The Workshop of the World, by J.D. Chambers

[p024] The Workshop of the World. By J .D. Chambers. Oxford University Press, 8s. 6d. We are told by the blurb that this book provides a vivid and authori- tative account of Britain’s economic life between 1820 and 1880. The Industrial Revolution, accord- ing to Chambers, ‘. . . placed new strains on a social and _ political system which had to reconcile the demand for increased output with the dawning awareness on the part of labour that industrialization held the key to economic advance for all and not only for the privileged few.’ As for labour, it bettered its conditions over the years because of benefactors like the Duke of Devonshire whose ‘forward-looking vision’ planned Barrow-in-Furness or the ‘ Bentha- mites’ radicalism and _ evangelical Toryism’ which produced the Mines Act of 1842 and Factory Act of 1844. Although the trade union movement is briefly referred to, its growth is shown as due to benevolent outsiders rather than its own inner strength. Again, the Benthamite radicals are given all the credit for the removal of the legal ban on the unions. There

[p025] BOOK REVIEWS is no indication that working-class pressure, even though inarticulate, caused the reformers to press for reforms. The book is useful. however, in showing the incursion into power of the bourgeoisie and the lessening of the influence of the landed classes. It underlines the clash of interests of these classes and discusses at length the Anti-Corn Law movement, on the one hand, of which the new industrialist class were the prime movers, and the repressive legislation enacted with the aim of greater exploitation of labour on the other. The passing of the Corn Laws had, as Chambers puts it ‘signalized the beginning of the struggle between the landed interest and the commercial interest which opened the door to a working alliance between industria- lists and wosking men.’ It was not the first time that the workers were to be used by their overlords. But for the opening up of the markets of the world to Britain, the abolition of the Corn Laws was an indispensable step. Conversely, there sometimes emerged from the ranks of the landed aristo- crats philantrophists who supported the workers in the demand for better conditions, and this was a testimony to the rivalry of the two classes. The emergence of the new bour- geoisie was relentless, and _ its apparatus, banking, credit, joint stock companies, is described with clarity. It is interesting to see that the demand for joint stock companies was made ‘in the name of the working class, who, it was declared, should have the right to a properly safeguarded medium of investment for their savings. If one is not irritated by the naiveté of ideas and ideals possessed by the author, this book is worth reading if onlv to throw an interesting light on why Britain was destined to be, at least for six decades, the Workshop of the World. CC. Big Blind Spot