CHAPTER XVII 



THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION 



CONTEMPORANEOUSLY with the canal period in England came 

 an industrial revolution which was to place this country 

 hitherto distinctly backward in the development of its in- 

 dustries at the head of manufacturing nations, but was, 

 also, to show that, however great the advantages conferred 

 by canals, as compared both with rivers and with roads, 

 even canals were inadequate to meet the full and ever- 

 expanding requirements of trade and transport. 



The main causes of this industrial revolution were the 

 application of a number of inventions and improved pro- 

 cesses to leading industries ; the incalculable advantages 

 derived from steam power ; the immense increase in the 

 supplies of cotton, coal, minerals and other raw materials ; 

 the greater wealth of the nation, allowing of much more 

 capital being available for industrial enterprises ; and the 

 improvement, not alone in inland communication, but in ship- 

 building and the art of navigation, foreign markets being thus 

 reached more readily at a time when the general political 

 and economic conditions were especially favourable to the 

 commercial expansion abroad which followed on our in- 

 dustrial expansion at home. 



Woollen manufactures, originally established here with 

 the help of workers introduced from Flanders in the time 

 of Edward III., had had a long pre-eminence, obtaining a 

 vested interest which led to the advent of a new rival, in 

 the form of cotton manufacturers, receiving, at first, very 

 scanty encouragement. Woollens had made such progress 

 that, even before the Restoration, a market was (as Dowell 

 tells us) opened for our goods, not only in Spain, France, 

 Italy and Germany, but also in Russia and Baltic and other 

 ports, while they were carried by way of Archangel into 

 Persia, and also made a market for themselves in Turkey. 



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