With the great output of coal came an immediate revival of the iron trade, which it will be remembered had greatly declined about 1737 and 1740, for as coal was not available wood had to be used as fuel, and the consequent destruction of forests, especially the Sussex Wealden, had caused legislative prohibitions. The scientific treatment of iron ore in the various processes of manufacture had indeed been improved, but nothing much could be done without coal. This was seen for instance by an ironmaster, Anthony Bacon, in 1755, who obtained a lease for 99 years of a district at Merthyr Tydvil, eight miles long and five broad, upon which he erected both iron and coal works. In 1760 Smeaton’s invention of a new blowing apparatus at his works at Carron, near Falkirk, did away with the old clumsy bellows; and the other inventions of Cranage (1766), of Onions (1783), and of Cort {166} (1784), for which separate treatises must be consulted, brought the manufacture of iron almost to perfection. Whereas about 1740 we produced only some 18,000 tons of iron annually, and had to import at least 20,000 tons; we produced in 1788 as much as 68,000 tons, and the production has gone on steadily increasing to the present time, when our export alone amounts to four and a half million tons of iron and steel annually. § 6. THE NATION’S WEALTH AND ITS WARS--Of course these discoveries of new processes in procuring coal and making iron enormously increased the wealth of England, and at the same time entirely changed the conditions of industry. For they helped on the textile manufactures by providing any amount of fuel and machinery, and all these together gave employment to a population that seemed to grow in accordance with the need of the nation for workers. The new textile and mining industries supplied England with that vast wealth which enabled her to endure successfully the long years of war at the close of last century and the beginning of this. The Industrial Revolution came only just in time, for after the repose of 1763 to 1792, during which this silent Revolution matured and took root, England engaged in a struggle which she certainly could never have supported without a far greater national wealth than she possessed in the first three quarters of the eighteenth century. And as it was, the year 1815 found a large portion of her people in poverty and distress, and the industrial classes suffered heavily from the taxation which the war imposed. But owing to her industrial development the war left England at its close, in spite of all her troubles, the foremost nation of Europe in economic matters, and consequently in all other matters also. As is the case with most modern wars, this great war originated in economic causes, even {167} to a certain extent in economic mistakes, but it had important effects upon industry and was largely affected by industrial considerations. Hence we must consider it rather more closely. CHAPTER III