While these measures were being taken by the State, the Guild system was in decay. As wealth grew and accumulated, the tendencies towards oligarchy within the Guilds and exclusiveness in relation to outsiders grew more and more marked. Among the Guildsmen wide social distinctions appeared, and the master-craftsman before long found himself, in relation to the rich trader or large-scale manufacturer, very much in the position of a labourer in relation to his employer. The richer Guilds, especially those connected with trade, sought by the limitation of entry and the exaction of high entrance fees and dues after entry, to keep the Guild "select" and establish an oligarchy in its government. At the same time the growth of new industries which had never come under Guild regulation, and the grant by the Crown of special privileges to individual monopolists and patentees, contributed to the downfall of the old system. Where the Guilds did not die, they were transformed into exclusive and privileged companies which in no sense carried on the mediaeval tradition. Especially in the later stages of Guild development, and with growing intensity as they drew nearer to decay and dissolution, struggles raged in many of the Guilds and between Guild and Guild among the diverse elements of which they had come to be composed. M. Renard speaks of struggles in the Guilds of Florence between the more and less capitalistic and powerful elements, and Mr. George Unwin, in his book on _Industrial Organisation in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries_, has presented a picture of similar struggles in the Guilds of England. These conflicts, however various in some respects, assumed mainly the form of a constant struggle for supremacy between the craftsmen-producers who were typical of the great days of the Guilds and the trading or merchant class which was gradually extending its control over production as well as sale. Gradually, as capital accumulated in the hands of the traders, the rift between them and the master-craftsmen widened and, gradually too, the master-craftsmen lost their independence and their status as free producers. Not only the marketing of the goods which they produced, but also the essential raw materials of their crafts, passed under the control of the traders, either by the operation of economic forces alone, or by the purchase of some valuable concession or monopoly from the Crown. Moreover, where the actual producer retained his power, he did so by a transformation of function. Gradually, he turned into a capitalist trader and lost all unity of interest and outlook with the working craftsman.