Читать книгу Famous Men and Great Events of the Nineteenth Century - Charles Morris - Страница 15

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On the western edge of the continent of Europe lies the island of Great Britain, in the remote past a part of the continent, but long ages ago cut off by the British Channel. Divorced from the mainland, left like a waif in the western sea, peopled by men with their own interests and aims, it might naturally be expected to have enough to attend to at home and to take no part in continental affairs.

The Adventurous Disposition of the British People

Such was the case originally. The island lay apart, almost unknown, and was, in a sense, “discovered” by the Roman conquerors. But new people came to it, the Anglo-Saxons, and subsequently the Normans, both of them scions of that stirring race of Vikings who made the seas their own centuries ago and descended in conquering inroads on all the shores of Europe, while their daring keels cut the waters of far-off Greenland and touched upon the American coast. This people—stirring, aggressive, fearless—made a new destiny for Great Britain. Their island shores were too narrow to hold them, and they set out on bold ventures in all seas. Their situation was a happy one for a nation of daring navigators and aggressive warriors. Europe lay to the east, the world to the west. As a result the British islands have played a leading part alike in the affairs of Europe and of the world.

Hostility of England to France

France, the next door neighbor of Great Britain, was long its prey. While, after the memorable invasion of William of Normandy, France never succeeded in transporting an army to the island shores, and even Napoleon failed utterly in his stupendous expedition, the islanders sent army after army to France, defeated its chivalry on many a hard-fought field, ravaged its most fertile domains, and for a time held it as a vassal realm of the British King.

All this is matter of far-past history. But the old feeling was prominently shown again in the Napoleonic wars, when Great Britain resumed her attitude of enmity to France, and pursued the conqueror with an unrelenting hostility that finally ended in his overthrow. Only for this aggressive island Europe might have remained the bound slave of Napoleon’s whims. He could conquer his enemies on land, but the people of England lay beyond his reach. Every fleet he sent to sea was annihilated by his island foes. They held the empire of the waters as he did that of the land. Enraged against these ocean hornets, he sought to repeat the enterprise of William of Normandy, but if his mighty Boulogne expedition had put to sea it would probably have met the fate of the Armada of Spain. Great Britain was impregnable. The conqueror of Europe chafed against its assaults in vain. This little island of the west was destined to be the main agent in overthrowing the great empire that his military genius had built.

The Vast Industries of Great Britain

Great Britain, small as it was, had grown, by the opening of the nineteenth century, to be the leading power in Europe. Its industries, its commerce, its enterprise had expanded enormously. It had become the great workshop and the chief distributor of the world. The raw material of the nations flowed through its ports, the finished products of mankind poured from its looms, London became the great money centre of the world, and the industrious and enterprising islanders grew enormously rich, while few steps of progress and enterprise showed themselves in any of the nations of the continent.

How England Fought Against Napoleon

It was with its money-bags that England fought against the conqueror. It could not conveniently send men, but it could send money and supplies to the warring nations, and by its influence and aid it formed coalition after coalition against Napoleon, each harder to overthrow than the last. Every peace that the Corsican won by his victories was overthrown by England’s influence. Her envoys haunted every court, whispering hostility in the ears of monarchs, planning, intriguing, instigating, threatening, in a thousand ways working against his plans, and unrelentingly bent upon his overthrow. It was fitting, then, that an English general should give Napoleon the coup de grace, and that he should die a prisoner in English hands.

Chief among those to whom Napoleon owes his overthrow was William Pitt, prime minister of England during the first period of his career of conquest, and his unrelenting enemy. It was Pitt that organized Europe against him, that kept the British fleet alert and expended the British revenues without stint against this disturber of the peace of the nations, and that formed the policy which Great Britain, after the short interval of the ministry of Fox, continued to pursue until his final defeat was achieved.

Was England’s Policy a Wise One

Whether this policy was a wise one is open to question. It may be that Great Britain caused more harm than it cured. Only for its persistent hostility the rapid succession of Napoleonic wars might not have taken place, and much of the terrible bloodshed and misery caused by them might have been obviated. It seems to have been, in its way, disastrous to the interests of mankind. Napoleon, it is true, had no regard for the stability of dynasties and kingdoms, but he wrought for the overthrow of the old-time tyranny, and his marches and campaigns had the effect of stirring up the dormant peoples of Europe, and spreading far and wide that doctrine of human equality and the rights of man which was the outcome of the French Revolution. Had he been permitted to die in peace upon the throne and transmit his crown to his descendant, the long era of reaction would doubtless have been avoided and the people of Europe have become the freer and happier as a result of Napoleon’s work.

The Prestige Gained by Great Britain

The people of Great Britain had no reason to thank their ministers for their policy. The cost of the war, fought largely with the purse, had been enormous, and the public debt of the kingdom was so greatly increased that its annual interest amounted to $150,000,000. But the country emerged from the mighty struggle with a vast growth in power and prestige. It was recognized as the true leader in the great contest and had lifted itself to the foremost position in European politics. On land it had waged the only successful campaign against Napoleon previous to that of the disastrous Russian expedition. At sea it had destroyed all opposing fleets, and reigned the unquestioned mistress of the ocean except in American waters, where alone her proud ships had met defeat.

Great Extension of England’s Colonies

The islands of Great Britain and Ireland had ceased to represent the dominions under the rule of the British king. In the West Indies new islands had been added to his colonial possessions. In the East Indies he had become master of an imperial domain far surpassing the mother country in size and population, and with untold possibilities of wealth. In North America the great colony of Canada was growing in population and prosperity. Island after island was being added to his possessions in the Eastern seas. Among these was the continental island of Australia, then in its early stage of colonization. The possession of Gibraltar and Malta, the protectorate over the Ionian Islands, and the right of free navigation on the Dardanelles gave Great Britain the controlling power in the Mediterranean. And Cape Colony, which she received as a result of the Treaty of Vienna, was the entering wedge for a great dominion in South Africa.

The Wars of the World-Empire

Thus Great Britain had attained the position and dimensions of a world-empire. Her colonies lay in all continents and spread through all seas, and they were to grow during the century until they enormously excelled the home country in dimensions, population, and natural wealth. The British Islands were merely the heart, the vital centre of the great system, while the body and limbs lay afar, in Canada, India, South Africa, Australia and elsewhere.

But the world-empire of Great Britain was not alone one of peaceful trade and rapid accumulation of wealth, but of wars spread through all the continents, war becoming a permanent feature of its history in the nineteenth century. After the Napoleonic period England waged only one war in Europe, the Crimean; but elsewhere her troops were almost constantly engaged. Now they were fighting with the Boers and the Zulus of South Africa, now with the Arabs on the Nile, now with the wild tribes of the Himalayas, now with the natives of New Zealand, now with the half savage Abyssinians. Hardly a year has passed without a fight of some sort, far from the centre of this vast dominion, while for years England and Russia have stood face to face on the northern borders of India, threatening at any moment to become involved in a terrible struggle for dominion.

And the standing of Great Britain as a world power lay not alone in her vast colonial dominion and her earth-wide wars, but also in the extraordinary enterprise that carried her ships to all seas, and made her the commercial emporium of the world. Not only to her own colonies, but to all lands, sailed her enormous fleet of merchantmen, gathering the products of the earth, to be consumed at home or distributed again to the nations of Europe and America. She had assumed the position of the purveyor and carrier for mankind.

Manufacturing and Inventive Activity

This was not all. Great Britain was in a large measure, the producer for mankind. Manufacturing enterprise and industry had grown immensely on her soil, and countless factories, forges and other workshops turned out finished goods with a speed and profusion undreamed of before. The preceding century had been one of active invention, its vital product being the steam engine, that wonder-worker which at a touch was to overturn the old individual labor system of the world, and replace it with the congregate, factory system that has revolutionized the industries of mankind. The steam engine stimulated invention extraordinarily. Machines for spinning, weaving, iron-making, and a thousand other purposes came rapidly into use, and by their aid one of the greatest steps of progress in the history of mankind took place, the grand nineteenth century revolution in methods of production.

Commercial Enterprise

Great Britain did not content herself with going abroad for the materials of her active industries. She dug her way into the bowels of the earth, tore from the rocks its treasures of coal and iron, and thus obtained the necessary fuel for her furnaces and metal for her machines. The whole island resounded with the ringing of hammers and rattle of wheels, goods were produced very far beyond the capacity of the island for their consumption, and the vast surplus was sent abroad to all quarters of the earth, to clothe savages in far-off regions and to furnish articles of use and luxury to the most enlightened of the nations. To the ship as a carrier was soon added the locomotive and its cars, conveying these products inland with unprecedented speed from a thousand ports. And from America came the parallel discovery of the steamship, signalling the close of the long centuries of dominion of the sail. Years went on and still the power and prestige of Great Britain grew, still its industry and commerce spread and expanded, still its colonies increased in population and new lands were added to the sum, until the island-empire stood foremost in industry and enterprise among the nations of the world, and its people reached the summit of their prosperity. From this lofty elevation was to come, in the later years of the century, a slow but inevitable decline, as the United States and the leading European nations developed in industry, and rivals to the productive and commercial supremacy of the British islanders began to arise in various quarters of the earth.

Disastrous Effect on the People of the New Conditions

It cannot be said that the industrial prosperity of Great Britain, while of advantage to her people as a whole, was necessarily so to individuals. While one portion of the nation amassed enormous wealth, the bulk of the people sank into the deepest poverty. The factory system brought with it oppression and misery which it would need a century of industrial revolt to overcome. The costly wars, the crushing taxation, the oppressive corn-laws, which forbade the importation of foreign corn, the extravagant expenses of the court and salaries of officials, all conspired to depress the people. Manufacturies fell into the hands of the few, and a vast number of artisans were forced to live from hand to mouth, and to labor for long hours on pinching wages. Estates were similarly accumulated in the hands of the few, and the small land-owner and trader tended to disappear. Everything was taxed to the utmost it would bear, while government remained blind to the needs and sufferings of the people and made no effort to decrease the prevailing misery.

Thus it came about that the era of Great Britain’s greatest prosperity and supremacy as a world-power was the one of greatest industrial oppression and misery at home, a period marked by rebellious uprisings among the people, to be repressed with cruel and bloody severity. It was a period of industrial transition, in which the government flourished and the people suffered, and in which the seeds of revolt and revolution were widely spread on every hand.

This state of affairs cannot be said to have ended. In truth the present condition of affairs is one that tends to its aggravation. Neither the manufacturing nor commercial supremacy of Great Britain are what they once were. In Europe, Germany has come into the field as a formidable competitor, and is gaining a good development in manufacturing industry. The same must be said of the United States, the products of whose workshops have increased to an enormous extent, and whose commerce has grown to surpass that of any other nation on the earth. The laboring population of Great Britain has severely felt the effects of this active rivalry, and is but slowly adapting itself to the new conditions which it has brought about, the slow but sure revolution in the status of the world’s industries.