worn-out.

In 1562 these voluntary contributions were found quite insufficient to supplement the flogging, branding, and mutilation which formed the principal recipes in the shape of poor relief, and the parishes (5 Elizabeth cap. 3) were given power to force persons to pay who refused to give anything of their own accord. Ten years later, beggars and vagrants being still as numerous as ever, the parish authorities were empowered to tax all the inhabitants for the relief of the poor.

There were other similar acts in addition to these; for paupers and vagrants literally swarmed the country, and even in London the Queen herself actually gave authority for martial law in the metropolis and neighbouring counties, to have such persons executed on the gallows and gibbet. In short, to such a pass had matters come, that in 1601, the 43d year of Elizabeth's reign-the actual wealth of the country having increased greatly, though owing to the new system of production "over-population" had come aboutit was absolutely necessary to make some general and solid provision for the poor if they were not to be exterminated outright. Accordingly the famous Poor Law of 1601 was enacted, which laid down regular ordinances for the relief of the poor, the maintenance of the indigent being charged upon the land, and payment of poor-rates enforced by summary process. Thus was pauperism established by law, the people having been robbed of their lands, common lands and church lands alike, and driven like beasts into the highways. Thenceforward till now we have had the able-bodied paupers at one end of the social scale balanced by the ablebodied sybarites who produce them at the other. The provision for the poor was insufficient and wretched, the laws all favoured actual slavery of the needy to the rich, the

accumulation of wealth was fostered in every way; still it was at last recognised that a man or a woman born in Eng land had a right to live, however miserably, in the land of their birth at the expense of those who had taken unto themselves their entire means of support. The agricultural labourer had become a serf without land, the legislature had succeeded in enforcing laws which had been in operation with regard to wages for two hundred years, and pauperism became the workers' last refuge.

It is the rule to say that the position of the craftsmen was much better than that of the agricultural labourer, inasmuch as by the limitation of apprentices, competition was considerably restricted. This is to an extent true in certain trades, but even here the possibility of having a lad for bare food up to the age of twenty-four induced many employers to infringe the rules. Nor must it be forgotten that combinations among workmen—as we shall see more clearly in a later chapter-were expressly forbidden by law until far on into the present century. Moreover, the craftsmen became more and more capitalists, and confined the brotherhood of the craft-guild to those who could afford to pay very handsomely for the privilege. The restrictions also became more numerous, and constant endeavours were made to turn the handicrafts into the monopoly of a few families controlling journeymen who worked for competition wages, and could never become masters. Masters and wardens under Henry VII. were admonished by law on this head, and in 1530, when an attempt was made to raise the fees for apprentices to 40s., the law cut them down to 2s. 6d. on becoming an apprentice, and 3s. 4d. on becoming a member of the guild. Other enactments were passed, but * Brentano, p. cxlix.

to so little avail that the prices of apprenticeship rose to a preposterous height, and the difficulties offered to them on the road to becoming masters were almost insufferable. These abuses gave rise to grave discontents, and Lord Bacon speaks of some of these craft-guilds as "fraternities in evil." Already, too, the possession of considerable capital had begun to be necessary in the higher branches of manufacture, which of itself not only made it harder for the apprentices to become masters, but gave rise to a distinct antagonism between master and workman in place of the fellowship and good feeling supposed to prevail in the craft-guilds when they were founded. This change of the craft-guilds into associations of capitalists "exercised of course also an influence on their government; and it appears altogether natural when, in the sixteenth century, we see that government entirely transferred into the hands of the richer guild members." *

Instead of the old sovereign meeting of all the associates there now appeared a Court of Assistants, who governed the guild. Only the richer masters were admitted to the highest division, the Livery. The journeyman soon ceased to have any right of election. In short, the domination of the employers became paramount to the guilds, and no attempt to restore the old democratic character of the charters met with full success. To the apprentices aud journeymen all this seemed by no means natural however. In Germany, France, and Flanders, the workers were organised at this time far better than in England, and certainly the Flemish cities were in the sixteenth century considerably ahead of our own in all that goes to make up the organisation and wealth of a manufacturing and trading community. The increase of competition from the country and from abroad

could not be met here in such shape as to be effectual, though downright riots against foreigners certainly occurred. On the whole, therefore, it is clear that the artisans of the cities, especially in those branches of trade which were already controlled by masters with considerable capital, suffered heavily from the fall in wages due to the causes mentioned, and the rise in the price of the necessaries of life due to the debasement of the coinage and the influx of precious metals from America.

Manufacture in the shape of simple co-operation, where, that is to say, several workmen worked together in one workshop at various tasks, was now increasing. This business belonged to, and was controlled by the employer. Kett's insurrection had much thrown back Norwich as a manufacturing centre, but London and other towns took up the work, and the real impetus given to our home manufactures during the sixteenth century is hard to estimate. Circumstances could scarcely have been more favourable to the development of a class of capitalists, and the instant they obtained influence, they of course laughed "freedom of contract" to scorn, and used the legislature to lengthen hours of work and cut down wages for their benefit. Just as the sixteenth century, and especially the period covered by the reigns of Henry VIII. to Elizabeth created a miserable body of agricultural labourers in the country, so the destruction of the democratic character of the craft-guilds, and the growth of capital coupled with the crowding in of the people driven from the land, formed a comparatively small, but still a definite unprotected wage-earning class in the towns. We can directly trace the rise of our distressful proletariat to the robberies, the cruelties, and the legislative infamies recorded.

D

The craftsman like the labourer was more and more severed from his means of production, more and more compelled to sell his labour as a mere commodity to others, in whose workshops he worked, and whose materials he employed. We have fairly entered on the period of production for profit to the employer, rather than for use to the producer, or those dependent on or-as the old feudal lord or abbot-superior to him. Personal relations have been sapped: money relations are being substituted. On the one side the trading class, on the other the working class, is now organizing itself, but in the meanwhile the former has fully two centuries of struggle to go through before it becomes complete master of the situation.

The farmers and the landowners who farmed for profit became during this period possessed of the capital which they needed in order to change the whole relations of production in the country. The rise in the prices of wool and raw produce simultaneously with the reduction of rents on long leases, and the lowering of wages owing to the fall in the value of the money, did the business: a large and growing profit remained therefore for a number of years in the farmer's hands. To understand the accumulation of the capital which started manufactories, large trading houses, and banks in our cities, we must take a wider survey, though part of the city capital came doubtless from the same source as the farmer's.

From the date of the discovery of America by Columbus, and the doubling of the Cape of Good Hope by Vasco di Gama, the Atlantic Ocean has played a part in European commerce similar to that held by the Western Mediterranean and the shores of Britain in ancient times. At the same time that these great discoveries were made, the ancient