longer waited impatiently for royal patronage, but made their way into Parliament and forced on the approval of their schemes there. The great trading undertakings to the South Seas or Hudson's Bay owed nothing to royal patronage and support; and in the same way the Darien scheme was a national Scotch adventure of which the king and his English advisers strongly disapproved. The newer colonies too were not started by individuals under the support of royal charters, but were the free settlement of a portion of the nation on a new region of the earth's surface.

The resources of the mother country had in some cases been largely drawn on to start the colonies. English capital and English credit were employed there, English labour was drafted to them, and it was alleged as justifying this application of English resources that the development of these new countries re-acted on the strength and power of the mother country. In many ways the interests of the colonists were hampered and a preference was given to producers at home, but then producers at home contributed largely to the taxes of the realm: money was easily collected from them, and the revenue thus collected was controlled by Parliament, so that there was a security for its being expended in the best way. In the case of colonial or Irish manufactures this was not the case: no substantial share of the national revenue under parliamentary control came directly from them. It would be difficult to show that Parliament favoured the English citizen at home, more than the English citizen abroad: much of the fourth book of Adam Smith might be quoted to show that the purse of the Englishman at home suffered for the sake of enlarging the colonial trade: and it is absurd to suppose that the responsible statesmen

were unaware of this fact.1 But it was true that home manufactures supplied a more direct source of national wealth and revenue than colonial ones would have done, and the interest of the nation, not the selfishness of manufacturers, was the moving cause in building up the English protective system of the eighteenth century.

The American planters were not unwilling to have their interests subordinated to those of the mother country so long as the French threatened them in the flank and in the rear all other classes of citizens were liable to the same interference with the free pursuit of their private gain, where the interests of the mother country were involved; and the economic problem of the statesman was to arrange the pressure of taxation and regulation so that the interest of the citizen should lead him in the course which the national interest indicated. But when the defeat of the French in Canada freed the planters from a fear of invasion from that side, the case was wholly changed. They no longer relied on England for protection and defence, for there was no neighbouring foe they feared; they had little to gain by maintaining their part in English civil society, and when the pressure from home began to be more galling, the care for their own interests led them to sever themselves from the empire. National consolidation had brought out strong national rivalries; but citizens who ceased to feel an interest in the rivalries of European nations, had no sufficient motive for bearing a share of the burden of sustaining these national quarrels. When the severance which destroyed for the time our colonial empire and broke up the commercial system in which it had taken such an important place, actually

1 Especially as it was clearly expounded in generally read economic tracts like Child's Discourse of Trade.

occurred, the action of the colonists was defended on principles that had found classical expression in the philosophy of Locke. He had formulated a doctrine of society based on the conception of private interest and neglectful of loyalty or social duty, and the colonists merely followed his teaching.

Thus partly through the fortunes of war, partly through the progress of opinion, the political doctrine which demanded that the authorities should regulate the direction of private enterprise and capital fell into discredit with regard to foreign commerce, as it had done long before with regard to the supply of the home market. Inconveniences had been felt all along-many inconveniences from the Navigation Act, countless inconveniences from the laws for regulating the woollen manufacture, but these inconveniences had been borne with patience, for the sake of the national interest. But with the loss of the American plantations the national interest took a new form, and the whole system needed to be recast in the light of the results of the recent struggle: common sense began to question whether the inconveniences arising from the attempt to regulate trade were not so great that it was hardly worth while to rebuild the shattered system. It was thus by a long experience, and by the effects of one great blow, that the national mind was led to adopt the system of national liberty both for its home and foreign trade.

23. These political changes were only one of several conditions which contributed during the latter part of last century to overturn the economic principles then in vogue perhaps the most important element however was the introduction of machinery into several departments of

textile industry: it will be sufficient to indicate very briefly the extraordinary results which have been due to the invention of the spinning-jenny and power-loom.

In the first place there has been an entire cessation of domestic manufactures: it is no longer possible for the peasant to carry on the work of his farm, and to occupy his leisure in weaving; nor is it possible for his wife and children to make spinning a profitable occupation. Instead of supporting his family by manufacturing as well as by farming, he had to choose which of the two lines of life he would follow: manufacturing became concentrated in the towns, and the rural population ceased to have any regular occupation but tillage. From this it also followed that the textile trades were drawn to districts where machinery could be easily obtained and cheaply worked hence the long celebrated manufactures of Suffolk and of Wiltshire declined while a new impetus was given to those of Yorkshire and of Lancashire.

:

This reacted curiously on the character of rural economy peasants who were reduced to entire dependence on the soil for a livelihood, could not work their land on the old system with success: they needed to adopt some more profitable methods if they were to prosper at all, now that they were deprived of the opportunity of manufacturing. Hence the introduction of the system of large farms, the general movement in favour of enclosing open fields, and the endeavour to prosecute better methods of farming. The severance of industrial and agricultural occupations rendered a revolution in rural economy absolutely necessary: nor could this revolution be accomplished without much misery. The wages for agricultural labour did not rise, and could not be profitably raised to a figure which compensated for the loss of industrial employment,

and the low wages which still rule in the South of England generally for farm labourers, show that the effects of the change are traceable in our present circumstances.

Even more striking, however, was the revolution in manufacturing: while the staple industries of the country were on the whole domestic, but little capital was required to carry them on, and each man did his work with his own stock in trade in his own house. For success in manufacturing the prime condition was skill in labouring, and all such institutions as the craft gilds and such laws as the Statute of Apprentices passed in 1563, were designed to afford conditions which should favour the skill of Englishmen. Unless a man had served his time properly he could not be supposed to have acquired skill in any craft, and therefore he was not allowed to pursue one: if a man had a great many apprentices at one time he could not train any of them properly, and therefore there was a legal limitation to the number of apprentices he might have.

In some cases indeed regulations were made to secure the quality of goods directly: when this could not be accomplished by gild regulations, as in the case of weavers scattered in villages all round a town, inspectors had to be appointed who should see that the pieces of cloth were well made and of the full size. This was not only necessary for the reputation of English goods in foreign markets, but most advisable for the sake of home conThe regulations however were very difficult to enforce, and the merchants and employers who dealt with the village weavers found that the laws were constantly evaded so that Parliament allowed them to combine1 for the prosecution of such offences as embezzling materials 1 17 Geo. III. c. 11, 24 Geo. III. c. 3.

sumers.