Part I

, Section V, No. 16). In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the gilds, at least in the larger towns, represented a wide range of interests, from the mercantile capitalist to the industrial small master, and it was often of such small masters, whose numbers appear to have increased in the sixteenth century, that the "yeomanry" then consisted (No. 16). They tended, however, to be at the mercy of the large capitalists, and occasionally under the first two Stuarts, who favoured them, they endeavoured to protect themselves by joint-stock enterprise (No. 17). In the middle of the seventeenth century a reverse movement was taking place. Small masters were becoming journeymen, and in London journeymen were engaged under the Commonwealth in active agitation. Their organization was that of an embryo trade union; their doctrine the application to industrial affairs of the theory of the social contract (No. 19).

AUTHORITIES

The more accessible of the modern writers dealing with the subject of this section are Cunningham, _English Industry and Commerce, Modern Times_, Vol. I; Ashley, _Economic History_, Vol. I,