Competition,we have now learnt,is neither good nor evil in itself;it is a force which has to be studied and controlled;it may be compared to a stream whose strength and direction have to be observed,that embankments may be thrown up within which it may do its work harmlessly and beneficially.But at the period we are considering it came to be believed in as a gospel,and,the idea of necessity being superadded,economic laws deduced from the assumption of universal unrestricted competition were converted into practical precepts,from which it was regarded as little short of immoral to depart.
Coming to the facts of the Industrial Revolution,the first thing that strikes us is the far greater rapidity which marks the growth of population.Before 1751the largest decennial increase,so far as we can calculate from our imperfect materials,was 3per cent.For each of the next three decennial periods the increase was 6per cent.;then between 1781and 1791it was 9per cent.;between 1791and 1801,11per cent.;between 1801and 1811,14per cent.;between 1811and 182l,18per cent.This is the highest figure ever reached in England,for since 1815a vast emigration has been always tending to moderate it;between 1815and 1880over eight millions (including Irish)have left our shores.But for this our normal rate of increase would be 16or 18instead of 12per cent.In every decade.
Next we notice the relative and positive decline in the agricultural population.In 1811it constituted 35per cent.of the whole population of Great Britain;in 1821,33per cent.;in 1831,28per cent.And at the same time its actual numbers have decreased.In 1831there were 1,243,057adult males employed in agriculture in Great Britain;in 1841there were 1,207,989.In 1851the whole number of persons engaged in agriculture in England was 2,084,153;in 1861it was 2,010,454,and in 1871it was 1,657,138.Contemporaneously with this change,the centre of density of population has shifted from the Midlands to the North;there are at the present day 458persons to the square mile in the counties north of the Trent,as against 312south of the Trent.And we have lastly to remark the change in the relative population of England and Ireland.Of the total population of the three kingdoms,Ireland had in 182132per cent.,in 1881only 14.6per cent.
An agrarian revolution plays as large part in the great industrial change of the end of the eighteenth century as does the revolution in manufacturing industries,to which attention is more usually directed.Our next inquiry must therefore be:What were the agricultural changes which led to this noticeable decrease in the rural population?The three most effective causes were:the destruction of the common-field system of cultivation;the enclosure,on a large scale,of common and waste lands;and the consolidation of small 'farms into large.We have already seen that while between 1710and 1760some 300,000acres were enclosed,between 1760and 1843nearly 7,000,000underwent the same process.Closely connected with the enclosure system was the substitution of large for small farms.In the first half of the century Laurence,though approving of consolidation from an economic point of view,had thought that the odium attaching to an evicting landlord would operate as a strong check upon it.But these scruples had now disappeared.Eden in 1795notices how constantly the change was effected,often accompanied by the conversion of arable to pasture;and relates how in a certain Dorsetshire village he found two farms where twenty years ago there had been thirty.The process went on uninterruptedly into the present century.Cobbett,writing in 1826,says:'In the parish of Burghclere one single farmer holds,under Lord Carnarvon,as one farm,the lands that those now living remember to have formed fourteen farms,bringing up in a respectable way fourteen families.'The consolidation of farms reduced the number of farmers,while the enclosures drove the labourers off the land,as it became impossible for them to exist without their rights of pasturage for sheep and geese on common lands.
Severely,however,as these changes bore upon the rural population,they wrought,without doubt,distinct improvement from an agricultural point of view.They meant the substitution of scientific for unscientific culture.'It has been found,'says Laurence,'by long experience,that common or open fields are great hindrances to the public good,and to the honest improvement which every one might make of his own.'Enclosures brought an extension of arable cultivation and the tillage of inferior soils;and in small farms of 40to 100acres,where the land was exhausted by repeated corn crops,the farm buildings of clay and mud walls and three-fourths of the estate often saturated with water,consolidation into farms of 100to 500acres meant rotation of crops,leases of nineteen years,and good farm buildings.The period was one of great agricultural advance;the breed of cattle was improved,rotation of crops was generally introduced,the steam-plough was invented,agricultural societies were instituted.In one respect alone the change was injurious.
In consequence of the high prices of corn which prevailed during the French war,some of the finest permanent pastures were broken up.Still,in spite of this,it was said in 1813that during the previous ten years agricultural produce had increased by one-fourth,and this was an increase upon a great increase in the preceding generation.
