This system,however,was no longer universal in Arthur Young's time.That writer found at Sheffield a silk-mill employing 152hands,including women and children;at Darlington 'one master-manufacturer employed above fifty looms';at Boyton there were 150hands in one factory.So,too,in the West of England cloth-trade the germs of the capitalist system were visible.The rich merchant gave out work to labourers in the surrounding villages,who were his employes,and were not independent.In the Nottingham hosiery trade there were,in 1750,fifty manufacturers,known as 'putters out,'who employed 1200frames;in Leicestershire 1800frames were so employed.In the hand-made nail business of Staffordshire and Worcestershire,the merchant had warehouses in different parts of the district,and give out nail-rod iron to the nail-master,sufficient for a week's work for him and his family.In Lancashire we can trace,step by step,the growth of the capitalist employer.At first we see,as in Yorkshire,the weaver furnishing himself with warp and weft,which he worked up in his own house and brought himself to market.By degrees he found it difficult to get yarn from the spinners;so the merchants at Manchester gave him out linen warp and raw cotton,and the weaver became dependent on them.Finally,the merchant would get together thirty or forty looms in a town.
This was the nearest approach to the capitalist system before the great mechanical inventions.
Coming to the system of exchange,we find it based on several different principles,which existed side by side,but which were all,as we should think,very simple and primitive.Each trade had its centre in a provincial town.Leeds,for instance,had its market twice a week,first on the bridge over the Aire,afterwards in the High Street,where,at a later time,two halls were built.Every clothier had his stall,to which he would bring his cloth (seldom more than one piece at a time,owing to the frequency of the markets).At six or seven o'clock a bell rang,and the market began;the merchants and factors came in and made their bargains with the clothiers,and in little more than an hour the whole business was over.By nine the benches were cleared and the hall empty.There was a similar hall at Halifax for the worsted trade.But a large portion of the inland traffic was carried on at fairs,which were still almost as important as in the Middle Ages.The most famous of all was the great fair of Sturbridge,which lasted from the middle of August to the middle of September.Hither came representatives of all the great trades.The merchants of Lancashire brought their goods on a thousand pack-horses;the Eastern counties sent their worsteds,and Birmingham its hardware.An immense quantity of wool was sold,orders being taken by the wholesale dealers of London.In fact,a large part of the home trade found its way to this market.There were also the four great annual fairs,which retained the ancient title of 'marts,'at Lynn,Boston,Gainsborough,and Beverley.
The link between these fairs and the chief industrial centres was furnished by travelling merchants.Some would go from Leeds with droves of pack-horses to all the fairs and market-towns throughout England.In the market-towns they sold to the shops;elsewhere they would deal directly with the consumer,like the Manchester merchants,who sent their pack-horses the round of the farmhouses,buying wool or other commodities in exchange for their finished goods.Sometimes the London merchants would come to the manufacturers,paying their guineas down at once,and taking away the purchases themselves.So too in the Birmingham lock trade,chapmen would go round with pack-horses to buy from manufacturers;in the brass trade likewise the manufacturer stayed at home,and the merchant came round with cash in his saddle-bags,and put the brasswork which he purchased into them,though in some cases he would order it to be sent by carrier.
Ready cash was essential,for banking was very little developed.The Bank of England existed,but before 1759issued no notes of less value than *20.By a law of 1709no other bank of more than six partners was allowed;and in 1750,according to Burke,there were not more than 'twelve bankers'shops out of London.'The Clearing-House was not established till 1775.
Hampered as the inland trade was by imperfect communications,extraordinary efforts were made to promote exchange.It is striking to find waste silk from London made into silk-yarn at Kendal and sent back again,or cattle brought from Scotland to Norfolk to be fed.Many districts,however,still remained completely excluded,so that foreign products never reached them at all.Even at the beginning of this century the Yorkshire yeoman,as described by Southey was ignorant of sugar,potatoes,and cotton;the Cumberland dalesman,as he appears in Wordsworth's Guide to the Lakes,lived entirely on the produce of his farm.It was this domestic system which the great socialist writers Sismondi and Lassalle had in their minds when they inveighed against the modern organisation of industry.Those who lived under it,they pointed out,though poor,were on the whole prosperous;over-production was absolutely impossible.Yet at the time of which I am speaking,many of the evils which modern Socialists lament were already visible,especially in those industries which produced for the foreign market.Already there were complaints of the competition of men who pushed themselves into the market to take advantage of high prices;already we hear of fluctuations of trade and irregularity of employment.The old simple conditions of production and exchange were on the eve of disappearance before the all-corroding force of foreign trade.
