Page:James Ramsay MacDonald - The Socialist Movement.pdf/45

 Rh and in the time of Sir Thomas More, the grievances of urban unemployment had been felt. Parliament had to consider it, and in More's days there was an agitation, which smacks of very modern error, on the ground that Englishmen were being supplanted by foreigners, and there were, also very appropriately to complete a parallel with modern conditions, May Day riots in London.

But one other epochal change had to pass over England before Socialism arose. England had to undergo the Industrial Revolution. The world had to become the market for our goods and the source of our supply of food and raw material. The forces of nature had to be harnessed to production, and mechanical contrivance had to supplement manual labour. The people had to be ingathered into great centres, their labour had to be subdivided and co-ordinated in great factories. Capital had to be concentrated and the day of the large industry come, before Socialism, as a scientific hope and a practical guide, was possible.

The Industrial Revolution is the term applied to the change which came over industry when mechanical appliances led to the factory system and the specialising of factory labour. There were rich men before that happened, but they belonged to the class of merchants and financiers rather than to that of manufacturers. And when the Indus-