402 A BRIEF SURVEY OF HUMAN HISTORY

treat a distant community that had come under its control
more unselfishly than it had treated the British Colonies
in America. Heavy duties were placed upon Indian cottons
and silks1 in the Home tariff, and when the Indian market,
hitherto the monopoly of the East India Company, was
thrown open in 1813, the duties imposed on cotton goods
entering India were merely nominal. In 1831 a petition
was presented from natives of Bengal, complaining without
success of the British duty of 10 per cent, on manufactured
cottons, and 24 per cent, on manufactured silks. The effect
of political control, combined with the inventions, was seen
in the figures of our trade with India.1 If India had been in
the hands of a rival Power anxious either to develop a new
cotton industry of its own, or to develop a native cotton
industry in India, Lancashire would not have found so rich
a market for her yarn and piece-goods."

The social and political effects of the Industrial Revolu-
tion in England itself were profound and interesting. The
rapid advance of the " enclosure " movement, the improved
methods of agriculture, and the introduction of machinery,
alike contributed to immediate social disorganisation. While
on the one hand the population of England was growing
on account of her increasing prosperity, widespread un-
employment and misery were also caused by several changes
coining in at the same time on the other. The surplus
population, including a large number of criminals, after
being swept into the army and navy (for which there was
great demand on account of the various wars) was still
available for colonisation abroad. The epoch-making dis-
coveries of Captain Cook (1769-79) made Australia readily

1. In 1815, 800,000 yards of British cotton cloth were imported
in India; in 1830, 45,000,000 yards.—Ibid., pp. 185-6.