=288. Special privileges granted to certain manufactures; resulting abuses.=—(3) While the government restricted in this fashion the natural development of manufactures, it granted not only exemption from its own rules but liberal grants of money taken from taxpayers to stimulate favored industries. This practice, begun in the sixteenth century, grew under and after Colbert. It enabled certain industries to expand as they would otherwise have been unable to do, and to reach the higher grade of organization which was coming as a natural growth in England. Unfortunately, however, the privileges went not to the most deserving but to the loudest and most adroit claimants. To gain the privileges, which included everything from exemption from taxes and handsome subsidies down to titles of nobility, the manufacturer did not need to show that he had some technical improvement to introduce; it was sufficient if he promised to bring in a foreign industry or even to extend one already in existence at home. The royal factories abused their power to raise prices to the consumers and to lower the wages of the laborer. Some of them came to be regarded as public calamities. They showed in general the characteristics of the hothouse plant, which cannot thrive unaided, and most of them failed after a longer or shorter career. We can say of them as of many other manifestations of the French policy of the period; some good may have resulted in ways unknown to us, but the evils are apparent, and justify us in calling the policy bad. QUESTIONS AND TOPICS 1. The protective policy, as applied by Colbert. [Palgrave’s Dict.; A. J. Sargent, Economic policy of Colbert, N. Y., 1899, chap. 4.] 2. Measure on a map the length of one or more of the stretches on which tolls were levied, sect. 282; estimate the average distance separating toll barriers; apply to a map of your own vicinity. 3. If you are familiar with the organization of some modern manufacture write an essay showing how efficiency would be impaired by insisting on the separation of allied trades. [The advanced student will find helpful and suggestive on this and similar topics, Bücher, Indust. ev., chaps. 6, 7, 8.] 4. Write a report on any instances known to you of bad results following the strict division of occupations among trade unions. 5. Write a report on any instances known to you of opposition to technical improvements, the introduction of machinery, etc., by modern trade unions. 6. Attempt of Colbert to establish regulations for manufacturers: object, methods, variety of regulations, results. [Sargent, Colbert, chap. 3.] 7. With what object and to what extent do governments now seek to regulate manufactures? [Farrer, State in relation to trade, London & N. Y., Macmillan, $1.] 8. Compare with the French the English experience with privileged manufactures. [Hewins, Eng. trade, chap. 1; Encyc. Brit., article Monopoly.]