The story of the hand-loom weavers impinges at a score of points upon the general question of living standards during the Industrial Revolution. In its first stages it appears to provide evidence on the “optimistic” side: the spinning-mills are the multipliers which attract thousands of outworkers and raise their standards. But as their standards are raised, so their status and defences are lowered; and from 1800 to 1840 the record is almost unrelievedly “pessimistic”. If we are to assess standards in these years, not in “futuristic” terms, but in terms of the living generations who
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