Small Hold ings Act, 1890. The Agricultural Union found champions, however, among the Liberal leaders. The extension of the £10 householder suffrage to the rural districts (1884) gave the agricul tural laborer his first opportunity to influence legislation. The additional vote (870,000) was twice that of the landlords and farmers combined. Joseph Arch was sent to the House of Commons, and a strong pressure was brought to bear upon that body by the newly enfranchised. The Small Agricultural Holdings Act (1890) enabled laborers to purchase plots of land large enough for market gardening or small farming. The county councils were empowered to buy estates and divide them into small tracts for sale or rent, while the government undertook to loan capital at low rates of interest to would-be purchasers. The arrangement has not produced any considerable effect.1 Landowners were unwilling to sell, and laborers hesitated to burden themselves with a debt in this era of low prices. Pauperism. Any review of the social and industrial conditions of modern England would be incomplete without some notice of the growth of pauperism and the efforts made to check this menace to the nation's health. The industrial upheaval of the past hundred years has been attended by results both good and bad. An immense gain in material wealth has been achieved at the expense of the well-being of the laborers immediately concerned. Improved farming, no less than machinery, has deprived thousands of the means of self-support and driven them to seek aid at the hands of parish officers or private almsgivers. From 1750 to 1820, the years in which the factory system was becoming estab 1 In 1895 allotments had been provided in only eight counties of England, Scotland, and Wales, and but 483 acres sold. In forty-one of the eighty-four remaining counties applications had been made. lished and enclosures were being made, the growth of pauperism was appalling. The poor-rate augmented till it reached the alarming proportions of one-fourth the national revenue, and the burden on the taxpayer was intolerable. 1228, 1229. The phenomenal increase in the number of paupers was due in part to unwise methods of relief, in part to the disturbing effects of the Napoleonic wars, in part to the Bright, III, mischievous corn laws that not infrequently raised the price of bread to famine rates; but the main cause was the industrial change that rendered opportunity for employment uncertain and left laborers dependent on precarious wages. No legislation can reach the fundamental difficulty. Parliament has undertaken little more than the regulation of relief. The burden of the poor-rate is now but one-third of what it was in 1834, and the number of paupers has been greatly reduced, but there is still the problem of the "submerged tenth." The most hopeful feature of the times is the awakening of the social conscience. People's Palaces, improved tenements, university extension, these and many more generous efforts to better the conditions of life and labor for the working classes bear witness to the new spirit of brotherhood that controls the thought of to-day. The new ideal astir in England has found noble expression in the writings of Kingsley, Carlyle, Ruskin, and William Morris. Principal Inventions Fly-shuttle, Kay, 1738. Spinning-jenny, Hargreaves, 1767. Throstle, Arkwright, 1769. Spinning-mule, Crompton, 1779. Steam-engine, Watt, 1775. Power-loom, Cartwright, 1785. Cotton-gin, Whitney, 1793. Steamboat, Symington, 1802. Locomotive engine, Stephenson, 1825. Booth, In Darkest CHAPTER XVI THE BRITISH EMPIRE Books for Consultation SPECIAL AUTHORITIES Cotton and Paine, Colonies and Dependencies. Lyall, Rise of British Dominion in India. De Walker, Australasia. Stanley, etc., Africa, its Partition and its Future. Russell, Dampier. Besant, Captain Cook. IMAGINATIVE LITERATURE Thackeray, The Virginians. Steel, On the Face of the Waters. British America. The region that remained loyal to the mother-country after the secession of the thirteen colonies lay, for the most part, north of the St. Lawrence River, and in a sub-arctic climate. Canada has developed slowly as compared with the United States, both industrially and politically. The eighteenth-century population was largely French and Indian. Even to-day, after one hundred and thirty years of English rule, the Saxon element is in the From the out minority in the oldest province of Quebec. set, however, the bulk of intelligence and enterprise was with the English settlers. Under their influence, a full measure of self-government has been secured. Taught by her unhappy experience with the seaboard colonies, England has conceded representative institutions to Canada without serious protest. A rising of the French population, in 1837, led to the reorganization of the government. Que- Payne, bec and Ontario were then united for purposes of general European Colonies, legislation. In 1867, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick ch. XI. came into the federation, Manitoba in 1870, British Colum- Bright, IV, bia in 1871, and Prince Edward Island in 1873. New- 6-13, 434. foundland alone remains outside. By the British North British American Act (1867), a constitution similar in principle to that of Great Britain was conceded. The House of Com- Act, 1867. mons of the Canadian Parliament is made up of representatives elected by the property-owning citizens; in the Senate, or upper house, sit life members, appointed by the crown. The governor-general remains the representative of the queen, but the real responsibility is vested in the ministry, and the composition of the Cabinet depends, in Canada as in England, on the party having a majority in the lower House. Each of the seven provinces in the Dominion has its own legislature and executive, administering the local government. North Pacific Railway, 1885. The latent resources of British America are being rapidly opened up under a wise system of colonization.' The Canadian Pacific Railway (completed in 1885) binds the Canadian old Atlantic colonies to the mining settlements of British Columbia, and carries immigrants to the wheat and ranch lands of the Northwest Territory. Under the liberal administration of Sir Wilfrid Laurier, the commercial interests of the country are being developed. Improvements in the transatlantic steamship service receive official encouragement, special advantages are accorded to trade with the 1 Population of Canada (1891): English, 3.428,265; French, 1,404,974; Indian, 102,275. 1857. mother-country, while efforts are being made to secure a reciprocity treaty with the United States. India. - Parliament began to concern itself with Indian affairs at the close of the eighteenth century. The greed of the Company officials was checked and much was done for the well-being of the country. Still the English rule was both alien and corrupt, and was bitterly resented by upper-class The Sepoy Hindoos. A widespread mutiny among the native troops Rebellion, finally convinced the home government that radical reform Source-Book, was imperative. In 1858, the East India Company's charter PP. 435-444. was withdrawn, and the country so long under its control Bright, IV, became a dependency of the crown. The dominion thus acquired is ten times the area of the United Kingdom, and more than half as large as the United States. population amounts to one-seventh that of the whole globe. One hundred different languages are spoken within Suez Canal, its confines. Since the opening of the Suez Canal (1869) England has a direct sea-route to India, and trade interests have been greatly developed. 292-329. 1869. Its Queen Victoria was proclaimed Empress of India in 1877. The oriental empire is ruled as a crown colony. This means that the administration, civil and military, is appointed by and responsible to the English government, and that Indian affairs are determined in all important details by the queen's ministry. A limited degree of representation has been recently introduced in the city councils, but the essentials of self-government are quite beyond the comprehension of the native population. It is not likely that they will soon grow up to it. The only feasible administration is as un-English as may be, a bureaucratic civil service, maintaining its authority by military force. Her East Indian possessions have thus far been of but dubious advantage to England. The government is a heavy responsibility, far more perplexing than that of Ireland. Vexed questions of race and religion baffle the administration at every turn and frustrate the efforts of the best-inten 1 221,172,952 in 1891. |