REGULATION OF LABOUR. 421 



ruling bodies gilds and kindred combinations. The gen 

 eral character of early industrial government is well illus 

 trated by Levaseur s account of the commercial regime of 

 the 14th century in France, as thus condensed. 



Thsse wholesale merchants, travelling over the country and abroad, 

 were called mercers. Like the masons and the compagnona, they too 

 formed large associations ; each of which comprised many provinces, 

 and was governed by a king of the mercers. There was a king in the 

 North, in the South, in the Centre, and in other provinces. There 

 were also private brotherhoods of mercers in each town, &c. The 

 mercer king ruled the general commerce of the province with a high 

 hand. He gave certificates of mastership. No mercer could expose 

 goods for sale without his permission. He had his court of justice, and 

 his revenues. 



It was in a kindred spirit that in England and elsewhere 

 gilds regulated men s businesses. In each town there grew 

 up a trading aristocracy, which at the same time that it con 

 trolled the transactions of its own members controlled the 

 lives of hand-workers, and everywhere put narrow limits to 

 individual freedom. Some borough regulations will show 

 this. 



Strangers &quot;were forbidden to carry their wares from house to house ; 

 here they might not sell their goods with their own hands, there they 

 must dispose of them wholesale, or forfeit their entire stock to the town 

 if they attempted to sell by retail ; elsewhere they had to wait for a 

 given number of weeks after their arrival before they could offer their 

 merchandise to the buyer.&quot; 



In a future chapter there will be occasion to illustrate at 

 some length this kind of industrial government. Here it is 

 sufficient to indicate the coerciveness of industrial rule which 

 originally accompanied the coerciveness of political and 

 ecclesiastical rule. 



I repeat and emphasize this truth because, in the closing 

 chapters of this volume, we must have it constantly in mind, 

 if we are to understand the present forms of industrial or 

 ganization and frame rational conceptions of the forms it is 

 likely by and by to assume. 



