IN Europe as in America, the leading democratic nations — Great Britain and France — faced the problems of the great depression. In those nations, too, the question arose: Could democracy survive, or would it give way to totalitarianism? Would the people turn instead to fascism or communism? Although Britain had a brief period of prosperity immediately after World War I, of all the world’s democracies, it was struck hardest and soonest by the depression. For Britain had a special problem. A highly industrialized country, it lived by its exports. It sold manufactured goods and coal to other countries and …
Read More »The Factory System 1750-1800
THE ENGLISH regarded themselves as a free people — but they did not seem to believe in freedom for others. Many of them were engaged in the African slave trade. They shipped manufactured goods from England to America, carried slaves across the Atlantic to the West Indies and brought cargoes of sugar and cotton back to England. It was against the law to ship slaves home to England, yet there seemed to be no law to prevent ordinary Englishmen from being treated as slaves by their own countrymen. The government did nothing to protect them from being kidnapped and forced …
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