w (not for the first time in history) of the great
problems that were beginning to present themselves. The British empire
in the East was not won by a towering ambition so much as forced upon a
reluctant commercial company by the necessities of its position. The
English race became dominant in America; but the political connection
was broken off mainly because English statesmen could only regard it
from the shopkeeping point of view. When a new world began to arise at
the Antipodes, our rulers saw an opportunity not for planting new
offshoots of European civilisation, but for ridding themselves of the
social rubbish no longer accepted in America. With purblind energy, and
eyes doggedly fixed upon the ground at their feet, the race had somehow
pressed forwards to illustrate the old doctrine that a man never goes so
far as when he does not know whither he is going. While thinking of
earning an honest penny by extending the trade, our 'monied-men' were
laying the foundation of vast structures to be developed by their
descendants.

Politicians, again, had little to do with the great 'industrial
revolution' which marked the last half of the century. The main facts
are now a familiar topic of economic historians; nor need I speak of
them in detail. Though agriculture was still the main industry, and the
landowners almost monopolised political power, an ever growing
proportion of the people was being collected in towns; the artisans were
congregating in large factories; and the great cloud of coal-smoke,
which has never dwindled, was already beginning to darken our skies. The
change corresponds to the difference between a fully developed organism
possessed of a central brain, with an elaborate nervous system, and some
lower form in which the vital processes are still carried on by a number
of separate ganglia. The concentration of the population in the great
industrial centres implied the improvement of the means of commerce; new
organisation of industry provided with a corresponding apparatus of
machinery; and the systematic exploitation of the stored-up forces of
nature. Each set of changes was at once cause and effect, and each was
carried on separately, although in relation to the other. Brindley,
Arkwright, and Watt may be taken as typical representatives of the three
operations. Canals, spinning-jennies, and steam-engines were changing
the whole social order.

The development of means of communication had been slow till