Page:Time and Tide by Weare and Tyne.djvu/120

106 indulgence to foreign traders who might wish to exercise their industries here without liability to the surveillance of our trade guilds.

80. Farther, while for all articles warranted by the guild (as above supposed) the prices should be annually fixed for the trade throughout the kingdom; and the producing workman's wages fixed, so as to define the master's profits within limits admitting only such variation as the nature of the given article of sale rendered inevitable;—yet, in the production of other classes of articles, whether by skill of applied handicraft, or fineness of material above the standard of the guild, attaining, necessarily, values above its assigned prices, every firm should be left free to make its own independent efforts and arrangements with its workmen, subject always to the same penalty, if it could be proved to have consistently described, or offered, anything to the public for what it was not: and finally, the state of the affairs of every firm should be annually reported to the guild, and its books laid open to inspection, for guidance