THE STRUGGLE FOR MANUFACTURES 489 



seek to perform the final steps of manufacture, those demanding 

 labour of the highest skill. 



Long ago England was the great wool-producing country of 

 the world, and it was the custom to export wool in the unmanu- 

 factured state. The merchants of Italy, Flanders, and Brabant 

 competed for it eagerly, much to the satisfaction of the growers. 

 In process of time we began to realise that foreign states were 

 being enriched and were growing in power by the working-up 

 of the raw material thus so freely exported, and efforts were 

 made to set up a clothing industry in our own country. The 

 weaving of woollen fabrics, no doubt, has been carried on here 

 from prehistoric times ; what is meant by the term " clothing 

 industry," is the manufacture of merchantable material which 

 would rank with the productions of other nations in the markets 

 of the world. We were making coarse cloths, but the finer 

 materials used by the nobles and rich merchants were imported, 

 although made from our own wool. 



After efforts extending over centuries, the art of weaving fine 

 cloth became fixed in England ; but even then we had won but 

 half the battle — we had not attained the necessary perfection in 

 dyeing and finishing, and the cloths were exported white to be 

 dyed and dressed in the Low Countries. 



This was the state of affairs when in 1553 William Cholmeley, 

 " Londyner," penned The request and suite of a true harted 

 Englysheman. Cholmeley laments that either for lack of 

 things thereunto belonging, for lack of studious desire to do 

 things perfectly and well, or else for lack of wits apt to receive 

 the knowledge of such things, " we were not able to adde that 

 perfection to our commodities which nature hath lefte to be 

 finyshed by arte." He proceeds to discover what is the source 

 of the difficulty, and comes to the conclusion that it is " oure 

 beastly blyndnesse which wyll not suffer us to searche for that 

 knowledge which our wyttes are able enough to attayne . . . we 

 beynge beastly mynded, and sekyng to gayne much by doynge 

 lyttle, every man sekeyng his owne pry vate commoditie, without 

 regard to the weale publike." Cholmeley states that every year 

 at least 150,000 broadcloths are exported to the Low Countries, 

 undyed and undressed, that there is there a gain of at least twenty 

 shillings on each piece which might be earned by English people if 

 the work were done within the realm. Our author recognised 

 that this trade was not to be acquired without a struggle — 



