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London, and at the end of the century not fewer than sixty; in towns of the second rank their number increased more slowly. In the first half of the 14th century the guild system was at its maximum of efficiency. It continued to extend itself to new centres for two hundred years afterwards. But under the Tudors the direct control and superintendence of industry was more and more taken into the hands of the central government, and the regulations of crafts and trades were incorporated into the public law of the realm. The act 5 Eliz. c. 4 (1562), commonly called the Statute of Apprentices, adopting what had been the ordinary bye-law of the corporations, required a seven years' apprenticeship in all trades carried on in market towns. It provided that when there were, in certain specified trades, three apprentices in a workshop, at least one journeyman should be employed, and for every additional apprentice another journeyman. It also contained enactments respecting the hours of labour and the annual fixing of the rate of wages by the justices of the peace.

This statute

was held not to apply to trades established at a later period, or to places which only obtained corporate privileges after 1562; and thus some of the most important manufactures of England were never subject to it. In Scotland no such law existed, and Adam Smith says that "he knew of no country in Europe in which corporation rules were so little oppressive."

The increasing application of great capitals to industry, and the substitution of the factory for the workshop, tended to make the old trade rules obsolete; and the guild spirit became at the same time more narrow and selfish. In the 18th century any statutes which gave coercive power to the guilds, though not formally repealed, were in a great degree allowed to fall into desuetude, and the importance of these institutions practically disappeared. They were discredited in principle by the polemic directed against them in the Wealth of Nations. Adam Smith condemned "the exclusive privileges of corporations, statutes of apprenticeship, and all those which restrain in particular employments the competition to a smaller number than would otherwise go into them,"

as

"encroachments on natural liberty," as raising the market prices of the wares produced above their natural price, and as obstructing the free circulation of labour from one employment to another. Smith held that a long, or indeed any fixed, term of apprenticeship was altogether unnecessary; but he certainly exaggerates the facility with which handicrafts can be thoroughly learned. He also thought it a mere pretence that corporations are required for the better government of trade. After several partial enactments of a liberal tendency, the apprentices' act of Elizabeth was repealed in 1814 (54 Geo. III. c. 96), and the trade

privileges of the guilds formally abolished in 1835 (5 & 6 Will. IV. c. 76). Partly as a result of the legal destruction of the old system, a new legislation has been introduced for the protection of the working classes by provisions for the healthy conduct of manufacturing production, and the limitation and regulation of the labour of women and children.

The

France.-In France the name jurande was given to the office of those who were appointed to watch over the execution of the trade regulations and the conservation of the interests of the several crafts. These jurés corresponded pretty nearly to the English wardens. Those only who were admitted as maîtres could carry on a manufacture on their own account. production of a chef-d'œuvre (masterpiece) was commonly required for admission to the maîtrise, and it was the business of the jurés to pass judgment on its execution. The journeymen (compagnons) had been apprentices to the trade, and expected in time to be themselves maîtres. The relations of the three classes were substantially the same as in England. Powerful corporations existed from early times in Paris. The Parisian marchands de l'eau (nauta Parisiaci) dominated the commerce of Paris. The provost of this body was the head of the municipal magistracy. The corporations of goldsmiths and of money-changers were also very ancient. The documents relating to the trade corporations of the metropolis begin to be numerous in the time of Philip Augustus. The trade statutes and customs of the city of Paris in the 13th century are preserved in the collection made by Étienne Boyleau (see BOILEAU, E.), appointed provost of the city by Louis IX. about 1260. The kings, who at first were hostile to the claims of the corporations, from the beginning of the 15th century favoured them, both as useful instruments of police and as a source of fiscal aids. But they also sought, though often with but little success, to temper their exclusiveness, repress their exactions, and adapt their regulations from time to time to the development of new branches of industry and new methods of production, whilst on the other hand they insisted on their royal right of issuing letters of maîtrise, and of supervising the guilds. Louis XI. in 1467 armed the trades, forming them into banners and companies, bound by an oath of fidelity to the crown. An edict of Henry III. (1581) gave to the institution of corporations the extent of a national system, and placed all the trades of the kingdom under a general law. The edict at the same time corrected prevalent abuses. It mentions in particular the heavy expenses to which artisans were subjected in order to obtain the maîtrise, the masterpiece which they had to produce sometimes absorbing the work of more than a year, and candidates being expected to regale the jurés with banquets and

nga dina vara. Lerty w dod A *** we were in 1848 merged in the allon are of ue North German Confedera tion, which has since besome that of the empire. By the ode the excilave rights of Zürfe a therathe orporations, the distinction becweed city and eventry with reapest to manufacture, the necessity of a proof of capacity before extering any wait or trade, the limitation of each artisan to one branch of production, and all restrictiona sa to modea of production, have been abonated, and it is left open to every subject of the empire to carry on any industrial profession, and to take apprentices and employ journeymen in such numbers as he may find expedient, subject only to sanitary and other police regula tions and to such fecal obligations as may be imposed by the laws.

Adam Smith and other economists have dwelt too exclusively on the evils and abuses of these institutions, and have left out of account the social necessities out of which they arose, and the not inconsiderable advantages which they possessed. There has of late been a feeling in France and Germany that with the abolition of the restrictions enforced by the corporations, there was a real loss of moral and social, as well as of some economic, benefits. In Prussia several efforts have been made to restore them on a free basis; and it is understood that further steps of the same kind are now likely to be taken by the German governments, whose object is thus to establish a sort of police of the industrial world and solve a part of the great problem of the organisation of labour. It seems, however, extremely questionable whether these institutions could be usefully revived; and the good ends which some have hoped to attain through their instrumentality must probably be effected by other means better adapted to existing conditions.

[The best book on guilds merchant is Gross's Gild Merchant, 1890.-On English guilds, the student should first read Brentano's Essay on the History and Development of Gilds, prefixed to Toulmin Smith's English Gilds, 1870. With it may usefully be compared Ochenkowski's Englands wirthschaftliche Entwickelung im Ausgange des Mittelalters, 1879, and Cunningham, Growth of

of Dalerst and D'Alembert -The early PanSan trade rues may be seen Bee Boyles: s Rejimat ia Art & When, patushed for the dry time by Depping 187)

CORVEE In the strict sense of the term, Cortée is used to signify a tax levied by the state on the labouring classes, and paid by them in a certain number of days of labour, either wholly unremunerated or remunerated at a rate less than the ordinary rate of wages. In particular such a system of taxation has very generally been applied in many countries to the construction and maintenance of roads and bridges, each locality being compelled to defray the cost of such works by contributions of labour from its inhabitants. In England the common law threw upon the occupiers of land in each parish the duty of keeping the roads in repair. It is not easy to say exactly how this duty was originally carried out, but it may fairly be presumed that the statute 2 & 3 Philip and Mary, c. 8, which is the first of the many highway acts, did little more than declare the system in use. Under this act each parish is to appoint surveyors of highways to oversee the repair of the roads in that district. Labour required for this purpose is to be distributed by the inhabitants in the following proportions. Every occupier of land is to send for every ploughland occupied by him a cart with horses and two able men with them, and every householder, cottager, or labourer, unless he be a yearly hired servant, is to work himself or by a substitute on such days as the surveyors shall appoint for the repairing of the roads. These days under the act of Philip and Mary were to be four in number, but the act 5 Eliz. c. 13 extended the number to six, which were all to be before Midsummer day. Fines for non-attendance on the days fixed were to form a fund for the repair of the roads. The first step towards the abolition of this form of taxa

tion was taken by the act 15 Charles II. c. 1, the first of the turnpike acts, which applies the system of tolls to the counties of Hertford, Cambridge, and Huntingdon, through which ran the great road to York and the north. Statute labour, as corvée was called in England, had already been found inadequate to keep in proper repair many of the great ways of communication, and the bad state of the chief roads was a frequent subject of complaints and petitions to parliament about this time. The system of turnpikes was accordingly extended by degrees to the whole of England, and in many cases its introduction gave rise to great discontent and serious local riots in spite of the fact that the inhabitants were thus set free from statute labour. However, many of the roads in the country, including almost all purely local ones, were not turnpike roads, but remained subject to the provisions of the various highway acts which were enacted from time to time. But even for the repair of these statute labour was beginning to be found insufficient. The act 3 & 4 William and Mary, c. 12 gives to the justices of the peace power to levy a rate in cases where the six days of forced labour should be found to be insufficient, and after various changes had been introduced by subsequent acts, statute labour was finally abolished by the act 5 and 6 William IV. c. 50, which substituted for it the system of highway boards and rates now in existence.

It would not appear that in England this limited application of corvée was ever unpopular. In France, however, where the corvée originally existed only in certain districts, its extension to the whole of the country, effected by M. Orry, controller-general of finance in 1737, gave rise to much discontent. The burden on the peasant was heavier, and the peasant was less able to bear it, than in England. In 1758 M. de Boullogne, then controller-general, estimates the annual value of the labour so contributed at 1,200,000 livres, probably a modest estimate. Certainly

the burden on the peasant was much heavier. Necker estimates the cost to the peasants of the services rendered in Berry alone at 624,000 livres. These consisted not only of the labour of the peasant himself; beyond this he was compelled to bring with him any beasts of draught or burden, and any vehicle, that he possessed. Nor was it only for the repair of the roads that corvée was imposed upon him. In De Tocqueville's Ancien Régime, p. 444, will be found an account of the various public services carried out by means of corvée, and Turgot's Lettre au Controleur Général sur l'abolition de la corvée pour les transports militaires gives a vivid picture of the wastefulness and inconvenience involved in that particular application of forced labour.

A good account of the inadequacy of corvée as applied to the construction and maintenance

IV.

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of the roads is given in Diderot's Encyclopédie, but the most effectual indictment of this tax is to be found in Turgot's Mémoire au roi sur un projet d'édit tendant à supprimer la corvée, with the accompanying criticisms of M. de Miromesnil and Turgot's often rather contemptuous replies (see vol. ii. p. 237 of Turgot's collected works). This, with the curious Procès verbal du lit de justice tenu à Versailles le 12 Mars 1776, will give a good idea of the arguments used both by Turgot and his opponents on this question.

The abolition of corvée by this edict was, however, only temporary. Turgot's successor Calonne at once restored it, and though again abolished in the early days of the Revolution, the reactionary policy of the Directoire once more reinstated it under the name of Prestation by the decree of 4 Thermidor, an x. At the present day the repair of the communal roads of France is carried out under this system. By the laws of the 28th July 1824 and the 21st May 1836 the municipal councils may call upon every male citizen between certain ages to give three days' labour yearly for this purpose, and may exact the same time from every beast of draught or burden and vehicle within the commune. A money payment in lieu of labour may be made at discretion.

For an account of the use of corvée in Egypt, see the Times, 14th September 1888. The construction of the Suez Canal during its early stages was carried out under a system of forced labour on a very large scale. In most countries, however, taxes of the nature of corvée are now disused, unless the CONSCRIPTION (q.v.) is regarded as an exception to this rule.

In mediæval societies payments in labour to individuals, especially in lieu of rent, were common, and in France were termed corvées personnelles. The nature of these and their economic bearings will, however, be most fitly treated of under MANOR and FEUDAL SYSTEM (q.v.)

[Euvres de Turgot, nouvelle édition, par MM. Eugène Daire et Hippolyte Dussard, précédée par une notice sur la vie et les ouvrages de Turgot, par M. Eugène Daire, 1844.-M. Necker, De l'administration des Finances de la France, 1784.— Collection de comptes rendus Pièces authentiques états et tableaux depuis 1758 jusqu'en 1787 concernant les Finances de France, 1788.-Diderot et D'Alembert, Encyclopédie, 1772.-De Tocqueville, L'ancien Régime et la Revolution, 1857.De Tocqueville, Histoire Philosophique du règne de Louis XV., 1847.-Larousse, Dictionnaire Universel, 1866.- Penny Cyclopædia, articles "Turnpike" and "Highway," 1833.-Stephen's New Commentaries on the Laws of England, 1886. Comyns' Digest of the Laws of England, 1822.]

C. G. C.

CORVETTO, LOUIS-EMMANUEL, COMTE DE CORVETTO (1756-1821), born and died at Genoa, early distinguished himself in law and politics in his native city, and was made a director of

2 F

the Bank of St. George there in 1802. Bonaparte created him councillor of state in 1805, and transferred him to Paris, where he helped to draft the Code de Commerce and the Code Pénal. In 1811 he became inspector-general of state prisons, was retained in the state council by Louis XVIII., made president of the section of finance, and (27th Sept. 1815 to 7th Dec. 1818) minister of finance. The economic interest of his career centres in this last office. Upon Corvetto devolved the problem of freeing the territory by meeting the war indemnity of 700 million francs (£28,000,000), in addition to claims of 1400 million francs (£56,000,000), for requisitions made during the war. Though the latter claims were cut down to 240 millions (£9,600,000), Corvetto was obliged to issue large amounts of stock, and to seek the aid of Messrs. Hope and Baring; but the circumstances under which the loans were floated, and the action of the government in inflating the price of the stock by large purchases, led Wellington to describe the Paris money-market as the scene of such speculation as had not been equalled since the days of Law. Corvetto justified his action on the ground that it was patriotic to pay the state debts as cheaply as possible and to maintain its credit. His conduct has been severely criticised by M. Léon Say, who argues that the intervention of the government in such speculations can have but a momentary effect upon prices, apart from other and pernicious consequences. The intentions of Corvetto were good: his example was dangerous.

[L. Say: Les interventions du Trésor à la Bourse depuis cent ans. (Annales de l'École libre des Sciences politiques 1re année 1886, pp. 12-24).— Baron G. de Nervo: Le comte Corvetto, Paris, 1869.] H. H.

COSHERY. In the Middle Ages social and political relations in Ireland were regulated by the clan system. There was no private property in land: the clansmen being co-proprietors with the chief. But although the chief was not lord of the land, he had large customary rights over the property of his dependents. One of the most important of these was coshery, an old custom which allowed him to take the houses and provisions of his clansmen for the use of himself and his followers. The English invaders of Ireland based upon this right the practice of coigne and livery, by which they extorted from the Irish free quarters and provisions for their soldiers. After the Cromwellian settlement many of the dispossessed chiefs lived for years at the expense of their former dependents, and various statutes were passed to prohibit this custom of coshery.

R. L.

COST (COMPARATIVE AND RELATIVE). The doctrine of comparative cost is the basis of the theory of international trade. It is held that

the labour and capital of a country naturally flow into those departments of production in which it has the greatest comparative advantage, or in which the comparative cost is least. Thus, at the time of the gold discoveries in Australia, although the absolute real cost (reckoned in days' labour) of producing various articles, was less than in other countries, their cost, compared with gold, was greater, and consequently they were imported in exchange for the gold. The theory rests on the assumption that labour and capital only move with difficulty from one country to another.

[Cairnes's Principles of Political Economy, newly Expounded.—Professor Bastable's Theory of Foreign Trade. Cournot's Théorie des Richesses.]

Relative cost is a term used in the theory of value. The normal value of freely produced commodities is said to depend upon the relative cost of production, that is, relatively to that of other things, value always expressing a relation of one commodity to others (see COST OF PRODUCTION).

J. S. N.

COST, IN THE SENSE OF PRICE. Cost is sometimes used to signify price, meaning by this money value at the moment. J. S. Mill says (Principles of Pol. Econ. bk. iii. ch. iii. § I.), "Adam Smith and Ricardo have called that value of a thing which is proportional to its cost of production its natural value (or its natural price). They meant by this the point about which the value oscillates, and to which it always tends to return-the centre value towards which, as Adam Smith expresses it, the market value of a thing is constantly gravitating; and any deviation from which is but a temporary irregularity, which, the moment it exists, sets forces in motion tending to correct it. The cost of a thing is thus taken to be indicated by its price, in the sense in which a purchaser uses the word as equivalent to the maker's price at the time. "In common speech," as Prof. F. A. Walker says, "the word price brings up the idea of money value." The "cost" may differ greatly from the "price" which a thing may ultimately fetch, as it may from its "value, but when used in the sense indicated above, the expression refers to the price at the moment. The essential distinctions (1) between normal and market value; (2) cost, in the sense of real cost, and expenses are treated elsewhere. See VALUE; COST, COMPARATIVE AND RELATIVE; COST OF PRODUCTION.

COST BOOK. The book which contains the names of the shareholders and the number of shares held by each, and particulars of all transactions in a partnership formed for working a mine. Mining regulations differ in vari. ous parts of the United Kingdom. In Devon and Cornwall a licence is first obtained to try for ores; and if the metal is found, a lease is then granted for a number of years. The mine is