in stringency were passed in 1791 and 1804. In the latter year no corn might be exported if the home price was over 56s. per quarter, and no bounty on exports might be paid when the price was 48s. a quarter. The importation of foreign corn was heavily taxed down to 1773; after that date the various Corn Laws down to 1801 imposed a nominal duty of 6d. per quarter when the home price was 48s., but, with a view to securing ample homegrown food in war time, the duty increased on a sliding scale as the home price fell, until in 1804 the farmers were not faced with foreign competition until the price of homegrown wheat had reached 60s. per quarter.

The various Corn Laws were passed largely because it was necessary to provide food for the nation and little could at that time be imported from abroad, especially after the Great War had begun. In effect they guaranteed a minimum price to the farmer, but it is undoubted that much of the increased supply of food was due to the work of the Board of Agriculture, which sent round lecturers to teach the new methods of farming and offered prizes for useful inventions, as well as advocating the making of better roads and enclosures. The high price of wheat tempted men to enclose waste lands even with borrowed money; the payment of the interest, however, became a difficulty when the price of wheat fell at the end of the war and the period of agricultural depression began.

Introduction of Agricultural Machinery.-Probably one of the most important factors of the increased food supply was the introduction of agricultural machinery for the purpose of saving human labour. In 1781 a drill-plough was patented, and this was followed in quick succession by machines for sowing, reaping, harrowing and winnowing, and a mechanical haymaker was introduced some years later. Various types of threshing machines were invented; some

of the later types were worked by water power, as that of Meikle in 1798, and were fairly efficient, but steam was applied to such machines only in 1803 and for many years was rarely used. Farmers able to obtain command of capital were alone able to buy this expensive machinery, but by its aid those in Scotland and the North of England managed to weather the evil days after the peace, when the less progressive and often more luxurious farmers of the south felt severely the force of foreign competition.

The Corn Law of 1815.-The Corn Law of 1815, which prohibited the importation of foreign-grown wheat until the home price reached 80s. a quarter, was passed not merely in the hope of preserving the prevailing high rents for the benefit of the landlords, but also with the intention of safeguarding the national food supply in case of a renewal of the war. However, the price of wheat fell sufficiently to cause the farmers to seek a reduction of rent, although food remained too dear for the lower classes owing to the industrial disorganisation and distress that followed on the peace.

The Beginnings of Scientific Agriculture. The only farmers who could make agriculture pay were those who called in science to their aid. Chemistry and botany began to be studied from the agriculturist point of view, and in 1840, on the eve of the repeal of the Corn Laws, Justus von Liebig made his famous report to the British Association on "the Relation of Organic Chemistry to Agriculture and Physiology." His investigations into plant life were continued through many years by John Bennett Lawes and his chemist Gilbert at the Rothampstead Agricultural Experiment Station, itself the forerunner of many others. it is a commonplace that the poorest soil can be made fertile by the application of suitable manures-nitrates, phosphates, potash, etc.-and the agricultural chemist has taught

Now

us that horses and cattle may be improved in various ways by scientific feeding.

The problem of the food supply became for a time less pressing when in the last quarter of the nineteenth century the vast wheat fields of the Americas, Australia, and Russia were made available by the introduction of the Bessemer steel rail and the iron and steel steamship. However, the demand for corn again shows a tendency to overtake the available supply, but recent successful experiments in scientific agriculture suggest that the Agricultural Revolution is only yet in its infancy.

3. THE ERA OF MECHANICAL INVENTION.

The Early Textile Industries.-The application of machinery to the arts of spinning and weaving revolutionised English industrial life. The textile industries had long been established in England, but neither the weaving of woollen cloth nor the more recent cotton and linen industries had undergone any striking development down to the middle of the eighteenth century. The wool used was largely of home production, but the cotton wholly and the linen largely came from other countries. The cotton cloth in earlier days was woven with a linen or woollen warp, for the cotton yarn spun by hand was too weak for the purpose. As has been already explained, the textile industries were largely carried on under the domestic system by the peasantry, but their hand labour was slow and the product not always of the best quality. The "spinner," often the unmarried woman of the family (hence the word spinster), found it difficult to supply enough yarn for the weaver's needs, and the problem was aggravated by John Kay's invention of the "flying shuttle," a contrivance which

enabled one weaver to do the work of the two who were formerly required to weave the wider cloths.

The Introduction of Machinery.-The earlier mechanical inventions were more popular in the cotton trade, which, being established around the unincorporated market-town of Manchester, was not so bound down by conservative traditions. The climate of Lancashire by its very humidity was the natural home of the cotton industry, and, despite its exotic character, the latter steadily drove out the earlier State-favoured woollen industry. However, Kay's invention, which dated from 1738, was not widely used till it had been improved by his son Robert in 1760. A few years later James Hargreaves of Blackburn invented his famous "spinning-jenny," by which a number of spindles could be worked at the same time by means of a belt and a treadle. Now the spinners could produce more yarn than the weavers could use, and at first they suffered from periodic spells of unemployment, until the cheapness of their product created the demand that could absorb the supply. In the meantime Hargreaves was so unpopular that he had to leave the district, and his machines were often destroyed by mobs.

However, his fate did not discourage others, and in 1769 Richard Arkwright, a Bolton barber, improved on an earlier suggestion and invented an improved spinning machine-the water-frame-worked by water power at first and later by steam. He too had to face unpopularity and the burning of his mill, but he persevered and by cleverly utilising and improving the ideas of others he made a fortune. One of his contemporaries was Samuel Crompton, who combined the inventions of Hargreaves and Arkwright in a machine called the " mule," which enabled him to spin a much finer and stronger thread than before; the thread produced by Crompton and Arkwright was now strong enough to be used for the warp, and pure cotton cloth became a possibility.

Fortunately for Lancashire, new supplies of raw cotton became available as required. Formerly cotton was imported from India and the East and to some extent from the West Indies. However, during the American War of Independence the Southern States had begun the cultivation of cotton on a large scale, and the output increased with the demand, thanks to the use of slave labour and abundance of land. In 1792 Eli Whitney invented a cotton gin which rendered it much easier to remove the seeds from the "wool." Down to the end of the nineteenth century it seemed that despite the abolition of slavery the United States would be able to supply Lancashire's needs, but rival spinners sprang up in European countries, especially in Germany, and finally in India and Japan and the United States. The world's cotton crop was also decreased by the ravages of the "boll-weevil" and other pests, while improved machinery increased the demand for raw material. In consequence a British Empire Cottongrowing Association has been formed under State patronage to increase the production of cotton, especially in the British African territories.

The Power Loom.--It is curious that the application of power to weaving was neither so early nor so successful. Dr. Edmund Cartwright invented the power loom in 1787, but even when two years later it could be driven by steam it made headway only by slow degrees. One reason was that steam engines were as yet few in number, but perhaps the more important reason was the fact that the labour supply made available by the improvements in tillage had already been attracted into the hand-loom weaving industry since improvements in spinning had made yarn more plentiful. The competition for work during the war kept wages at so low a rate that it was not profitable to introduce the expensive power loom. The