198 PARLIAMENTARY COLBERTISM 
part, by examining evidence of this kind that we can hope to 
‘race in any way the gradual progress of capitalism in super- 
seding the domestic system throughout the country. 
There are some trades which had in all probability been 
organised on a capitalist basis from the first. It is likely 
enough that John Kemp and other Flemish immigrants of his 
time were large employers?, and there is no reason to suppose 
that all English trades were originally domestic, and were 
recast by degrees on the other model. It is apparent that 
the capitalist and domestic system existed side by side in 
the staple trade of the country for centuries. It seems 
not improbable that circumstances, during the seventeenth 
century, favoured the domestic system, and that it developed 
at the expense of the other; but as the capitalist was better 
able than the domestic worker to take advantage of the 
expanding commerce of the eighteenth century, and of the 
mechanical appliances of the nineteenth, he has won the day. 
and each The contest between these two systems would hardly 
had ad- : ; 
antages of have continued so long, unless each had had its own ad- 
‘sown. vantages. Under the domestic system, the merchant formed 
the intermediary between the independent weaver and the 
London market to which the product of his loom was carried. 
There was much to be said for this arrangement; the weaver 
sould not but prefer to be his own master, rather than to 
work under supervision, and at the times his employer 
desired. Public authorities also looked on the domestic 
system with favour; it had many social advantages, as there 
was less danger of the weavers being reduced to destitution 
A.D. 1689 
—1776. 
In the 
clothing 
rade the 
sapitalist 
and 
domestic 
gy stems 
existed 
side by side 
S.P.D.C.I ccuvir. 6. Ordinances of Clothworkers, 1639 (Brit. Mns. 8248. e. 26), 
p. 127, also Letter on Lawes and Orders (Brit. Mus. 1103, f. 33), p. 14. See 
p. 511 below. 
1 Vol. 1. 806. P. Methwin who introduced fine weaving in Bradford (Wilts.) in 
the seventeenth century was also a wealthy man: W. H. Jones in Wilts. Arch. 
Magazine, v. 48. The weaving trade when introduced into Florence in the thir- 
seenth century had a capitalist character. Doren, Studien aus der Florentiner 
Wirtschaftsgeschickte (1901), pp. 22, 23. 
2 There is a parallel in the contest between farming on a large and on a small 
scale in the present day. On the whole the small holding has passed away, but 
there have been circumstances recently, which have favoured the breaking up of 
large farms in some districts, especially where land is required for a by-occupation, 
and as subsidiary to some other employment. Small farms may continue to exist 
side by side with large ones; and a certain amount of re-arrangement is likely to 
secur according to changing conditions.