Failure of efforts to restrict trade.
The system of elaborate organisation by which men had regulated trade in the past had given way to an equally complete system of individualism. Confused philosophical reasoning, combined with the decay of old means of regulation, had produced this anti-social state of things. Individual competition, in uncontrolled energy, reigned supreme amid almost incredible suffering and squalor. Everything which might tend to check the progress of the devastation was looked upon with suspicion and swept swiftly out of the way. All the old restraints were wanting, and self-interest alone formed the mainspring of action. To this fetish everything was sacrificed—men’s bodies and men’s principles. Commercial dealings took the most questionable forms: adulteration of products went on unchecked by any qualms of honesty. The companies had long ago ceased to make any attempts in the direction of industrial regulation. The whole efforts of their members were concentrated on the vain endeavour to restrict trade to the chartered towns.
Yet even the apologist for the companies, quoted at the end of the sixth chapter, was obliged to allow that in this they had failed. The result of the action of the “oppressive oligarchies” was the “excluding or discouraging the English Subjects from Trading in our greatest and best situated towns, where the markets are[208].” Shrewsbury saw the free towns around growing up to importance and outstripping her in the race for prosperity. Birmingham, not far distant, was already famous. Another free town which rose rapidly was Manchester, where most of the new industries did not come under the Apprenticeship Act, and were consequently free and unshackled. Such formidable rivals drew away trade from the old privileged boroughs. The companies were quite unable to retain their monopolies.
But more than this. Even the measure of commercial prosperity which Shrewsbury possessed—it was not small—cannot be in any appreciable degree ascribed to the companies. A writer of 1825[209] who considers the trade of the town at that date by no means “inconsiderable[210]” attributes the fact to anything rather than the “Chartered Companies[211].” “Here are two very large linen factories, besides several manufactories for starch, soap, flannels, cotton goods, an extensive iron and brass foundry, two ale and porter breweries, a spirit distillery, etc.[212]” “Its fabrication of threads, linen cloths etc. etc. stands unrivalled; whilst the more common articles of domestic life are executed in a stile of neatness, certainly equal, if not superior, to those of any other place of similar size[213].” The various causes which he looks upon as conducing to this prosperity he sets forth with considerable detail: “its contiguity to the Principality, the facility which it possesses for the importation and exportation of goods, by means of its noble river and canals, and its situation as the capital of an extensive and populous county, combine to give it many advantages over a variety of places equally insular[214].” That the companies had any hand in ministering to this prosperity, or even served any useful purpose, seems never to have so much as occurred to him.
Struggle against intruders
Yet they were putting their charters to the utmost use. They used every means in their power to hold the trade. They obtained the assistance of the municipal officers in seeking out and expelling intruders, even hawkers and pedlars. Actions at law became rapidly more frequent, until at last the life of the companies becomes one long effort to compel intruders to take up their freedom by paying the necessary fines. The Barbers even went so far as to prosecute men and women-servants for presuming to dress their masters’ and mistresses’ hair.
Though these measures were unsuccessful in attaining their object they were not without most important results.
impoverishes the companies, and calls down public odium on them.
In the first place the companies saw their stock become rapidly impoverished, and themselves on the verge of bankruptcy. So early as 1692 the Mercers were obliged to raise £50 by means of mortgage, and in the next year they were twice forced to sell some of their property. The Grocers had, half a century previously[215], noted with sorrow how “the Stock of the Company yearly decreaseth.” The Barbers so early as 1744 resolve to spend no more money at Show time “except the third part of the Weavers’ Bill.” The Saddlers’ stock in the three per cents. has to be sold to defray the charges of actions against intruders in 1810, and about the same time the Bakers’ arbour was seized “on account of sustained charges against the company in an action for supposed infringement of their rights.” Even the wealthy company of the Drapers had been compelled to relinquish their annual holiday, at which open house was kept for town and neighbourhood, in 1781.
But worse perhaps than this was the public odium they brought upon themselves. That this was so was acknowledged in formal meeting at the close of their public life, yet it had existed long before and grew daily stronger.