British Commerce, iii. 192, 193.

5 " Cf. Lecky, History, vi. 218; Porter, Progress of the Nation, i. 188.

T

trade left secure to her by our undisputed naval supremacy." But yet her finances had been strained to an enormous extent, and before concluding this hasty sketch of the great period of the Continental War, we ought to mention the financial difficulties into which, in spite of commercial prosperity, it plunged our country. None but a rich State could ever have stood the terrible effects of this war as well as England bore them at this time; but even as it was the strain was tremendous. The war actually cost from first to last no less than £831,446,449, and more than £600,000,000 were added to the National Debt.2 William Pitt, who was then Prime Minister, tried every means of raising money, not only by increasing duties on almost every article that could be taxed, but also by a system of loans. The duties were placed upon spirits, plate, brick, stones, glass, wine, tea, coffee, fruit, hats, horses, and dogs; and these were followed by a heavy income tax, till very soon there were very few articles of any description that were left untaxed. Loans were also raised by the Government upon a system which has since proved very disadvantageous to the country at large, because such easy terms were given to the lenders that practically very little more than 65 per cent. was received for every

3

1 Early in the war she gained the mastery of the sea and became the workshop of Europe; Rogers, Economic Interpretation, p. 292.

2 At this period (1793) the revenue from taxation only was £19,845,705, and the expenditure £24,197,070. In 1815 the revenue was £72,210,512, and the expenditure £92,280,180. At the beginning of the war with Russia in 1855 the National Debt was £805,411,690; in 1882 it had been reduced to £754,455,270; and in 1890 to £689,944,027, the annual interest and annuities on which amount to some £25,000,000. Cf. W. Hewins' article in the Co-operative Annual, 1889. On the Debt generally, see Leone Levi, History of British Commerce, Pt. II., ch. iii.

3 Rogers, who criticises Pitt's finance very severely, remarks that his taxes were the worst conceivable, because they were nearly all on consumption, trade, and manufactures; Economic Interpretation, p. 470. But allowance must be made for the desperate circumstances of the case; cf. Leone Levi, History of British Commerce, p. 98.

It was 10 per cent. on incomes of £200 and over; Rogers, Economic Interpretation, p. 474; and cf. Levi, History of British Commerce,

P. 99.

5

Cf. Lecky's criticism of Pitt's finance, History, v. 53; also Leone Levi, History of British Commerce, p. 98 (Pt. II., ch. iii.), and p. 102.

2

£100 nominally subscribed.1 Thus between 1793 and 1801 no less than eighteen different loans were raised by Pitt, but for the nominal capital of £314,000,000 that were funded as national debt only £202,000,000 were really received in cash. Heavy subsidies, amounting to some £57,000,000, were also given to our continental allies, chiefly Prussia and Austria. No less than £5,000,000 were sent to German states alone in 1796.3 The awful strain upon the resources of the country naturally led to severe commercial crises, and even the Bank of England was directed by the Government to suspend cash payments of its notes (26th February, 1797). These notes, which now could not be turned into cash, were nevertheless accepted loyally by all the principal merchants, and, following their example, by all classes of the community; and for more than twenty years the bank was not permitted to cash its own notes. Such was the crisis through which the commerce of the country had to pass, and that it passed through it successfully says much for English energy and perseverance! But if it had not been that the Industrial Revolution, and the inventions which caused it, had come, as it were, just in time to increase our national wealth, it is very doubtful whether the nation could have passed as successfully as it did through an ordeal so severe as this.

But the working classes had suffered the most, in spite of the fact that our manufactures prospered and exports increased all through the war. In 1793 the exports were officially valued at over £17,000,000; for every year afterwards they were at least £22,000,000, often more; in 1800 over £34,000,000, and in 1815 they had quite doubled 1 On some occasions the loan was even issued below £50 per cent; Rogers, Economic Interpretation, p. 452.

2 Leone Levi, History of British Commerce, p. 101.

3 For exact amounts of foreign loans and subsidies, 1793-1814, see Porter, Progress of the Nation, ii. 335.

Craik, History of British Commerce, iii. 158-164; and Levi, History of British Commerce, Pt. II., ch. i. p. 75.

* Craik, History of British Commerce, iii. 163.

For the resumption of cash payments in 1819, see Levi, British Commerce, pp. 141, 142 (Pt. II., ch. vi.).

2

their value at the beginning of the war, being then over £58,000,000 (official value).1 But most of the profits of trade went into the hands of the capitalist manufacturers, while taxation fell with special severity upon the poor, since taxes were placed on every necessity and convenience of daily life. Even as late as 1842 there were over a thousand articles in the customs tariff. The price of wheat, moreover, rose to famine height; from 49s. 3d. per quarter in 1793 to 69s. in 1799, to 113s. 10d. in 1800, and 106s. in 1810.3 At the same time wages were rapidly falling, and thus the burdens of the war fell most severely upon those least able to pay for them. But the poverty of the poor was the wealth of the landowners, who kept on raising rents continually,5 and grew rich upon the starvation of the people; for they persuaded Parliament to prohibit the importation of foreign corn except at famine prices, and avoided, as far as possible, even during the Continental War, the necessary burdens of taxation." It was owing to their influence that Pitt raised fresh funds from taxes on articles of trade, manufacture, and general consumption. The result was seen in the deepening distress of the industrial classes, and in 1816 riots broke out everywhere in Kent among the agricultural labourers, in the Midlands among the miners, and at Nottingham among the artisans, who wreaked their vengeance upon the new machines which they thought had stolen their bread. But the theft must rather be laid to the charge of those who did not allow them to participate in the wealth they had helped

to create.

1 Levi, u. s., Appendix, pp. 491, 492.

2 Levi, History of British Commerce, p. 269.

3 Leone Levi, British Commerce, p. 85 (Pt. II., ch. ii.), and p. 145, note. For further details as to condition of the working classes, cf. Rogers, Six Centuries, p. 505; and Levi, History of British Commerce, pp. 145, 146.

5 Porter, Progress of the Nation, i. p. 188.

Below, pp. 434, 435.

7 Rogers, Economic Interpretation, pp. 471, 473, 474.

8 Ib.,

p. 470.

9 Annual Register, 58; Levi, History of British Commerce, p. 146.

§ 217. Politics among the Working Classes. Such were the economic effects of the period of industrial change and foreign war upon English society-the enrichment of the capitalists and landowners on the one hand, but the pauperising of the working classes on the other. So dire was the distress of the workmen that they felt something must be done to make their voice heard effectively in the government of the people. They had tried violence, and that had been put down with a strong hand. Wiser counsels prevailed. William Cobbett, in his Weekly Political Register (1803 to 1835), and those who thought like him, taught them to believe that a reform of Parliament would cure their evils by giving them some share in the making of the laws which affected their lives and actions. 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, while the latter brought home to them in their daily lives the new and sharp distinctions between the capitalist autocrat and his hundreds of work people bound to him only by a cash nexus, who as yet were powerless to resist his endeavours to keep down their wages-powerless because the influence of class interests in legislation had despotically forbidden workmen to combine in unions in their own interests. 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, which were attended by foolish rioting, were sharply and severely repressed, and the legislation following on the Manchester Massacre of 1819, in the shape of the drastic

8

1 For this active reformer (b. 1762, d. 1835), see his Life, by Edward Smith (1878), and his own works (cf. list at end of his memoir in Dictionary of National Biography).

2 Cf. Toynbee, Industrial Revolution, pp. 93, 191.

3 I.e., the Combination Laws, and chiefly the 40 Geo. III., c. 60 (1800), which prohibited all combinations for obtaining an advance in wages or lessening the hours of work.