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cotton goods were first raised in the interest of the English woollen and linen industries—theso were at the time still themore important industries—it is clear, that the pressure of Indiancompetition affected in the highest degree the English cottonindustry.
"What a revolution took place in the following decades is shownby a petition of Indian merchants in 1831. The petitioners complainthat in India home productions were supplanted by English , andthey demand, without promising themselves even by its aidmuch relief, the withdrawal of import duties in England , so thatboth countries might be at least treated on an equality (4).
In the interval the change to machinery and the modern factorysystem took place. In 1760, says Baines, machinery in Eng-land was as primitive as in India ; after that time inventionsfollowed each other rapidly. In the last decade of the pastcentury the first muslin yarns—up to this time a monopoly ofIndia—were spun in England. In that period occurred thetremendous revolution which first transformed the cotton industryof England and placed it at the head of trading as well as socialdevelopment—that revolution wdiich extended first to Lancashire, then to the wdiole of England, then to the West of Europe, andre-arranged the economical conditions of the wmrld. This changeraised up new classes, firstly the middle, which became the chiefin the State—in the place of the old agrarian influence—followedby the upward-aspiring working class. To the extent thata nation makes such a change its own, and completes its produc-tions by the machine, in that degree does it stand to-day aheadin economical power amongst the nations of the w r orld.
From what causes did this change arise 1 Marx, who depictsthe development of machinery in a very clear manner, has noanswer thereto. He believes that machinery was invented becausenatural science was far enough advanced to create such inventions.How mistaken such a Irelief is Brentano has pointed out (5).He has specially called attention to the fact that by no meansscientific searchers, but men of the most various callings, mostlyof industrial pursuits—Cartwright alone was a. clergyman—createdthe inventions, by reason of the practical wants of the time. A
4. Compare Baines, p. 82.
n. Comtmre Brentano: “On the Causes of the Present Social Distress ”(Leipzig, 1889), p. 7.