THE FIGHTING FIFTIES 107

machines was yielding quicker returns. Though in reality
repeal of the Corn Laws made little difference to the price of
wheat, which averaged no less a quarter in the Free Trade 'fifties
than it had done in the protectionist 'forties, the new railways
cheapened the price of provisions, clothes and coal. Every one
seemed to have a little more to spend and there was ample room
for expansion. The hungry 'forties were over. The free-traders
to whom these blessings were attributed were felt to have earned
well of their country.1 Protection, formally abandoned by the
repeal of the Navigation Laws in 1849, was a lost cause.

In the forefront of all this prosperity came in 1849 the rush
to the gold diggings in California. Two years later more gold
was found in Australia. Both America and Australia were able
to increase their imports of British goods with gold payments.
In 1852 there was more gold in the Bank of England than had ever
been there before. Money was plentiful and interest rates low.

With improved transport and increased purchasing power,
the capitalist organisation of industrial society entered on a
new and vaster phase. The unexploited markets of Asia and the
newer continents became accessible to the manufacturer. A golden
era dawned for south Lancashire, the West Riding, Tyneside,
Staffordshire, the Clyde and South Wales. Industrial Britain
was becoming the workshop of the world. The opportunity of
the greater capitalist was at hand.

As he grasped it, and trade began to boom, the lot of the
worker improved also. Employment expanded, and the larger
firms which wider markets created had no need with their larger
turnover to resort to such petty economies and merciless conduct
as their predecessors. Wages tended to rise, hours of labour to
fall, and the worst abuses of truck, sweating and child labour
to diminish. Lord Shaftesbury's Ten Hours' Bill and other
measures incompatible with the strictest letter of laissez-faire
found their way on to the statute book. The country, pleased
with its growing prosperity, felt at last that it could afford them.

An England, growing rich by increasing dependence on
other lands, naturally looked across the seas. She needed a
peaceful world that would afford her abundant raw materials
and expanding markets. John Bull could less afford than
before to ignore the antics of the foreigner. He might

lWhen Peel died in 1850 Punch depicted his memorial as a pyramid of cheap loaves
round which were grouped a workman's family eating plentiful bread. Punch, XfX, 57*,