ERA OF REFORM, DEMOCRACY, AND EMPIRE

Great Britain after the Napoleonic Wars

For twenty-three years Great Britain had been at war, and during that time home affairs had been neglected, and the mass of her people had endured hardship and misery. On the return of peace, it became necessary to reckon up the gains and losses. Great Britain had obtained a considerable extension of colonial territory. Malta, the Ionian Islands, Heligoland, Cape of Good Hope, Mauritius, Ceylon, Trinidad, and Tobago had been added to her possessions. She had won an influential position in the councils of Europe, and was easily the first naval power in the world. But all these gains had been made at the expense of prosperity, reform, and progress at home. During the period of the war, scarcely one important attempt had been made, on the part of the government, to improve the condition of the British people; all its energies had been consumed in the great task of raising money to subsidize allies, to equip armies, and to build ships. Now that war was over, Great Britain had to face an enormous debt, heavy taxes, high prices, increasing pauperism, badly managed factories, crowded and ill-governed towns, and a thousand other conditions that were making the middle classes dissatisfied and the laborers sullen and rebellious.

The Industrial Revolution

Since the days of Walpole, great industrial changes had taken place in England, which had been responsible alike for the vast increase in wealth and for the terrible distresses of the people. Manufacturing, which had begun in the fourteenth century, had received a new stimulus at the end of the eighteenth century; but, although the number of industries had greatly increased, the methods were still primitive and the output was small.

Weaving of woollen and cotton goods had been carried on by workmen in their cottages, and spinning had been largely done by women and girls in their hours of leisure. In 1733 Kay invented the flying shuttle, which doubled the weaver's power of work and at once increased the demand for yarn. This demand was met in 1764, when Hargreave invented a machine for spinning, known as the spinning-jenny, worked by hand with a wheel. A little later, Arkwright improved on Hargreave's machine, and by a new method made a stronger thread. Crompton combined the inventions of Hargreave and Arkwright, and produced the "mule " in 1779. Thus spinning was advanced more rapidly than weaving, and it remained for some one to make a machine that would weave. This Cartwright did in 1785. But all machines were worked by hand, animals, or water power, until Watt perfected the steam-engine, in the period from 1760 to 1790 ; and even then it machinery and steam would have been only of limited importance, had not coal and coke been substituted for wood and charcoal, and had not improvements in the iron industry rendered that commodity more available for general use. As cheap production demands rapid distribution, it was an important event when Brindley built the first canal, in 1761, and when roads, which had been almost impassable during the eighteenth century, were constructed for the first time of layers of broken stone, a method invented by two Scottish engineers, Thomas Telford and John Macadam.

Side by side with these improvements in manufacturing went improvements in agriculture. Wet lands were drained ; poor lands were transformed by manuring and fertilizing; new seeds and roots were introduced; and the breeds of animals improved in appearance, weight, and strength. Beginning with 1780, a new enclosure movement began, for the sole purpose of better farming.

Effects of These Changes

The first results of these great economic changes were discouraging. Machinery reduced the cottage laborer to penury, enclosures ruined the small farmers and drove them to the cities, the factory system took the place of domestic industry, and great landowners controlled the farms of England. New conditions began to prevail. Men and women crowded into the towns, which were badly adapted to receive them, and were lacking in police and adequate government. They labored in factories, mines, and great industrial establishments, where wages were low, hours long, and the avarice of employers imperilled body and mind.

Since the downfall of the old mercantile system, a new theory of government had arisen known as laissez faire, "let alone," and this said that the government should not interfere, but should let employers and employees settle affairs among themselves. Under this system, factories and mines became death traps for the women and children who worked in them. The evil was aggravated by an abominable poor law system, which had grown up since 1795 and had set aside some of the best features of the old Elizabethan law. It pauperized the poor, trebled the expenses of the parishes, and raised enormously the number of those dependent on parish doles. Crime increased ; and, as in more than two hundred different cases men were punished by hanging, society became brutalized. The tone of the law courts was low—judges browbeat the prisoners, lawyers bullied the witnesses, and the whole administration of law and justice savored of barbarism. It is difficult for us of to-day to realize the cruelty and injustice shown by men of the privileged classes toward those of the class who were without political influence, money, title, certain employment, or assurance of personal liberty or safety.

Policy of the Government (1815-1820)

It is little wonder that the years immediately following the return of peace should have been characterized by agitation and unrest. Not only in England, but in France, Spain, and Italy, during the period from 1815 to 1820, the masses, dissatisfied with the repressive policy of their rulers, were forming secret societies and engaging in revolts. Kings and ministers generally were doing all in their power to preserve the peace by acts of repression.

In 1815 the Tories were in power in England, for the Whigs had become discredited because of their opposition to the war. The prime minister was Liverpool, and associated with him was Castlereagh, a very able but narrow-minded Irishman, as secretary of foreign affairs. The king, George III, an old man and at times insane, was ruling under the regency of his son, the Prince of Wales. As of old, parliament was representative only of the landowning and moneyed classes, and had little sympathy with the people, deeming them dangerous and revolutionary agitators. For five years the government did nothing to alleviate distress, and could find no better remedy than the use of force.

As is usual under such circumstances, leaders arose who did not believe in moderation or compromise, but desired radical changes. These men were called Radicals, and knew no other way to gain their ends than by intimidation. In 1816 a body of them met at Spa Field, near London, and made an attempt to organize a committee of public safety and to seize the Tower. The meeting was broken up by soldiers ; but the frightened government had parliament suspend the Habeas Corpus Act and pass laws to prevent discussion in meetings or in the press. A series of popular movements culminated in the famous gathering at St. Peter's field, Manchester, in 1819, where fifty-thousand persons met to protest against the policy of the government.' The cavalry broke up the crowd and killed half a dozen individuals, whence the name's “Massacre of Peter-loo." Parliament passed the Six Acts called the “Gag Laws", the most important of which prohibited public meetings for the consideration of grievances. One is not surprised that in 1820 a conspiracy was formed to murder the members of the cabinet.

In other respects also the government was unfortunate in its measures. In 1815 it passed the first Corn Law, which forbade the importation of foreign corn until the price should have reached eighty shillings a quarter (eight bushels); and that, too, in the face of great scarcity of corn at home. The corn law was passed in the interest of the landowners, and it increased the distress of the poor, who had no corn to sell, and who were unable to buy it on account of its high price. At the same time parliament removed the income tax. Each of these measures made more intense than before the hatred that the poor classes felt against the rich.