THE INFLUENCE OF COMMERCE ON INDUSTRY 499
and incited to riot, by being dismissed in periods of bad 4-D- 2659
trade ; while the merchant was better able than the capitalist
employer, to reject inferior cloth, and to prevent it from
coming into the market at all’. On the other hand, the but Bt
capitalist employer not only supervised the industry, but wasn
established his own trading connections. He was better placed he et
for completing a large order by a given date, as the work- 2" super:
men were more entirely under his control, and he was able to workmen,
organise the industry on the best lines and to introduce
a suitable division of labour. The domeéstic weaver would
have to sell his cloth to a fuller, or cloth-worker?, practically
in his own neighbourhood, before it was a marketable article:
he did not come in direct contact with the consumer, either
at home or abroad. The large clothier had much better oppor-
bunities of disposing of his goods, either in a half-manufac-
tured, or finished state. Not only so—the domestic weaver
would be inclined to go on producing the same make of cloth
he had always furnished, but the great undertaker could
attempt to gauge the probable demand for different classes
of goods, and manufacture with a view to a changing demand.
The domestic system may have been better adapted for the
maintenance of a recognised standard, though this seems
doubtful, but the capitalist was certainly in a better position
for introducing improvements and making progress’. From
the point of view of developing trade, capital was at a
decided advantage, but the domestic system managed to ond intro-
maintain its ground, till the introduction of expensive machinery.
gauging the
market.
1 Compare the remedy for abuses in the Somerset trade, 2 and 3 P. and M.
s. 12. A bad piece would be left on the hands of the independent workman and
used locally; but if a capitalist manufacturer owned the inferior goods, he would
pe likely to try to pass them off somehow.
9 The complete independence of each link of the industry as it existed in
Devonshire in 1630 is very remarkable. ¢ First the gentleman farmer, or husband-
man, sends his wool to the market, which is bought either by the comber or the
spinster, and they, the next week, bring it thither again in yarn, which the weaver
puys; and the market following brings that thither again in cloth, where it is sold
sither to the clothier (who sends it to London), or to the merchant who (after it
has passed the fuller’s mill and sometimes the dyer's vat), transports it.”
Westcote, View of Devonshire, p. 61.
3 Duchesne, L’ Evolution économique et sociale de U' Industrie de la Laine, 60.
According to Mr Graham's evidence, Reports 1806, m. 1058 (printed pagination
144), the neighbourhood of capitalist factories tended to the introduction of
improvements on the part of domestic manufacturers.
239 __ 9
