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CAPITALIST AND DOMESTIC SYSTEMS IN CLOTHING TRADE 50%, "Viki
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subsequent statute penalties were imposed on the clothiers Gora
who did not pay the wages authoritatively settled. Special ™ “7 4 140%
protection was afforded, in 16622 to the weavers in the North
of England, against masters who cut down wages. The in-
creasing attention given to the condition of wage-earners
not improbably indicates that this class was becoming larger,
and that their good government demanded more attention.
This impression is confirmed by the occasional interference and should
. . . continue to
which was thought necessary in times of bad trade. In 1528 employ
. . . . - . ir kh
there had been capitalists who had dismissed their hands in vg
Eseex, Kent, Wiltshire and especially in Suffolk’. Similar “™
trouble arose in Berkshire in 1564‘. In the unexampled
stagnation of 1622° the Crown insisted that merchants should
purchase cloth, and that clothiers should continue to give
smployment, in the hope of relieving distress both among
Jomestic workers and wage-earners. In Suffolk? and later
in Essex”, the crises involved the ruin of employers as well
as the distress of the employed.
The Acts against truck are another series of measures Wage-
which indicate the existence of the capitalist system®; and gore
similar evidence is furnished by the recurring measures "i
against the dishonesty of workmen in embezzling materials’, bezsling
. . . . ervals.
These causes of dispute could only arise under the capitalist
system, but the repressive measures give us comparatively
little information as to the districts where the trouble was
most keenly felt. On the other hand the accounts, which
have come down to us, of the disputes in the cloth trade” in
113.1. c.6. 214 C. II c. 32, § 15.
t Hall, Chronicle, 746. Brewer, Cal. 8. P.1v. 4044, 4239.
. 8. P. D. EL xxxiv. 43. There was also an interruption of trade in 1587
which was severely felt both at Bristol and Southampton, and it seemed desirable
to fix on a new depot for the export of cloth. 8. P. D. EL ce. 5, 12.
6 §.P.D. J. I cxxvi. 76. See also the reports of the goods from Gloucester,
Somerset, Reading, Blackwell, Manchester, Wiltshire and Kent. in Blackwell Hall.
8. P.D. J. L cxxvim. 72—76.
s §. P. D. J. I. ocxxv. 67.
7 In the depression from 1631—1637. 8. P. D.C. 1. 1637, ccoLIv. 92, April
26th, and ccorv. 67, May 4.
3 1 Anne IL. ¢. 18, § 3; 12 Geo. I. c. 84; 29 Geo. IL. c. 83.
30H. VIII. ce. 9; 7J.1.¢c. 7; 1 Annem. ¢. 18.
10 For a dispute in London, 1675, see 4 true Narrative of the Proceedings
against the Weavers (Brit. Mus. 1132. b. 79). They seem to have rioted and to
nave hroken looms. which shows that the looms could not have belonged to
to
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