1>6
Thus, especially in Nottingham, and later in Lancashire , theseat of the textile industry, were their mills destroyed and theirlives threatened. Thus it was with Hargreaves and Arkwright ;even the elder Peel was personally in danger of his life. It isthus seen that the security cf the law was in England also, at thattime, only just so far advanced that inventions could be appliedunder great difficulties and dangers.
(III.) The revolution in industry could only develop itself in abranch which was free' from legislative enactments of industry inthe sense of the older period. The cotton industry of the Con-tinent possessed such an enactment. One only needs to readthe description which Bein gives of the industry of the Voigt-land in order to see that under such conditions inventions couldnot come into existence. There everything was regulated. Spin-ning took place under the control of the State, and yarns werecollected together by officials. The right to weave was vestedin membership of the Guild. The method of production wasstrictly defined. State offices for inspection exercised control.Faults in woven goods were visited by punishment. In the samemanner the right to dispose of cotton goods was also vested inmembers of the Commercial Guild. To be a trade employerhad almost the character of a public office. Besides other essen-tials, a formal examination was necessary for it. The sale ofgoods was also minutely regulated; for a long time fixing ofprices existed, and even a legislative fixed selling maximum for theretailer. The retailer was obliged to buy the weaver’s goods,for which, in return, a monopoly of sale was guaranteedto him. Under such conditions the application of machinerywas not to be thought of. Not only was the production itselfdefined by the State, and every deviation punishable, but, whatwas still more important, the incentive to technical progresswas wanting, in that to everyone who possessed a lawfully con-firmed position in the trade, to the weaver as well as to theretailer, a sufficient existence was guaranteed by reason of fixedarrangements, and every encouragement to technical improve-ment was lacking. The introduction of the modern workingsystem would also have opposed the spirit of this legislativearrangement, which had for its object an equal division of richesand sought to prevent that advancement of the few which wascertainly inevitably connected with the modern factory system.It was competition with the productions of English machinerywhich first overthrew this arrangement on the Continent (11).
11. Compare Bein : “Die IndustriedesVoigtlandes,” II., pp. 40-45, 73-86