Strona 335 z 2651

The inhabitants of a town being collected into one place, can

easily combine together. The most insignificant trades carried on

in towns have, accordingly, in some place or other, been

incorporated; and even where they have never been incorporated,

yet the corporation-spirit, the jealousy of strangers, the

aversion to take apprentices, or to communicate the secret of

their trade, generally prevail in them, and often teach them, by

voluntary associations and agreements, to prevent that free

competition which they cannot prohibit by bye-laws. The trades

which employ but a small number of hands, run most easily into

such combinations. Half-a-dozen wool-combers, perhaps, are

necessary to keep a thousand spinners and weavers at work. By

combining not to take apprentices, they can not only engross the

employment, but reduce the whole manufacture into a sort of

slavery to themselves, and raise the price of their labour much

above what is due to the nature of their work.