Unruly Landscape, Fluid Geographies

2019 ◽  
pp. 249-297
Author(s):  
Arupjyoti Saikia
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
State Intervention ◽  
Ecological Impacts ◽  
Cultural Imagination ◽  
Corrective Measures ◽  
Human Interventions ◽  
River Banks

This chapter explains how the British officials learned about the intricacies of coexisting with water. Along with ecological impacts, human interventions too wrought changes that called for regulation and corrective measures. This state intervention began through a complex as well as difficult redesigning of the floodplain landscape. The utilitarian and cultural imagination of the Assamese peasants hardly distinguished the islands of the river from that of the vast stretches of sandy riverbanks. Both were inseparable. Nineteenth-century Assamese lexicons described both as chapori. A cartographic division of this riverine geography began to take shape in the legal and revenue parlance of the British officials in Assam. Familiar with the vocabulary of Bengal, the British officials began to make a distinction between the two; the islands came to be mentioned as chars while the river banks were described as chaporis. The chars were looked down upon as the unfortunate geographical extension of the chaporis.

State Intervention in Mid-Nineteenth Century Britain: Fact or Fiction?

1983 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 63-83 ◽  
Author(s):  
P.W.J. Bartrip
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
State Intervention ◽  
State Regulation ◽  
Individual Freedom ◽  
The Third ◽  
The People ◽  
Victorian Period ◽  
Government Interference ◽  
Laissez Faire

The question of the degree of state intervention in nineteenth-century Britain has interested generations of scholars since the beginning of the present century. Did mid-nineteenth century England constitute an “age of laissez-faire” which gave way to an “age of collectivism,” or did an “age of mercantalism” merge into one of state regulation during which process, even in the early and mid-Victorian period, the state exercised considerable control over the day-to-day lives of its citizens? These are two of the questions over which there has been extended debate.The term laissez-faire has been employed in a variety of ways by different writers, by no means all of whom have troubled to define their understanding of the expression. Recently Professor Perkin has argued that during the nineteenth century two distinct meanings were attributed to it (and seven to the related, though antithetical, concept, collectivism!). For the purposes of this paper the term is taken to mean the philosophy, policy and, above all, the practice of minimal government interference in the economy.The most influential case for an “age of laissez-faire” was presented by Dicey in Law and Public Opinion. In this Dicey identified three overlapping legislative phases: Quiescence (1800-1830), Individualism (1825-1870), and Collectivism (1865-1900). The first consisted of an absence of legislation, the second of “constant” parliamentary activity to abolish restraints on individual freedom and the third of state intervention “for the purpose of conferring benefit upon the mass of the people” at the expense of some loss of individual freedom.

State, Market, and Popular Sovereignty in Agrarian North America

2020 ◽  
pp. 177-199
Author(s):  
Christopher Clark
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
State Intervention ◽  
Popular Sovereignty ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Productive Capacity ◽  
The Family ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
Nineteenth Century United States ◽  
American Political Economy

This essay focuses on agriculture and particularly the “freehold ideal” of independent farmers in the nineteenth-century United States. An odd contradiction of American territorial settlement was the farmers’ simultaneous drive to exploit resources for the market and the aim of many of those actively engaged in settlement to shield themselves from the market’s dangers by acquiring land on the frontier. Clark shows how the ideal of freehold farming, which was so central to the American political economy, was actually threatened not so much from the dangers of the market overwhelming the small farm as from the family farm running out of labor to uphold its own productive capacity. Labor, not land, was the problem confronting the freehold vision, as he argues in a provocative re-reading of late nineteenth-century small farmers’ calls for state intervention.

Wheat Breeding : Coalescence of a Modern Science, 1900-1939

1998 ◽  
Author(s):  
John H. Perkins
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Plant Breeding ◽  
Industrial Revolution ◽  
Modern Science ◽  
Educational Programs ◽  
Wheat Breeding ◽  
Ecological Impacts ◽  
New Science ◽  
Slow Decline ◽  
Political Economic

Plant breeding in general and wheat breeding specifically were rudimentary activities on many grounds in the nineteenth century. Not many people engaged in the activity. Those who did were self-taught. because no formal educational programs existed in the subject. For the most part, they had only a few very modest institutional bases within which to work. Many farmers paid them little or no attention, and governments usually ignored their contributions and gave them next to no support. They had no organized way of broadly disseminating their results, which in any case were few in number. By 1970, wheat and other plant breeders occupied a very different position within both the scientific and political economic landscapes. Many people worked as breeders. They were highly trained in educational programs dedicated to the reproduction of plant breeders. Elaborate networks of institutions gave them employment. A substantial proportion of farmers cared very much what they did, and governments gave substantial, sometimes lavish, support. They had means of communicating their work that included both scientific and popular outlets. And they had substantial results to convey to farmers and the general public, some of them remarkable either for their scientific cleverness or for their broad political, economic, and ecological impacts, or both. Another way of gaining perspective on the change in status of wheat and other plant breeders is to suggest that their absence might not have been noticed by anybody but their families had they suddenly disappeared in the nineteenth century. In contrast, the twentieth century came increasingly to depend upon the plant breeders. Cessation of wheat breeding after 1970, for example, would have put some agricultural systems in distinct danger of slow decline or even collapse and failure. In both political economic and ecological terms, an increasing portion of the global human community became absolutely dependent upon wheat breeders and other plant scientists, certainly for prosperity as we now know it and possibly for survival and security. The transformation of wheat breeding from nearly invisible to virtually indispensable resulted from two mutually interacting events: a commercial-industrial revolution in agriculture and construction of a new science of plant breeding.

The rise of financial accountability in British joint stock banks: 1825 to 1845

2020 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 234-255
Author(s):  
Chantal S. Game ◽  
Lisa M. Cullen ◽  
Alistair M. Brown
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Financial Crises ◽  
Balance Sheet ◽  
State Intervention ◽  
Mandatory Disclosure ◽  
Financial Accountability ◽  
Bank Of England ◽  
Laissez Faire ◽  
Bank Notes

This study explores parliamentary reforms related to the financial accountability of banks following the 1825–6 and 1836–7 financial crises in England. An appraisal of nineteenth-century parliamentary Hansard transcripts reveals early banking legislative pursuits. The study observes the laissez-faire and interventionist approaches towards the banking enactments of 1826, 1833 and 1844 that underpin the transformation of financial accountability during this era. The Bank Notes Act 1826 imposed financial accountability on the Bank of England by requiring the mandatory disclosure of notes issued. The Bank Notes Act 1833 extended this requirement to all other banks. The Bank Charter Act 1833 increased the financial accountability of the Bank of England by requiring it to provide an account of bullion and securities belonging to the governor and company, as well as deposits held by the bank. Thereafter, the Joint Stock Banks Act 1844 pioneered the regular publication of assets and liabilities and communication of the balance sheet and profit and loss account to shareholders. State intervention in the financial accountability of banks during the period from 1825 to 1845 appears to have been cumulative.

Charity, Finance, and Legitimacy: Exploring Stateless-Capital Status in Early Nineteenth-Century Dublin and Edinburgh

2019 ◽  
pp. 009614421987786
Author(s):  
Joe Curran
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Social Conflict ◽  
State Intervention ◽  
Sharp Contrast ◽  
Capital City ◽  
Voluntary Organizations ◽  
Central State ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
Urban Functions

Nineteenth-century Dublin and Edinburgh were “stateless capitals”; they were no longer home to parliaments but still had many of the characteristics of a capital city. This article begins to explore the idea that the stateless capital constitutes a particular type of city. It analyses philanthropic activity to assess how middle-class life in each city was affected by their positions as stateless capitals. In particular, it examines the significance of the close interactions between central state and philanthropy that helped to shape stateless-capital status in early nineteenth-century Dublin but not Edinburgh. It argues that central state intervention in Dublin did not dampen the vibrancy of associational culture, but it did politicize philanthropy, reducing voluntary organizations’ ability to mediate social conflict. More seriously, the provision of parliamentary grants to Dublin’s charities damaged the city’s image, making it appear unable to perform basic urban functions. This was in sharp contrast to Edinburgh’s image as Scottish metropolis.

State Intervention in Argentina's Export Trade between the Wars

1970 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 147-173 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roger Gravil
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Foreign Capital ◽  
State Intervention ◽  
Export Trade ◽  
International Economy ◽  
Host Countries ◽  
Commercial Preparation ◽  
Business Operations ◽  
World Markets ◽  
Commercial Expansion

Since the dramatic widening of the international economy in the last quarter of the nineteenth century foreign capital and enterprise have played a prominent role in the export trades of the primary producing countries. That so much initiative should have come from outside is not surprising since the timing of the entry of these countries into world markets was determined by the demands of the industrial nations rather than by their own level of commercial preparation. The establishment of foreign businesses inevitably brought mixed reactions in the host countries, stemming from the recognition that, while local capital and enterprise could not cope with the sudden commercial expansion, foreign interests were in a position to exploit that very fact. Primary producing countries, therefore, sought to impose statutory regulations on export companies designed to safeguard the producers and, more generally, to harmonize business operations with the government's conception of the national interest.

scholarly journals The Attitudes of Friendly Societies towards the Movement in Great Britain for State Pensions, 1878—1908

1970 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 266-299 ◽  
Author(s):  
James H. Treble
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Great Britain ◽  
Social History ◽  
Social Services ◽  
Old Age ◽  
The Elderly ◽  
State Intervention ◽  
The State ◽  
Friendly Societies ◽  
The Individual

The last three decades of the nineteenth century were marked in British social history by a vigorous and far-reaching debate about the causes and incidence of poverty amongst the elderly. By the early 1890s this controversy had produced a sharp cleavage of opinion between those commentators who held that old-age pauperism was largely a product of character defects and those who attributed it to certain social and economic ills which the individual, acting alone, could never hope to remedy. Social thinkers who subscribed to this latter view – the loosely labelled collectivist school of thought – were not content, however, merely with the work of analysis; they were equally anxious to find a panacea for one of the main social problems of the day. In the end the solution they most widely canvassed was the introduction of an old age pensions scheme in which the state would have a vital rle to play. But perhaps of more significance for the development of social services in Great Britain, three of the leading advocates of state intervention endeavoured, in their own distinctive styles, to translate this general declaration of intent into detailed programmes of action.

scholarly journals Conflict over Women’s Working Times on the Eve of Industrialisation: Spanish Social Reformers’ Surveys at the End of the Nineteenth Century

2019 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 19
Author(s):  
Cristina Borderías
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Social Issues ◽  
State Intervention ◽  
Social Reforms ◽  
Social Instability ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Family ◽  
The Government ◽  
Empirical Sociology ◽  
Social Reformers

During the last two decades of the nineteenth century, Spain experienced growing social instability. The worsening working conditions stimulated social conflict and the rise of the labour movement. In this context, the first voices in favour of state intervention in conflicts between capital and labour arose among the reformist intellectual elite. One of the first social policy measures undertaken by the state was the creation, in 1883, of the Comisión de Reformas Sociales (Commission for Social Reforms, CRS) as a consultative and advisory institution of the government on social issues. Under the influence of positivist methods of empirical sociology, the commission’s first initiative was to conduct a survey with the objective of undertaking a detailed diagnosis of the living conditions of the working population. Changing gender relations in the family and labour market, especially the conflicts over the use of women’s time, was one of the central questions in this survey. Thus, its results allow us to analyse both the discourses – by social reformers and other social groups – and the social practices of women at work in different sectors and in different parts of Spain.

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