504 PARLIAMENTARY COLBERTISM
legislation on this topic; but much attention was given both
to the supply of material and the terms of employment. The
measures which were passed on these points seem to show
that, as we might have expected, the trade was becoming
increasingly capitalist in character.
and to From time immemorial pains had to be taken by the
Gove government to see that English weavers had a sufficient
Facturers a SUPply of the raw material of their manufacture. The assize
Bfeence of wool, under Edward IIL, had been intended to check the
purchasing export of this product at low rates, and thus to give a prefer-
tocol. ence to purchasers at home. In the time of Edward IV,
limits were laid down as to the time of year when the
Staplers might purchase wool for export ; from March 18th
kill August 24th the home producer had no reason to fear
their competition®. In the latter part of Elizabeth’s reign an
agitation sprang up in favour of an absolute prohibition of the
export of wool?, and James I. issued proclamations against it*.
After the Parliament took up the same line, both at the Restora-
Tsar tion* and the Revolution®. The measures which were then
vaspro- passed were intended, not merely to give English weavers
a preference’, but to starve out foreign competition alto-
gether, by preventing industrial rivals from procuring a
supply of English wool”. This system of prohibition was
A.D. 1689
1776.
14 Ed. IV. ¢. 4. Lohmann, Die Staatlicke Regelung der englischen Woll-
industrie, p. 66. This seems to have been specially aimed at a system of
contracting beforehand for the purchase of wool.
3 8. P. D. El. ccxuiv. No. 104, 1593.
8 96 Sept. and 9 Nov. 1614; this was during the disturbance caused by
Cockayne’s patent, but similar steps were taken in later years (p. 298 n. 9, above),
and by Charles I. in 1632.
t 13 and 14 C. IL c. 18. §1W. and M. i. c. 82.
& Attention was also given to the supply of other articles used in dyeing
{8 G. Ie. 15, §§ 10, 11, also 27 G. IL. c. 18) and in cloth working, such as fuller's
sarth. See the commission of 1622 (Rymer, Federa, XVII. 412), also 12 C II.
5. 32 and 14 C. IL ec. 18. Direct encouragement was given to the growth
of certain products, such as madder (A. Young, Farmer's Letters, 227, and
Pennant, Journey, 1. 96), which were useful in connection with the textile trades.
Tassels or teasels, which were used in the wool manufacture, were grown in
considerable quantities in Yorkshire, where cloth dressing was carried on (Arthur
Young, Northern Tour, 1. 191). The want of tassels in Scotland is spoken of by
Lindsay (The Interest of Scotland, p. 109) as one reason why the woollen trade
was so backward there.
7 This was believed to be so superior in quality to foreign wools as to be
essential. at all events, for certain branches of the manufacture. Defoe, Plan of
