MIGRATION AND LOCALISATION 501 
procuring certain qualities of wool, or of clay, would deter- A.D. 1689 
mine the special character of the weaving or the pottery in 
particular districts. 
There were, however, other circumstances, which have iil Gv 
little to do with mere physical characteristics, that must be ps 
taken into account. The interruption of trading connections, anes for 
which might be occasioned by a war, would be a very serious 
blow to an old established industry, and the inhabitants 
might have difficulty in adapting themselves, and their trade- 
institutions, to new conditions. On the other hand, as we have 
already seen in the case of London! the centres of increasing 
commerce? tended to become areas of enlarged industry. 
These changes had a necessary bearing on the contest 
between the large employers and the domestic weavers. It 
is not easy to balance the relative advantages of the two 
systems. The concentration of many workmen in a small Z%e con- 
district gave a convenient opportunity for the introduction of oF trade" 
capitalist organisation ; while on the other hand, the domestic fyourapie 
system appears to have been an important agent in the {2% 
diffusion of industry over wide areas. It is hardly straining ganisation; 
the evidence to regard the migration of craftsmen from the 
towns to the suburbs and to country villages, in the fifteenth : 
and sixteenth centuries, as due to a desire on the part of the and tke 
workmen to remain independent, and escape from the super- one " 
vision of employers and the regulations passed by oligarchical Bene 
associations of capitalists. The development of the cloth ded to 
trade in Yorkshire in the early seventeenth century? while industry. 
complaints were so rife as to the quality of the wares and 
the conditions of employment in the capitalist districts, 
may be interpreted as an indication that the same motives 
continued to operate. The migration of weavers from the 
West of England to Ireland after the Revolution was not 
1 See above, p. 312. On migration by weavers to London, see the Weavers’ 
Pretences Examined (1719) (Brit. Mus. 1029. e. 17 (3)]. 
2 From its excellent water communication Norwich appears to have continued 
to flourish as a weaving centre in 1778. Defoe, Tour, 1. p. 49. He says that 
“120,000 people were busied in the woollen and silk manufacture of that city.” 
» Compare the petition in 1640 against the weekly cloth market recently 
erected at Wakefield, and that only the fifteen charter fairs should be continued 
which had hitherto sufficed for the trade. Hist. MSS. Comm. 1v. 86. 
1 See above, pp. 204 n.. 297.