ks. The latter were at first merely
associations of private speculators, who, in exchange for privileges
bestowed on them, advanced money to help the governments. The Bank of
England, founded in 1684, began by lending money to the government at
eight per cent. At the same time it was empowered by parliament to coin
money out of the same capital, by lending it again to the public in the
form of bank-notes.

By degrees the Bank of England became the eternal creditor of the
nation, and so arose the national debt, together with an international
credit system, which has often concealed one or other of the sources of
primitive accumulation of this or that people. One of the main lines of
international business is the lending out of enormous amounts of capital
by one country to another. Much capital which to-day appears in America
without any certificate of birth, was yesterday in England, the
capitalised blood of her children.

Terrible cruelty characterised much of the development of industrial
capitalism, both on the Continent and in England. The birth of modern
industry is heralded by a great slaughter of the innocents. Like the
royal navy, the factories were recruited by the press-gang. Cottages and
workhouses were ransacked for poor children to recruit the factory
staffs, and these were forced to work by turns during the greater part
of the night. As Lancashire was thinly populated and great numbers of
hands were suddenly wanted, thousands of little hapless creatures, whose
nimble little fingers were especially wanted, were sent down to the
north from the workhouses of London, Birmingham, and other towns. These
apprentices were flogged, tortured, and fettered. The profits of
manufacturers were enormous. At length Sir Robert Peel brought in his
bill for the protection of children.

With the growth of capitalist production during the manufacturing period
the public conscience of Europe had lost the last remnant of shame, and
the nations cynically boasted of every infamy that reinforced
capitalistic accumulation. Liverpool waxed fat on the slave trade. The
child-slavery in the European manufactories needed for its pedestal the
slavery, pure and simple, of the negroes imported into America. If
money, according to Marie Augier, "comes into the world with a
congenital bloodstain on one cheek," capital comes dripping from head to
foot, from every pore, with blood and dirt.

_III.--Commodities, Exchange and Capital_

A c