Industrial Revolution

Burning Coal

• In the century between 1750 and 1850, people increasingly used coal to burn for heat and to capture that heat to run steam driven machines.

• This ended mankind’s historical dependency on captured energy from the sun in the form of wood. Land can only support so many people under this “biological old regime”. • All industries in 1750 depended on agriculture or the forest.

Indian Cotton

• The story of the Industrial Revolution begins with Indian Cotton. Calicos, textiles made from this cotton, were treasured in England. They were of a higher quality and lower price than English textiles, which were made of linen or wool.

• India around 1700 was the largest exporter of cotton textiles in the world. They were shipped to Europe, Southeast Asia, Africa, and the Middle East.

• In 1750, India accounted for 1/4 of the world’s manufacturing output.

Indian Advantage

• British textile manufacturers complained that they could not compete with low Indian wages, they cited a large population with a low standard of living. In fact, the Indian standard of living was not much different.

• Agriculture gave India its advantage. In Asia, the amount of grain harvested from seed was a ratio of 20:1, in England it was closer to 8:1. Although the nominal wages were lower in India, their purchasing power was more.

• Britian responded with protectionism.

Trading Companies

• The agents of interstate conflict around the world were private trading companies, not governments per se.

• The Dutch and English both had East India Companies (VOC and EIC, respectively), while the French had the Compagnie des Indies (CDI). All were given monopoly trading rights in Asia by their respective governments.

• These were the forerunners of the modern corporation.

Company Differences

• The VOC was influenced by Dutch Protestants and was hostile to Catholics from Spain and Portugal. It believed trade and war were intimately connected.

• The EIC was not interested in war at first, they concentrated their efforts where Indian states were weak and European competitors few.

• This changed when CDI established forts nearby. The French began to enlist Indians in fighting forces (Sepoys). The English soon followed, with their forces clash ing whenever the countries were at war.

Regional Leaders

• As the power of the Mughal empire began to decline, regional leaders asserted their indep endence. One such leader was the nawab of Bengal, he took control of Calcutta and demanded increased payments from the EIC.

• The British attacked the nawab and his French assisted forces, defeating them and executing the nawab. His replacement gave the EIC the right to collect taxes from Bengal instead of vice versa.

British Colonies

• The British victory in the 7 Years’ War gave them colonies in both America and India.

• Since the British dyeing process was inferior to the Indian one, and the textiles were more expensive to boot, there wasn’t much export market for British textiles.

• The New World, however, was a growing market due to slavery as well as mercantilist restrictions. Slaves generally did not grow their own food or make their own clothes, these had to be imported. America produced only raw materials.

• Raw cotton was imported from the Levant, the area on the eastern edge of the Mediterranean, or from the Caribbean. It was then spun into thread using water power in factories near Manchester, England.

• As these became more efficient, the price dropped and England was able to compete on the world textile market.

• The invention, in 1793, of the cotton gin enabled the use of cheaper American cotton in this process and another drop in prices.

• India could no longer compete and eventually became “de-industrialized”.

Free Trade

• As soon as England began to compete on the world market, they became strong proponents of free trade.

• After America gained its independence, the British treated the U.S. as a foreign power, restricting the importation of raw cotton. This nearly strangled the British textile industry, so “free trade” became the new mantra.

• After 1783, England traded freely with the U.S. Hence, the American south remained a major supplier of cotton to England.

Europe’s Industrial Revolution

• Conventional explanations for the Industrial Revolution in Europe have focused on: 1) population dynamics 2) growth of free markets • The former argues that late marriage in Europe kept family sizes smaller, a smaller overall population, and greater surpluses.

• The latter suggests that markets for commo dities, land, labor, and capital enabled Europeans to invest in improving prod uctivity.

What Went Wrong with China

• Along these lines, it is said of China that it 1) did nothing to keep birthrates down 2) had a state which meddled in private affairs so that markets could not operate effectively. Neither of these is correct, as we will discuss.

• It was actually Chinese agricultural productivity that allowed the population to grow so rapidly, not their inability to control it.

• The Chinese population grew from 140 million (in 1650), to 225 million (in 1750), to 380-400 million (by 1850).

Agricultural Productivity

• Why was Asian productivity so high?

• Rice, for one thing, gets its nutrients from water and is grown in paddies, making it unnecessary to let fields lie fallow to regain nutrients.

• Chinese farmers also learned how to prepare the soil, to irrigate, to fertilize, and to control insects in order to maximize yield.

• Finally, farmers in the south of China could get 2-3 harvests per year, something you could not do in Europe.

Limiting Family Size

• Chinese methods for limiting family size were quite different from European ones.

• Although almost all Chinese married young, they usually abstained from sexual relations early in marriage, especially if they lived with their parents. Infanticide of daughters was also practiced in China, leading to a gender imbalance.

• Many poorer men in China were forced into celibacy due to the scarcity of brides.

Necessities of Life

• There are 4 major necessities in life: food, clothing, shelter, and fuel. In China, these all came from the land and were hence in competition with one another.

• Clearing land to grow food decreased the amount of wood available for fuel.

• Switching from cotton to rice production put pressure on the amount of raw material for clothes. Doing the opposite decreased the food • In China, the limits of the biological old regime were beginning to be reached.

Markets

• The use of markets improved both overall production levels as well as productivity.

• It was long thought that markets were first developed in Europe but historians have recently showed how fully developed markets were in 18th and 19th century China.

• Peasant farmers became specialized in the silk industry, cotton, sugar cane, or other products. These farmers had to obtain their food from other sources, like those upriver who exported rice to more populous regions.

Canal System

• Private parties as well as the government invested massively in canals to connect the inland of China with the coast.

• Canals connected Tianjin in the north with Guangzhou in the south. Efficient water transportation facilitated the movement of grain, the growth of markets, and maintained some of the world’s largest cities.

• Grain was moved along canals for up to 1,000 miles from where it was grown to where it was consumed.

Efficiency of Chinese Markets

• Initially, the Chinese government intervened in food markets to ensure adequate supplies.

They became increasingly willing to let markets handle themselves due to their effectiveness.

• Measurements of market efficiency compare favorably with those in Europe or the U.S. Chinese markets for land, labor, and capital worked efficiently as well. By any measure, 18th century China was as developed as any other part of the “developed world”. Yet, no industrial revolution.

Self-sufficient Proto-industrialization

• Unlike American slaves and serfs in Eastern Europe, Chinese peasants were free to choose what products to grow and how to allocate family labor.

• Increasingly, peasants who migrated to more peripheral areas of China decided to spin and weave their own cotton textiles, rather than focusing on raw cotton. This acted as a constraint on the growth of a Chinese cotton textile industry. European and Japan ese women often worked in factories, Chinese women stayed at home to weave.

Coal Power

• Historians doubt that the English boom in cotton textiles alone could have lead to industrial revolution.

• As in China, population growth and agricultural development began to put pressure on the land resources of England.

• By 1600, much of southern England had been deforested, mostly to provide fuel for heating and cooking in London. Luckily, Britain had veins of coal that were close to the surface and also close to London. These started to be used as fuel.

Coal Mining

• As the coal close to the surface was used up, mines had to be sunk deeper and deeper.

• Soon, miners ran into the water table and had to pump water from the mines in order to access the coal.

• A machine which burned coal and boiled water to produce steam was designed for this task in 1712. Although this “steam engine” was improved upon in the 1760s, it was very inefficient and would have been use less, if not for the free supply of fuel.

Steam Engine Railway

• Along with digging deeper, coal miners were also forced to more farther from the city to find deposits.

• Fixed steam engines, in addition to pumping water, were being used to haul coal out of the mine as well as to pull coal trams short distances. In 1825, a mine in Durham attached the engine to a tram which traveled along 7 miles of track- the 1st railroad.

• By 1830 there was 5 times this amount, by 1840: 4,500 miles, by 1850: 23,000 miles. The steel industry boomed too.

Steam Powered Factories

• Steam engines also transformed the cotton textile industry. In 1790, the spinning of yarn was adapted to steam engines, producing so much string that weavers could not keep up.

• China and India were still using manual spinning wheels at this time.

• By the 1820s, steam powered looms had replaced most hand-weavers as well.

• By 1830, the textile industry employed 500,000 people in England.

Land-saving Mechanism

• A better way to think of the Industrial Revolution is as a land-saving device.

• Throughout the Old World, shortages of land to produce the necessities of life put limits on further growth.

• Coal produced fuel that would have taken many acres of forest if wood were used for the same purposes.

• The importation of raw cotton as well as sugar from New World colonies provided clothing and food for Britain as well.

Scientific Revolution

• Eurocentric explanations of the Industrial Revolution often invoke the European scientific revolution as a cause.

• Scientific ideas actually flowed across the Eurasian continent, especially between China and Persia, but also into Europe from Greek texts preserved in Muslim libraries.

• The Industrial Revolution resulted from land saving initiatives more than labor-saving ones.

• The innovators at this time were not “scientists” per se since most had little scientific training.

Tea

• The British had developed a taste for tea, which they bought in large amounts from China. The only thing they had to trade for it that China wanted was silver.

• In 1713, Britain was given the right to provide Spain’s New World colonies with slaves, which they exchanged for silver that they then traded to China for tea.

• Tea was first drunk by the upper class, since it was expensive. As more if it was imported, the price came down and the lower classes drank it as well.

Tea Trade

• In 1760, Britain imported 5 million lbs of tea, by 1800, this had grown to 20 million.

• Between 1760 and 1840, China, fed up with rude British merchants, restricted all foreign trade to the south China port city of Guangzhou.

• In 1793, Britain sent Sir George Macartney to China to gain more open access to Chinese markets. After he was shown the imperial splendors of Beijing and the summer palaces of the emperor, he was sent home without any concessions. The emperor said China lacked nothing.

Opium

• As the American Revolution curtailed England’s supply of silver, the British had to find something else to trade for tea.

• In 1773, the British governor-general of India had established an opium monopoly in Bengal. Opium was used for medicinal purposes, smoking it was prohibited in China.

• Nevertheless, the British gave out free pipes and sold the drug to new users at low prices.

• Sales leapt in 1815, 1830, and 1834 as new sources became available and “free trade” abolished the monopoly.

Drug Addicts

• Guangzhou and Suzhou soon had hundreds of thousands of drug addicts.

• Not just tea but silver began flowing out of the country.

• China attempted to halt the importation of opium into the country. The British were blockaded in their warehouses and forced to turn over their opium. 3 million lbs of drugs were destroyed.

• Britain sent a naval force to China, which started the Opium War of 1839 1842.

The

Nemesis

• For the first time, Britain used an all-iron steam-driven gunboat specifically designed for river fighting. It was actually the EIC who had commissioned the ship, the navy still preferred wooden sailing ships.

• The

Nemesis

, as it was called, was built in 3 months and delivered to China in 1840. The ship could outmaneuver Chinese junks and by 1842 it had blockaded a major trading route and threatened to bombard Nanjing.

• This represented the application of the Industrial Revolution to the tools of war.

• • •

Treaty of Nanjing

In 1842, China signed the Treaty of Nanjing, which ended the war. In it China agreed to: Give Hong Kong to the British Pay $21 million for the destroyed opium Open more ports to Western trade Hong Kong soon became the center for opium trade, free from Chinese laws. For the next 20 years, 6.5 million lbs of opium passed through Hong Kong annually.

• •

American Drug Trade

The 1st American ship arrived in China in 1784. The U.S. was soon competing with the British in Asia, including in the opium trade.

The Russell Company was an American company that got its opium in Turkey, while the British got opium from India. Profits from the opium trade added to the fortunes of the Peabody family in Boston, the Roosevelt family in New York, added to the endowments of many East Coast universities, as well as provided capital for Alexander Graham Bell’s invention of the phone.

• • •

Spread of Opium

A 2nd war between Britain and China (the Arrow War of 1858-1860) forced China to legalize the sale of opium.

Persian, Indian, and Chinese merchants soon entered the drug trade, using many ports, so that Hong Kong was no longer a central player.

Just as in the case of textiles, rural Chinese peasants began cultivating opium themselves, using up land that usually grew food. Soon, 40 million people in China were using opium, at the turn of the 20th century, China consumed 95% of the world’s opium.

Colonization of India

• • When the EIC gained the right to collect taxes in Bengal, it was able to both increase its purchases of Indian textiles and increase the pay of its Sepoys, further spreading its influence. The disarray of Indian political power lead to the EIC extending its control throughout most of India by the 1830s. By the mid-1800s, British colonization of India was com plete, including the area that would later become Pakistan.

• • •

De-industrialization

In the 18th century, British tariffs kept Indian textiles out of England; in the 19th century, British textiles flooded its new colonial possession in India.

Soon, millions of Indian weavers were out of work. Instead of weaving cloth, India began to export raw cotton. Former weavers turned to farming, growing mostly “cash crops” such as indigo, sugar cane, cotton, or poppies.

Most of the opium consumed in China came from India. Opium thus became one of India’s major exports.

• • •

Trapped in the Third World

India was locked into a system of providing raw materials for export so it could import manu factured goods from the “developed” world.

This was not simply the result of economics but was planned to work that way for the benefit of Britain. The colonial government did not promote a policy of industrialization since this would be redundant to the one working in Britain at this time.

From the mid-1800s on, India consumed 25 35% of Britain’s exports.