544 PROSPECTS OF INDUSTRY 



counties this is almost complete. The Squirearchy, using the term 

 in its proper meaning, is nearly extinct; and the inferior landed 

 proprietor, the mixed labourer and owner of property, is absolutely 

 gone. This extinction of the yeoman-farmer in the manufacturing 

 districts has been well described by Mr. Gaskell. He says, " The 

 yeoman had lived generation after generation upon his patrimonial 

 acres, rarely increasing their extent, and quite as rarely lessening 

 them. He had however failed to keep pace with the onward march 

 of events, had confined himself to cultivating his land precisely in 

 the same way in which it had been cultivated by his forefathers ; 

 viewed all innovations as rank heresy, and vegetated upon his natal 

 soil, profiting either it or the world but little. He was also utterly 

 unable to cope with the crisis which was now opening upon 

 him. He had hitherto been surrounded by petty farmers, who 

 had generally eked out their bad management as cultivators by 

 weaving, and these had served him as bulwarks against the coming 

 storm. They were however one by one removed, and their places 

 immediately occupied by a new race of men, who gave increased 

 rents, and who by improved modes of husbandry soon drove the 

 small proprietor from the markets, which he had so long supplied. 

 This necessarily led to great difficulties, and to embarrassments of no 

 ordinary kind ; and was the first step towards the abolition of the 

 small freeholder or yeoman. Their little estates became so encum- 

 bered, as to be quite worthless to them ; and a very rapid and very 

 extensive change took place in landed proprietorship from 1790 to 

 1810, the period when this industrial transition was most actively in 

 progress." 



Coincident with this rapid declension of a body of men, who had 

 hitherto formed an important link in the social union, was the en- 

 closing of commons and waste land, and the abandonment of the 

 cottier and small-farm system. Capital, rapidly accumulated, began 

 to seek means of advantageous investment in land, and thus com- 

 pletely broke up the inferior class of farmers. These men had no 

 capital beyond their own labour ; and as they made their labour dear, 

 by want of due economy, cheaper and hireling labour drove them 

 from their position. Hence, to a very great extent, the small land- 

 holder, as well as the small land-owner, disappeared. 



The labourer, de facto, now became in a great measure isolated. 



