418 INDUSTRIAL INSTITUTIONS. 



the right to elect gild-officers, &c., had to be purchased from 

 him or it. The system of licensing which now remains in a 

 few cases was then universal. When, after centuries of 

 struggle, feudal governments were subordinated by a central 

 government, the head of the State assumed an equally abso 

 lute control of production, distribution, and exchange. How 

 unlimited was the control, we see in the fact that, just as in 

 despotically-governed Ancient Mexico, the &quot; permission of 

 the chiefs &quot; was requisite before any one could commence a 

 trade, unless by way of succession, so in monarchical France, 

 there was established the doctrine that &quot; the right to labour is 

 a royal right which the prince may sell and subjects should 

 buy.&quot; Along with this there went the enforcing of count 

 less industrial regulations by armies of officials; pushed 

 to such extremes in France that before the Revolution the 

 producing and distributing organizations were almost 

 strangled. 



Here too, as in France, the power to sell was not natural 

 but conferred. 



u The market was by descent no popular or tribal right; it was the 

 king s prerogative ; its tolls and customs were regulated by the autho 

 rity of the Justices of the King s Bench, and its prices were proclaimed 

 by the King s Clerk of the Market.&quot; 



And again 



A trader coming to a town &quot;was not allowed to do any business 

 secretly or outside the proper limits, but openly in the market thereto 

 assigned, and even there he was ordered to stand aside till the towns 

 men had come back from early mass and had first been served with 

 such stores of corn and malt, of butter and poultry and meat as their 

 households needed, and the bell struck the hour when he might take 

 his turn for what was left. And as he bought so must he sell only in 

 the established and customary place ; and food once displayed on his 

 shelf or stall could not be taken out of the town unsold without leave 

 of the bailiffs.&quot; 



Legal dictation like in spirit to this was universally dis 

 played. Restraints and directions of industrial activities by 

 the king and his local deputies, carried out down even to. 



