The Introduction of Threshing Machine


 
 
Concept Explanation
 

The Introduction of Threshing Machine

The Introduction of Threshing Machines: 

During the Napoleonic Wars, prices of food grains were high and farmers expanded production vigorously. Fearing a shortage of labour , they began buying the new threshing machines that had come into the market. They complained of the insolence off labourers, their drinking habits, and the difficulty of making them work. The machines, they bought , would help them reduce their dependence on labourers.

After the Napoleonic Wars has ended, thousands of soldiers returned to the villagers. They needed alternative jobs to survive. But this was a time when grain from Europe began flowing into England prices declined, and the Agriculture Depression set in Anxious, Landowners began reducing the area they cultivated and demanded that the imports of crops be stopped. They tried to cut wages and the number of workman they employed. The unemployed poor tramped from village to village and those with uncertain jobs lived in fear of  a loss off their livelihood.

The Captain Swing riots spread in the countryside at this time . For the poor threshing  machines had become a sign of bad times.

Protest and Government Actions: In England during 1830s, farmers received threatening letters of not using threshing machines that remove workmen of their livelihood. Some farmers found their barn and haystack reduced to ashes by fire at night. Most of the letters were signed in the name of Captain Swing. It was a mythic name used in these letters. Landlords feared attacks by armed groups at night and many destroyed their own machines. Government took severe actions on these riots, the suspects of the riots were arrested.

 
 


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