concerned, farm laborers were now free to come and
go where they chose to seek for work. In the new factories, systems of
transportation, and other large establishments that were taking the
places of small ones, employees were at liberty to leave their
engagements at any time they chose, to go to another employer or
another occupation; and the employer had the same liberty of
discharging at a moment's notice. Manufacturers were at liberty to
make anything they chose, and hire laborers in whatever proportion
they chose. And just as early modern regulation had been given up, so
the few fragments of mediaeval restrictive institutions that had
survived the intervening centuries were now rapidly abandoned in the
stress of competitive society. Later forms of restriction, such as
trade unions and trusts, had not yet grown up. Actual conditions and
the theoretical statement of what was desirable approximated to one
another more nearly than they usually have in the world's history.

*64. Social Conditions at the Beginning of the Nineteenth Century.*--Yet
somehow the results were disappointing. More and better manufactured
goods were produced and foreign goods sold, and at vastly lower
prices. The same result would probably have been true in agriculture
had not the corn laws long prevented this consummation, and instead
distributed the surplus to paupers and the holders of government bonds
through the medium of taxes. There was no doubt of English wealth and
progress. England held the primacy of the world in commerce, in
manufactures, in agriculture. Her rapid increase in wealth had enabled
her to bear the burden, not only of her own part in the Napoleonic
wars, but of much of the expense of the armament of the continental
countries. Population also was increasing more rapidly than ever
before. She stood before the world as the most prominent and
successful modern nation in all material respects. Yet a closer
examination into her internal condition shows much that was deeply
unsatisfactory. The period of transition from the domestic to the
factory system of industry and from the older to the new farming
conditions was one of almost unrelieved misery to great masses of
those who were wedded to the old ways, who had neither the capital,
the enterprise, nor the physical nor mental adaptability to attach
themselves to the new. The hand-loom weavers kept up a hopeless
struggle in the garrets and cellars of the factory towns, while