ABSTRACT
The industrial capital was mostly in the hands of the small capitalist, whilst the large capitalist was generally a mere trader. Industrial capital was so far victorious as to win for itself an equal place as an organized interest alongside commercial capital. Among existing trade unions there is probably none that better represents the older traditions of unionism than that of the journeymen hatters of Great Britain and Ireland. The labour troubles of the eighteenth century, which marked the beginnings of Trade Unionism, were mostly due to the efforts of the class of reduced small masters to organize themselves along with the journeymen on a common footing as wage-earners. The policy of industrial protection adopted by the Stuarts afforded a strong rallying point for resistance to the power thus exercised by the traders. The case of the clothworkers supplies a good illustration of the influence of the Government’s industrial policy on the constitutional relations of the classes within a company.
