Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 9.djvu/192

182, that the whole corporation of weavers in silk and woollen, would publish some proposals (I wish they would do it to both houses of parliament) inviting persons of all degrees, and of both sexes, to wear the woollen and silk manufactures of our own country; entering into solemn, mutual engagements, that the buyer shall have good, substantial, merchantable ware for his money, and at a certain rate, without the trouble of cheapening: so that if I sent a child for a piece of stuff of a particular colour and fineness, I should be sure not to be deceived; or, if I had reason to complain, the corporation should give me immediate satisfaction; and the name of the tradesman, who did me the wrong, should be published, and warning given not to deal with him for the future; unless the matter plainly appeared to be a mistake; for, beside the trouble of going from shop to shop, an ignorant customer runs the hazard of being cheated in the price and goodness of what he buys, being forced to an unequal combat, with a dextrous and dishonest man in his own calling. Thus our goods fall under a general disreputation; and the gentry call for English cloth, or silk, from an opinion they have (and often too justly by our own faults) that the goodness more than makes up for the difference of price.

Besides, it has been the sottish and ruinous practice of us tradesmen, upon any great demand of goods, either at home or from abroad, to raise the prices immediately, and manufacture the said goods more slightly and fraudulently than before.

Of this foul and foolish proceeding, too many instances might be produced; and I cannot forbear mentioning one, whereby this poor kingdom has ceived