338 PROSPECTS OF INDUSTRY 



finally, point out what appear to be the most likely means for 

 saving the lower orders of society from being overwhelmed by the 

 onward career of events. 



It was well observed by a writer of no common talents, in the 

 " Quarterly," that " the changes which gradually and almost imper- 

 ceptibly take place in the interior arrangements of society ultimately 

 end in some crisis, which forces itself upon the attention of the com- 

 munity. Until the middle of the sixteenth century, the population 

 of this country was employed almost exclusively in the labours of 

 the field; manufactures, as a distinct occupation, being nearly un- 

 known. A surplus population gradually arose which could not be 

 absorbed by the cultivation of the land already in tillage ; and for 

 hands not wanted in agriculture, manufactures offered no resource ; 

 such establishments did not exist; every manufactured article which 

 could not be fabricated at home, by the manual labours of the 

 farmer's family, was imported from abroad." 



This surplus population, by the breaking up of feudal tenures, 

 and the confiscation of monastic property, was thrown into idleness 

 and beggary ; and it was this crisis with which the ministers of 

 Elizabeth had to contend. The codification of the poor laws was 

 one result of this crisis, and the cultivation of manufactures another. 

 We are now come to another social crisis, different in many respects 

 from the one to which we have just alluded, and yet having one main 

 feature in common with it namely, a surplus population, partially 

 pauperised. 



" The extent to which the employment of machinery," quoting 

 from the same writer, " has been pushed as a substitute for human 

 labour has at length brought on a new crisis : it is one essentially dif- 

 ferent from that which presented itself to the statesmen of the sixteenth 

 century. Then the agricultural population had become too nume- 

 rous, while a large proportion of the surplus produce of English land 

 was exported in exchange for wrought commodities. Now, so far 

 are our manufactures from requiring an increased supply of hands, 

 that they overflow with workmen, for whose industry there is no 

 profitable demand. The employment of machinery not only stops 

 the gap through which the surplus of our agricultural population 

 had been used to make its way into manufactures, but it has likewise 

 thrown out of employment a considerable proportion of the hands 



