The mechanical arts were still in a very backward state.In spite of the fact that the woollen trade was the staple industry of the country,the division of labour in it was in Adam Smith's time 'nearly the same as it was a century before,and the machinery employed not very different.'According to the same author there had been only three inventions of importance since Edward IV's reign:the exchange of the rock and spindle for the spinning-wheel;the use of machines for facilitating the proper arrangement of the warp and woof before being put into the loom;and the employment of fulling mills for thickening cloth instead of treading it in water.In this enumeration,however,he forgot to mention the fly-shuttle,invented in 1738by Kay,a native of Bury,in Lancashire,the first of the great inventions which revolutionised the woollen industry.Its utility consisted in its enabling a weaver to do his work in half the time,and making it possible for one man instead of two to weave the widest cloth.
'The machines used in the cotton manufacture,'says Baines,'were,up to the year 1760,nearly as simple as those of India;though the loom was more strongly and perfectly constructed,and cards for combing the cotton had been adapted from the woollen manufacture.None but the strong cottons,such as fustians and dimities,were as yet made in England,and for these the demand must always have been limited.'In 17S8John Wyatt invented spinning by rollers,but the discovery never proved profitable.
In 1760the manufacturers of Lancashire began to use the fly-shuttle.Calico printing was already largely developed.
The reason why division of labour was carried out to so small an extent,an invention so rare and so little regarded,is given by Adam Smith himself.Division of labour,as he points out,is limited by the extent of the market,and,owing chiefly to bad means of communication,the market for English manufactures was still a very narrow one.Yet England,however slow the development o*her manufactures,advanced nevertheless more rapidly in this respect than other nations.One great secret of her progress lay in the facilities for water-carriage afforded by her rivers,for all communication by land was still in the most neglected condition.A second cause was the absence of internal customs barriers,such as existed in France,and in Prussia until Stein's time.The home trade of England was absolutely free.
Arthur Young gives abundant evidence of the execrable state of the roads.It took a week or more for a coach to go from London to Edinburgh.On 'that infernal'road between Preston and Wigan the ruts were four feet deep,and he saw three carts break down in a mile of road.At Warrington the turnpike was 'most infamously bad,'and apparently 'made with a view to immediate destruction.''Very shabby,''execrable,''vile,''most execrably vile,'are Young's ordinary comments on the highways.But the water routes for traffic largely made up for the deficiencies of the land routes.
Attempts to improve water communication began with deepening the river beds.In 16S5there was a project for rendering the Avon navigable from its junction with the Severn at Tewkesbury through Gloucestershire,Worcestershire,and Warwickshire,but it was abandoned owing to the civil war.From 1660to 1755various Acts were passed for deepening the beds of rivers.In 1720there was an Act for making the Mersey and Irwell navigable between Liverpool and Manchester.About the same time the navigation of the Aire and Calder was opened out.In 1755the first canal was made,eleven miles in length,near Liverpool.Three years later the Duke of Bridgewater had another constructed om his coal mines at Worsley to Manchester,seven miles distant.Between 1761and 1766a still longer one of twenty-nine miles was completed from Manchester through Chester to the Mersey above Liverpool.
From this time onwards the canal system spread with great rapidity.
When we turn to investigate the industrial organisation of the time,we &nd that the class of capitalist employers was as yet but in its infancy.A large part of our goods were still produced on the domestic system.Manufactures were little concentrated in towns,and only partially separated from agriculture.The 'manufacturer,was,literally,the man who worked with his own hands in his own cottage.Nearly the whole cloth trade of the West Riding,for instance,was organised on this system at the beginning of the century.
An important feature in the industrial organisation of the time was the existence of a number of small master-manufacturers,who were entirely independent,having capital and land of their own,for they combined the culture of small freehold pasture-farms with their handicraft.Defoe has left an interesting picture of their life.The land near Halifax,he says,was 'divided into small Enclosures from two Acres to six or seven each,seldom more,every three or four Pieces of Land had an House belonging to them;...hardly an House standing out of a Speaking distance from another;...we could see at every House a Tenter,and on almost every Tenter a piece of Cloth or Kersie or Shaloon....Every clothier keeps one horse,at least,to carry his Manufactures to the Market;and every one,generally,keeps a Cow or two or more for his Family.By this means the small Pieces of enclosed Land about each house are occupied,for they scarce sow Corn enough to feed their Poultry....The houses are full of lusty Fellows,some at the Dye-vat,some at the looms,others dressing the Cloths;the women and children carding or spinning;being all employed from the youngest to the oldest....Not a Beggar to be seen nor an idle person.'
