DIFFERENTIATION OF AN EMPLOYING CLASS IN TRADES 511 
the clothiers”; they were accused, but apparently on in- A.D. 1689 
sufficient grounds, of making false yarn. Many of the poor —He. 
spinners appear to have been wage-earners, and to have been 
very badly off. “If the poore spinner shall depend only 
apon the Clothier for worke, the Clothier at this time gives 
boo little wages, as the poor Spinner can hardly live, it may 
well be feared they will then give less, and will thus make 
shoyce of the prime spinners out of the whole number of 
spinners, and turn of the reste, which may be of ill conse- 
quence” The competition of two classes of capitalists was 
avidently regarded as beneficial to labour. 
The new method of organisation was also being adopted 
in the trades which were occupied in finishing the cloth. So 
long as the domestic system held its own among the weavers, and in 
there was at least a possibility that the cloth-worker would il 
be an independent man, who had purchased the goods on 
which he exercised his skill?, and this appears to have been 
the form in which the trade was conducted in London in 
16345. But the extension of capitalism, through the energy 
of employers who desired to control the whole process of pro- 
duction, tended to change the economic status of this calling. 
Clothworking ceased to be a separate trade, and became 
a mere department of an industrial undertaking organised 
by an employer. This change in the position of their 
business necessarily involved an alteration in the character 
of the organisations among the cloth-workers. The function, 
which their companies had formerly discharged, of maintain- 
ing the quality of workmanship, was henceforth performed 
hy capitalist employers, so that associations were no longer 
needed for this purpose. The transitional phase is clearly 
marked at Ipswich in 1620. The Clothworkers’ Company 
there, obviously retained its character as an association of 
domestic workers; certain members protested against the 
manner in which their Company was controlled “ by poor and 
Capitalist 
supervision 
proved 
beneficial 
1 8. P.D. C. I. coxrm. 23. 
1 As early as 1565, however, there were drapers at Shrewsbury who purchased 
Welsh cloth, and employed shearmen and clothiers at Shrewsbury to earn wages 
by dressing and finishing these goods (8 El. ¢. 7). In Yorkshire, at the beginning 
of the nineteenth century, the men engaged in this business appear to have been 
wage-earners employed either by cloth merchants. or the domestic weavers. 
3Q. P.D CI conxxvo. 104.