Page:Henry Mayers Hyndman and William Morris - A Summary of the Principles of Socialism (1884).djvu/29

 hampered by the relics of the old middle-age restrictions even after the accession of William of Orange and the House of Brunswick had virtually proclaimed that capitalism, with its debt funded for payment by posterity, its standing mercenary army, and its worldwide international production and exchange, had become master of the economical, and, in the strict sense, social field. But division of labour was carried farther and farther, trade and commerce developed exceedingly, the settlements in America and the factories in India helped on the growth, until in the eighteenth century, the period had manifestly arrived for yet another development which would enable the productive forces to supply the ever-growing market.

Prior to this new manifestation of the powers of man over nature and of the method in which, under such social conditions as now existed, these powers were turned to the sole advantage of a class, the condition of the English worker was better than it had been at any period since the fifteenth century. His wages both in town and country bore a higher ratio to the cost of living than at any intermediate time. Agriculture had recovered in some degree from the depression of the sixteenth century, owing to the demand for cereals in the growing comercial cities; and the artisan, under the division of labour and the group system of factory production, was in a more favourable position than he had been when home competition was more severe and foreign markets were less open.

In France, on the contrary, the peasantry had not gained ground against the barons to nearly the same extent, nor were the bourgeoisie nearly so advanced in