Yorkshire Luddism:  Fiction and commentary 2: War & Trade

‘Orders in Council’ were an attempt by the British government to oppose Napoleon’s trade embargo of Britain, itself a reaction to Britain’s naval blockade of France, with one of their own. 

‘Napoleon responded with his Berlin Decree, a much more rigorous policy than France had previously employed. The British retaliated with new Orders in Council in November 1807 banning neutrals from trading with France and its allies.  Spencer Perceval succinctly summed up the intent of these new Orders, "either [the neutral] countries will have no trade, or they must be content to accept it through us."’

http://www.napoleon-series.org/research/government/british/decrees/c_britdecrees1.html

The measure backfired because it left Britain with few trading opportunities.    The effects were especially severe in the cloth industries of the midlands and the north of England and the measures inadvertently encouraged manufacturers to install machines to reduce the cost of skilled labour.

Ironically just as these particular Orders in Council were repealed, Britain and America entered into the 1812 war which cut off the vital American market.

Most of the novels recognise the hardship caused by these measures and include comments.  In Shirley the old Whig free-trader Yorke champions Napoleon against his own government.  The war ‘affected his own interest’ and he provokes the patriotic Tory Helstone by ‘declaring his belief in the invincibility of Bonaparte’ (Ch III, p27).  He seems to believe any peace is better than the continuing war. 

In Daisy Baines Frank Egerton stands for ‘Brilborough’, a fictitious pocket borough in the south.  He speaks against the ‘arrogance of Napoleon’ but is challenged by his Radical opponent to declare whether he will vote for the ‘withdrawal of the Orders of Council’.   Frank answers diplomatically saying that though he favours free trade war demands ‘retaliatory measures’ , (Chp XIV, Column 1, 27.11.1880). 

By contrast Sad Times shows a world where the divide between the rich and the poor is shown in traditional rather than contemporary terms.  The wretchedness of George and his family, where ‘a hard crust of dried bread’ (Ch 1, p 7) is given to a child every night to distract his hunger, is juxtaposed with the riches of Mr Scott living in his ancient hall.  He is shown as bridging the gap with charity, though the book cannot pretend charity is enough.    It is a contrast that could have been obtained any time from the Middle Ages onwards.

 Woodsome Hall, the probable model for Mr Scott's house.

This is the back, where applicants for charity might be expected to turn up. 

In Through the Fray the Mr Mulready, who owns a mill ‘near Marsden’ (Chp VIII, p 48) courts Ned’s mother Mrs Sankey for her money.   ‘Want of capital’ (Chp IX, p 60) as well as a fear of his workforce has prevented him from mechanising his mill.  Now ‘bankruptcy stared him in the face’ (Chp IX, p 61) but there is no mention of Orders in Council.  When Ned takes over the mill he lays off hands and has no difficulty making a profit.

Clough Lea Mill, a small mill near Marsden

Book I Chapter 13 of Bond Slaves mentions sarcastically ‘the wonderful Treaty of Peace signed at Amiens, which was to last for ever and lasted just one year and sixteen days’ (p 115).  By implication the war is responsible for ‘food riots ,’(p 115) but Banks’ aim is not so much to criticise the government by complaining of Orders in Council or the fact the riots ‘were put down by force,’ (p 115) but to blame the war itself: ‘which had closed the markets for our commerce,’ (p 116).  The Christianity which infuses Banks’ objections to war equally informs her declaration that ‘The humbler classes in the bulk were intensely ignorant,’ (p 115).  Their ignorance means that they blame ‘the masters who had introduced machinery to do the work of human hands,’(p 116), not the war.   As in Sad Times all the text can offer starving workers is Christian forbearance and acts of charity from the mill owners.     

Horsfall in Chapter II of Ben o’ Bills is ‘very bitter’ about ‘those accursed Orders in Council,’ (p 39).  Though the general tenor of Ben o’ Bills is ameliorative Sykes invent a disturbing scene that moves beyond the power of amelioration where, in Chapter VII, George Mellor holds up a dead starved child to show Horsfall the consequences of unemployment.     Neither the authors nor Horsfall attempt to reason with George or to blame the government.   Horsfall is made to offer neither sympathy nor charity; he cries ‘Out o’ mi way, you villain,’ (Chp VII,p 168).  The scene appears to have no historical or anecdotal sources but its insertion challenges the novel’s own ethics.    As if to deflect consideration of the point, the novel presents the repeal of Orders in Council as leading to an instant, magical recovery: ‘The markets briskened at once, as tho’ under a fairy’s touch’ (Chp XI, p 251).

In the Toils of the Luddites does not mention Orders in Council but has the Luddite Phil Harwood complain that trade will never improve until ‘we English give up feightin’ other folks battles’.   His talk takes on an isolationist tone, not echoed elsewhere: ‘If they’d only let Bonyparte be, and look after things at home, we might have a chance,’ (Chp I, p 15).

In Inheritance, part 2 of Chapter 1 contains two speakers who pick up the issue.  Enoch Smith goes one step further than Mr Yorke in saying ‘That’s the war…I reckon yon Bonaparte ought to have been drowned when he was a pup – and Wellesley along with him,’ (p 21).     Later Mr Olyroyd complains of ‘this confounded war’ but goes on to say ‘Why don’t they get those damned Orders in Council repealed?  If they go on like this they’ll ruin the whole country,’ (p 30).  The sentiment is echoed in Ned Carver in Danger by Charles Cartwright, son of a factory owner: ‘and then we made some Orders in council, forbidding neutral countries to trade with France… so we’ve almost nowhere to export cloth to,’ (Chp 2, p3 1).

Seen in retrospect this aspect of the novels records the tension between the interests of London and the interests of the manufacturing and coal industries of the north.  During the days of Mrs Thatcher’s Neo-Liberalism the balance swung decisively in favour of London financial interests.  The factories and mines were seen as being remnants of an economy that had become outmoded between the 1930s and 1960s and also the stronghold of new ‘enemies within’; leading unions who opposed Neo-Liberalism. 

                       The Stoodley Pile monument.                                                             Above the entrance are Masonic symbols. 

The original was built in 1814 to celebrate the defeat of Napoleon,                      Anyone walking up the stairs to the viewing 

and, implicitly, the resumption of trade.   The monument was rebuilt                  platform has to walk into darkness until they 

in 1854 further away from the lip of Caldervale after the original collapsed.                round a corner into a shaft of light.  A recreation of

                  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stoodley_Pike                                          Masonic initiation?