To
relieve poverty poor laws were passed; to prevent the decline of
productivity corn laws were passed fixing arbitrary prices for
grain. For a time monopolies creating artificial prosperity were
granted to individuals and to corporations for the manufacture,
sale, or exploitation of certain articles, such as matches,
gunpowder, and playing-cards.
This highly artificial and paternalistic state was not content
with regulating all these internal matters but spread its
protection over foreign commerce. Navigation acts attempted to
monopolize the trade of the colonies and especially the trade in
the products needed by the mother country. England encouraged
shipping and during this period achieved that dominance of the
sea which has been the mainstay of her vast empire. She fostered
plantations and colonies not for their own sake but that they
might be tributaries to the wealth of the nation. An absurd
importance was attached to the possession of gold and silver, and
the ingenuity of statesmen was exhausted in designing lures to
entice these metals to London. Banking and insurance began to
assume prime importance. By 1750 England had sent ships into
every sea and had planted colonies around the globe.
But while the mechanism of trade and of government made
surprising progress during the mercantile period, the mechanism
of production remained in the slow handicraft stage. This was now
to change. In 1738 Kay invented the flying shuttle, multiplying
the capacity of the loom.
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