utilise the force from the fall of water, as steam had not as yet been brought into use as a motive power. In the neighbourhood of every manufacturing village several such mills were erected. The manufacturer conveyed his materials to these mills with little trouble or loss of time, and fetched the wares back after they had gone through the necessary process. The cost was but small, so that he was enabled to obtain by these watermills nearly all the advantages of otherwise expensive machinery. The master himself sometimes performed the necessary work, by the use of the machinery in the mills, so that it should be well done.

§ 29. This was still but an extension of the system of domestic industry, for the work was chiefly performed by the proprietors. But there arose in the west of England a class of "rich master clothiers," who bought the wool direct from the importer, and the native fleece direct from the woolstapler. These merchant clothiers gave the materials to the workmen to be made up, partly at their own homes, and partly at their masters' houses.

$30. There also grew up at this time the system of a division of labour; for every single process through which the wool had to be passed until its completion, the masters gave the ware to a single class of workers, none of whom went out of his own line. By this system the workers acquired greater skill in the performance of their special tasks.

$31. With the origin of machinery and the consequent division of labour, there came into existence a class of master manufacturers and merchants, who, possessed of large capital, erected mills and became wholesale manufacturers, the workers being no longer the owners of the material they worked upon. In one or more buildings, as the case happened, the operatives by the use of machinery worked up the materials belonging to the manufacturers, under the supervision of overseers appointed by the employers. This commenced what is now known as the factory system.

§ 32. The altered manner of carrying on industrial operations. naturally led to changes in the position of the journeymen. The first was in regard to apprentices, who were no longer

bound by indenture, though they still mostly served seven years without it. In the mills, however, it soon became usual to employ workers who had served no apprenticeship whatever.

§ 33. There also grew up a system of employing women and children, the latter at an age which was not possible under the statute of apprentices, and at an earlier age than would have been possible without the use of machinery. The labour of these women and children was of course considered much cheaper than that of skilled workmen, and they consequently became competitors in the labour market.

§ 34. The number of employers who had served no apprenticeship increased more and more. Formerly the cloth of a master who had not served a seven years' apprenticeship, was not admitted to the cloth-halls; in 1796 the trustees framed a new regulation, according to which manufacturers who had carried on the trade of cloth worker for a period of five years were to be admitted. Soon after all persons were admitted to the cloth-halls, without any qualification whatever as to apprenticeship.

§ 35. At first neither masters nor journeymen resisted this violation of the old customs and laws; probably this was due to the large extension of trade, consequent upon the introduction of machinery. But the employment of great numbers of women, children, and apprentices, and of journeymen who had served no apprenticeship, soon began to evoke discontent, as the innovation took the bread out of the mouths of the weavers. This led, in 1796, to the formation of a trade society, known as the "Institution," among the clothworkers of Halifax; its object being to prevent people from carrying on trade in violation of custom and law. They did not seem to know that, according to 5 Eliz. c. 4, they might proceed in court against the transgressors of this law, for they appear to have been entirely ignorant of its existence; they knew of the old restrictions as being the rules of the trade, and as customary, and therefore they sought to maintain them. Another object of this "Institution," or early trade society, was the assistance of sick members.

§ 36. When, by 39 Geo. III. c. 81, in 1799, all such asso

ciations were suppressed, and the accumulation of funds was prohibited, this Institution was nevertheless carried on; but instead of keeping accumulated funds the necessary amount required was levied by contribution, in each case as wanted. In this society the workmen of several places, belonging to the same industry, were admitted as members.

§ 37. As the new system of employment spread, the workmen experienced a much greater irregularity of occupation. Fluctuation in trade affected the capital of a single large manufacturer more than it had previously done that of a number of small ones, by whom often it was scarcely noticed. Any general cessation in the sale of goods now led at once to the discharge of a number of work-people; whereas formerly, in bad times, the small masters had worked on stock, the new manufacturers avoided accumulations of stock, and worked only to order. Previously wages had been settled for a year, now every fluctuation in price led to a reduction in wages; besides which "the opulent clothiers made it a rule to have one-third more men than they could employ, and, then, these had to stand still part of their time." Under these circumstances many of the workmen preferred to work on under the old system, even at less wages, on account of the greater regularity of employment. To counteract this the master manufacturers, on the erection of a new mill, enticed by the offer of higher wages men from the service of domestic manufacturers; but as each fluctuation in trade brought reductions in wages, and the discharge of superfluous workmen, so these, when they found work again at a domestic clothier's, even at less wages, never wished to exchange it for the higher pay at the factories, because of the continual irregularity in the mode of hiring, and the probability of reduction in wages.

§ 38. With the growth of the factory system the home manufactures decreased, and the position of the domestic master clothiers became greatly deteriorated. Many who had been small masters sank to the condition of workmen ; others, who might formerly have become masters, now ceased to aspire to that position and remained journeymen. Hence the small masters began to fear that the factory system would entirely

supplant domestic manufacturing, and therefore they supported the workmen in their resistance to this new order of things.

39. As by 39 and 40 Geo. III. c. 106 (1800), all trade combinations were severely prohibited, the workmen thereafter combined under the cloak of friendly societies. The report of the committee on the woollen clothiers' petitions, March 14, 1803, contains the rules of a trade society, which had begun as a friendly society, on September 24, 1802; and also a copy of an advertisement from a newspaper, "calling a meeting of one weaver out of the parish he represents, in order to determine on prosecuting those who unlawfully exercise or follow the trade of a weaver." At the same time we find the newly formed trade society quite as anxious for the morals of the workmen, as the old guilds were, for they offered a reward to him who detected any workmen embezzling the materials entrusted to him to make up.

§ 40. The chief object of this, and similar trade societies at that time, was the legal prosecution of the transgressors of 5 Eliz. c. 4, of 5 and 6 Ed. VI. c. 22, and of 2 and 3 Philip and Mary c. 11. Several employers having been convicted, the master manufacturers of the West, and afterwards those of the North, petitioned parliament for the repeal of the above-named statutes. They especially urged the fact that there were no master manufacturers, and very few journeymen, who now served a seven years' apprenticeship, and that masses of workmen would become breadless if 5 Eliz. c. 4 was carried out. Some only desired the repeal of 5 and 6 Ed. VI. c. 22, but wished for the maintenance of the other two statutes for the purpose of protecting domestic trade, sections 27, 28, and 32 of the Statutes of Apprentices being excepted, as these interfered with the masters' projects.

§ 41. After the presentation of these petitions to parliament, the trustees of the cloth-halls at Leeds assembled the clothworkers of the villages whom they represented, to agree on countermeasures. Petitions were prepared and signed in opposition to those of the manufacturers, and agents were appointed to support them before parliament. The trustees, acting for both the small masters and the men, prosecuted those

employers who violated the laws in question, the funds necessary for this purpose being raised by subscription.

§ 42. Notwithstanding these counter-measures, the said laws were, in 1803, suspended for the woollen manufacturers for one year, and all prosecutions for violating them were stopped. This suspension was renewed in 1804, 1805, 1806, and so on until the partial repeal of these laws in 1809, by 49 Geo. III. c. 109, and ultimately their final repeal in the year following, by 50 Geo. III. c. 83, in 1810.

§ 43. It soon appeared that the trustees did not proceed with sufficient zeal to satisfy their constituents. "When we saw," says a journeyman, "that they did not advance, and as we knew the evils arising therefrom, and we should therefore become breadless," the workmen took the affair into their own hands, petitioned parliament by themselves, and appointed their own agents.

§ 44. In 1803 the cloth workers and weavers again formed an institution; all the journeymen joined it, and contributed to its funds. Other trades also contributed to the funds, and many of the home-working masters, even some of the wealthy ones, joined the Institution so as to push forward measures in parliament, inasmuch as the trustees seemed to have given the matter up. The Institution spent from £10,000 to £12,000 on petitions to parliament.

§ 45. The chief object of the Institution, according to the "Rules and Orders of the Clothiers' Community, 1803," was to carry out the legal regulations as to apprentices, in their original integrity. At the same time it was declared that those who until now had carried on the trade, although contrary to these regulations, should continue without molestation. The action. of the society was to extend only to the future. Henceforth all apprentices were to be considered unlawful who had not been bound by indenture for seven years. Their term of servitude was to expire on or before their majority. The only exception made was in the case of a son of a lawful workman who had served his father for seven years.

§ 46. No one was to learn two trades at once, and the regulations of 37 Ed. III. c. 5 were to be maintained, with