338 SMALL INDUSTRIES AND 



feature of the Mediaeval cities, which gradually 

 fell under the economical and political yoke 

 of the Guild-Merchant, simply because they 

 ivere not able to maintain the sale of their manu- 

 factures by the community as a whole, or to 

 organise the sale of a new produce in the interest 

 of the community. When the markets for such 

 commodities came to be Asia on the one side, 

 and the New World on the other side, such 

 was fatally the case ; since commerce had 

 ceased to be communal, and had become in- 

 dividual, the cities became a prey for the 

 rivalries of the chief merchant families. 



Even nowadays, when we see the co-operative 

 societies beginning to succeed in their pro- 

 ductive workshops, while fifty years ago they 

 invariably failed in their capacity of pro- 

 ducers, we may conclude that the cause of 

 their previous failures was not in their in- 

 capacity of properly and economically organis- 

 ing production, but in their inability of acting 

 as sellers and exporters of the produce they 

 had fabricated. Their present successes, on 

 the contrary, are fully accounted for by the 

 network of distributive societies which they 

 have at their command. The sale has been 

 simplified, and production has been rendered 

 possible by first organising the market. 



Such are a few conclusions which may be 



