“In many cases the various gremios bear hard upon each other. Thus, for instance, the carpenter must not employ his industry on mahogany, or any other wood but deal, nor must he invade the province of the turner. The turner must confine his ingenuity and labour to soft wood, and must not presume to touch either ivory or metals, even though he should be reduced to poverty for want of work. The wheeler, in similar distress, must not, however qualified, extend his operations beyond the appointed bounds, so as to encroach on the business of the coach-maker, who is equally restrained from either making or mending either cart or waggon wheels. The barber may shave, draw teeth, and bleed, but he must not fill up his leisure time with making wigs.[83] As mechanics are obliged to keep exactly each to his several line, so must shopkeepers confine themselves to their proper articles in trade, and under no pretence must the manufacturer presume to open magazines, that he may sell by retail.
“But neither are these abuses the only evils which call for reformation. Many corporations have been impertinently meddling, and have absurdly bound the hands of the manufacturer by regulations with respect to the conduct of his business and the productions of his art, such as, being too rigidly observed, would preclude all improvements, and would be destructive to his trade, by giving to foreigners a manifest advantage in favour of their merchandise.[84]
“The incorporated fraternities in the kingdoms of Castile and Aragon are 25,581, and their corporate expenses amount to 11,687,861 reals. Their revenue is not altogether consumed in feasting, nor in salaries to officers, nor in pensions to their widows, nor yet in lawsuits, which are said to be both numerous and expensive; but considerable sums are expended for religious purposes, in procuring masses to be said, either for departed spirits and the souls in Purgatory, or for the benefit of the fraternity in which each individual has a proportionable interest. For this reason, these communities enjoy the protection of the ecclesiastical courts, to which, in cases of necessity, they frequently appeal.
“The chartered corporations claim their exclusive privileges by royal grant, and on this plea they resist a formation, not considering, as Count Campomanes with propriety remarks, the essential condition of these grants, Sin perjuicio de tercero, or that nothing therein contained shall be to the prejudice of others, or injurious to the citizens at large.”
APPENDIX I
CLASSES OF POTTERY MADE AT ALCORA
(From Riaño's Industrial Arts in Spain)
Towards the middle of the eighteenth century:—
Vases of different shapes.
Small pots (Chinese fashion).