Assertion (A): In nineteenth-century Britain, industrialists often preferred to employ hand labour rather tha…

Question

Assertion (A): In nineteenth-century Britain, industrialists often preferred to employ hand labour rather than invest in new machines.
Reason (R): There was an abundant supply of cheap labour migrating from the countryside to cities, making human workers more economical than expensive machines.

Accepted Answer

## Model Answer **Option A** is correct. Both A and R are true, and R is the correct explanation of A. In Victorian Britain, poor peasants migrated to cities in large numbers, keeping wages low, so industrialists found hand labour cheaper than investing in costly machines. *Source: Chapter 4, Hand Labour and Steam Power* --- ## Explanation The passage directly states: "When there is plenty of labour, wages are low. So industrialists had no problem of labour shortage or high wage costs. They did not want to introduce machines that got rid of human labour and required large capital investment." This confirms both the Assertion and that the Reason correctly explains it. Remember — the key link is **cheap migrant labour → low wages → no incentive for machine investment**.

Social Science (087) — AI-generated practice question