, were imported from the
Netherlands and Germany. From the same quarter came "small wares for
grocers,"--by which may be meant cabbages, turnips and lettuce,--and
also hops, copper and brass ware.

[Sidenote: Manufacture]

Having swept all before it in the domains of banking, mining and trade,
capitalism, flushed with victory, sought for new worlds to conquer and
found them in manufacture. Here also a great struggle was necessary.
Hitherto the opposition to the new companies had been mainly on the
part of the consumer; now the hostility of the laborer was aroused.
The grapple of the two classes, in which the wage-earner went down,
partly before the arquebus of the mercenary, partly under the lash and
branding-iron of pitiless laws, will be described in the next section.
Here it is not the strife of the classes, but of the two economic
systems, that is considered. Capitalism won economically before it
imposed its yoke on the vanquished by the harsh means of soldier and
police. It won, in the final analysis, not because of the inherent
power of concentrated wealth, though it used and abused this
recklessly, but because, in the struggle for existence, it proved
itself the form of life better fitted to survive in the conditions of
modern society. It called forth technical improvements, it stimulated
individual effort, it put an immense premium on thrift and investment,
it cheapened production by the application of initially expensive but
ultimately repaying, apparatus, it effected enormous economies in
wholesale production and distribution. Before the new methods of
business the old gilds stood as helpless, as unready, as bowmen in the
face of cannon.

{537} [Sidenote: Gilds]

Each medieval "craft" or "mistery" [1] was in the hands of a gild, all
the members of which were theoretically equal. Each passed through the
ranks of apprentice and other lower grades until he normally became a
master-workman and as such entitled to a full and equal share in the
management. The gild managed its property almost like that of an
endowment in the hands of trustees; it supervised the whole life of
each member, took care of him when sick, buried him when dead and
pensioned his widow. In these respects it was like some mutual benefit
societies of our day. Almost inevitably in that age, it was under the
protection of a patron saint and discharged various religious duties.
It acted as a corporate whole in the government of th