32 Lange, Bessemer, Goran sson and Mitshet. 



risen all round whilst the price of food has dropped.''- 

 The working classes of to-day are enabled to earn and 

 spend at least double the amount which was at their 

 command at any previous age of the world. This result 

 is, no doubt, almost wholly due to the economy in the 

 means of production made by cheap steel,"' and to the 

 other inventions which have followed in its wake. These 

 are material gains, but they are being followed by the 

 slow but sure elevation of the great mass of society to a 

 higher plane of intelligence and aspiration. 



The first striking result of the cheapening in the cost 

 of the production and transportation of food products was 

 felt in Great Britain, which is now compelled to import at 

 least two-thirds of its consumption. The competition of 

 the American western wheat regions, with the products 

 of India in the English markets, altered the whole con- 

 ditions of agriculture in the British Isles. The profitable 

 raising of wheat became practically impossible, and the 

 farmers who had depended upon it could no longer pay 

 the rents stipulated in their leases. A general reduction 

 of rent became necessary, which, of course, reduced the 

 income of the landlords. The aristocracy of Great 

 Britain is' a survival of previous conditions, depending for 

 its existence upon the ownership of the land and the 

 revenue derived .from it. Hence a serious blow at, what 

 may be termed, the privileged class of Great Britain was 

 struck, of course unintentionally, by the invention of 

 Bessemer. This has gone very far towards effecting a 

 transfer of power from those who own the land to the 

 commercial, manufacturing and industrial classes of the 



-2 The comparison is with the era prior to the Bessemer invention. 

 To-day, both wages and the cost of Hving are rising;. 



-*The world's output of open-hearth steel is now much greater than 

 that of Bessemer steel. See remarks on the future of Bessemer steel in the 

 Appendix, Note 5. 



