An Overview of Economic Development of Britain a Study Of

An overview of Economic Development of Britain Introduction A study of economic development of Britain holds special significance as in Britain agriculture and industrial development has started simultaneously. Communication and transport development were the basic factors which led to industrial development in Britain. At the end of the 19th century Britain became the wealthiest and most powerful economy of the world. The per capita income of its citizen was highest in the world. It was the first country to witness industrial revolution ,the first to install modern transportation system, the first to develop the financial infrastructure required to support its industries at home . The British economy grew pretty well throughout the period from 1860-1914. The productivity of labour continued to increase throughout the period in the sense that it got more from the resources which were available to it. The life expectancy ,which had been static since 1830 began to rise in the 1860s and at an increasing rate thereafter. However the infant mortality did not begin to fall until the early years of 20th century, so that the direct cause of overall fall was improvement in the mortality rate of first young and then older adults. The change was not uniform across all parts of the country or all social groups but there was overall and substantial improvement in the important indicator of social welfare. Another important fact is that the physique of the population changed. Heights ,weights of the adult increased because of the intake of the better food, better housing , less disease , reduction in the need to undertake hard physical work in childhood, all helped the children to grow taller and become healthy. It is interesting to mention that the average health of the people of the Britain improved but difference in the occupations with which people were associated had different death rate and health conditions. Despite rising incomes and living standards these occupational differences widened during the late 19th century, although all occupations shared in general reduction in mortality. During this period the distribution of national income underwent a change. There was overall rise of money income in the middle income group category, but it also witnessed very large discrepancy between the increase of the bulk of the population and the top 5 % of the population. British output growth , in the sense of per capita growth was faster between 1880- 1914 than during the 1860s , but slower than the growth of other major industrial countries. The evidence of economic growth demonstrates that the economy was not only growing but also changing. Agricultural employment declined considerably and there was substantial growth of whole range of service occupations, from domestic service to highly skilled professions. Population shifted from rural to urban areas, economic activity began to shift towards the mid land and south east, the importance and power of northern manufacturing towns diminished. There are many significant contribution of Britain in the field of modern industry. Modern Britain is almost free from major economic evils like poverty, unemployment etc. All these are interesting development . Agriculture system in Medieval Period England was an agriculture economy during the Middle Ages. The agrarian system was of a feudal character and the economic core of the feudal society was the peasant‟s village community which is generally called the manor. In this period all land belonged to some manor. The King was the absolute owner of the land. Lords were only holder or tenant of the land. The Lord‟s proprietorship was acquired by feudal grants. The actual tenants were the serf who were the decedents of the owners. Tenants of the Manor The English society in the middle Ages fell broadly into the following classes (i) lords of manor; (ii) free tenants; (iii) Villeins; (iv) cottars or bordars; (v) slaves and (vi) others. Broadly speaking the inhabitants might be classified as free and unfree. The lords, his bailiff (an agents who conducted the affair of the manor on behalf of the lord), the village priests were among the free. The unfree include villeins , cottars or bordars and slaves.They formed the backbone of the manorial organization as they cultivated all the lands of the lords as well as their own holding. Break-up of Manorial System This system remained static for some centuries but its disintegration began in fourteenth century and in the fifteenth century there was rapid break-up of manorial system. The main cause of break-up of the manor is a matter of much controversy among the historians. Some of them argue that growth of trade, development of commerce and introduction of money were the most important factors leading to the break-up of the system. Some argue that inefficiency of feudalism and the need of revenue were the primary factors for the decline of the manorial system. By the sixteenth century , the medieval manorial system ceased to exist. The villeinage was more or less extinct and wage labour had replaced that of the bondmen. A state of natural economy was replaced by the system of currency and monetary transcation. Agriculture Revolution In the period between second half of the eighteenth century to the second quarter of the nineteenth century Great Britain underwent great social and economic transformations. These transformation were in the field of agriculture and industry and called Agriculture Revolution and Industrial Revolution. These revolutions were linked with each other. Progress in one field was associated with the progress in the other field. Agriculture Revolution transformed the method of farming . The concept of capitalist farming came into existence where huge capital were invested, machines and tractors were used and thus the yield per acre increased substantially. Agriculture revolution changes the socio-economic condition of Great Britain. There was rise of capitalism in England in the eighteenth century. In this period industrial and commercial achievement began to regarded as a basis of political promotion and of social distinction. The social prestige which once had attached to landholding exclusively was transferred to any sort of successful money making. There was revolution in agriculture technique during this period . The most important improvement in the agriculture technique were: introduction of machinery, scientific rotation of crops, growth of certain important crops like clover and turnips, improvement in the art of cattle breeding, abolition of wasteful practice of keeping the arable land fallow, use of natural and artificial fertilizers, improvement in field drainage and seed improvement. There were the factors which brought complete revolution in agriculture. In the nineteenth century progress in the field of agricultural technique took three main directions: (i) better drainage (ii) increasing application of machines and (iii) introduction of wide range of artificial manures. But the scientific methods applied in this period took a fairly long time. The farmers were often conservative and cautious , and did not want to take the change over immediately. Besides new methods were not universal and they had to be modified before being applied in any region, as their nature of application depended upon the peculiarity of soil, climate and other local characteristics. However all these retarding factors were overcome and gave way to modern technique of production. By the year 1860 British farming had reached a high level of technical perfection and was 70 years ahead of agriculture in France. Agriculture Development since 1850 The period of 1850-1873 is characterized as the golden age of British agriculture because of intensive cultivation, improved condition of work, rising trend in prices etc. Throughout this period agriculture technique was undergoing improvements. New machines as ploughs, threshing machines were being added. In 1864 the government began the systematic collection and publication of agriculture statistics. After the golden era , agriculture saw a period of depression (1874-1914). Although the depression was world-wide, it was more severe in Britain. The depression was the direct outcome of the opening up of the „Middle West‟ in the U.S.A and the prairies in the Canada. They offered much competition . Severe competition also came from Argentina , India ,Australia , Southern Russia , and the Baltic countries. Second reason was the development of railway and steamship led to the continental inland expansion and made the exploitation of vast virgins land as commercial possibility. The railway and steamship enabled the exports of raw materials and foodstuff to long distance and attracted men and money for the colonization of the territories. Thirdly the development in the technique of refrigeration and cold storage led to the imports of large quantities of perishable item like meat and dairy products. And finally there were bad weather conditions- cold spring and rainy summers between 1875 and 1884, drought between 1884 and 1892-and outbreaks of diseases and plague among cattle and harvests during all these years. Hundreds of farmers were ruined and thousands of acres of arable land went out of cultivation. Agriculture during the war period When first world war(1914-1919) broke out , Great Britain was producing less than two-fifths of her food supply. The shortage of foodstuff led to speculative rise in prices and to an artificial and unhealthy boom. Prices increased rapidly during war period. Appeals and campaigns were launched so that production be increased but there was a shortage of labour . A large number of agricultural labourers had left the land for the army while a considerable number of them had joined the ammunition factories and other war industries. At this stage the state had to slightly abandon the policy of laissez faire and start a new phase of a policy of effectual State regulation and control with the objective of controlling the prices and increasing the agricultural output. As a result of measure adopted and also due to the conditions prevailing at that time, arable land between 1916 and 1918 increased.

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