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The UK Bible Students Website History Corner
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Her wealth was immense and her foreign trade constantly augmented it. Her manufacturing costs were less than those of other countries, particularly in respect to textiles composed of cotton and wool; also in hardware, machinery, and other things made of steel and iron.
And apparently this advantage would continue indefinitely, since Britain possessed all requisites essential for continued prosperity, namely domestic tranquillity, a stable government, coal and iron, capital, skilled workmen, and a superb mercantile marine.
On the Australian continent, New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, and Queensland were growing fast, and near-by was Tasmania, another colony settled by Britons.
New Zealand, at a farther distance, promised in time to become a new New England, and Cape Colony and Natal in South Africa gave evidence of the sturdy vigor with which the British people betook themselves, together with their language, their church, their parliamentary institutions, to foreign shores.
The Indian peninsula now was thoroughly under British control, Burma annexed to British India, and the Straits Settlements a British protectorate. In addition, throughout the seven seas, numerous islands both great and small added luster to the empire.
ʻNor were these all the glories that accrued to Old England. The renown of her institutions was world wide. She seemingly had solved the insoluble, and had evolved an effective, just, and well-balanced constitution. At a time when Italy and Germany were still disunited, when France continued uncertain, unstable in her form of government, when Russia tentatively was groping toward a more liberal regime, England happily was enjoying one.
ʻNevertheless, the forty years in England succeeding 1874 were destined to be less felicitous than the forty which preceded that date. The wealth of the island continued to increase slowly and the empire to enlarge its holdings; but despite these facts, Englishmen became uneasy. Times were hard for the working classes in the eighteen-seventies and eighties. The average income was high, but the median income, that possessed by most citizens a fairer way to assess physical comfort was low. Unemployment from time to time seemed as bad as, if not worse than during the “Hungry Forties,” and toward the end of the century labor was beginning to organize again as during the days of the Chartists.
ʻAs these things happened, England saw her neighbor, Germany, with poorer soil, inferior mineral wealth, shallow harbors, and infinitely less capital, forging steadily to the forefront among industrial nations. The rate of increase of British trade continued to rise but at a slower tempo, while the reverse was true of Germany.
The British mercantile marine continued to expand, but that of Germany from the most modest beginnings doubled and redoubled. There was less noticeable poverty in Germany; there were fewer slums in Germany; and finally many Englishmen came slowly and reluctantly to believe that there were better laws in Germany in all that pertained to the protection and welfare of the industrial worker.
ʻOther facts at home and abroad added to this growing sense of disquiet. Across St. George's Channel the irrepressible Irish refused to stay put; neither harshness nor kindness availed with them. Meanwhile, England was drawn reluctantly but steadily out of her traditional policy of isolation into continental commitments which placed her in the shadow of threatened war.ʼ
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