Very
early the manufacturers applied to restrain the exportation of English wool.
In the time of Edward I., we find a duty of twenty shillings to forty
shillings per bag on importation. Edward III. prohibited the export of wool,
at the same time he took his taxes and subsidies in wool, which became a
favourite medium of taxation with our monarchs, and sent his wool abroad for
sale. Under his reign, Flemish weavers were encouraged to settle here and
improve the manufacture, which became spread all over England thus--Norfolk
fustians, Suffolk baize, Essex serges and says, Kent broadcloth, Devon
kerseys, Gloucestershire cloth, Worcestershire cloth, Wales friezes,
Westmoreland cloth, Yorkshire cloth, Somersetshire serges, Hampshire,
Berkshire, and Sussex cloth: districts from a great number of which woollen
manufactures have now disappeared. We have Parliamentary records of the
mutual absurdities by which the woollen manufacturers, on the one hand,
sought to obtain a monopoly of British wool, and the wool growers endeavoured
to secure the exclusive right to supply the raw material. Act after act was
laid upon everything connected with wool, so that it is only extraordinary
that, under such restrictive trammeling, the trade survived at all.
Pages:
347
348
349
350
351
352
353
354
355
356
357
358
359
360
361
362
363
364
365
366
367
368
369
370
371