The frequency with which it was necessary to renew the compositions, the reiteration of the same articles,--against employing foreigners, against unfair competition, against neglect of the legal period of apprenticeship,--again shows the futility of such restrictions. Actions against intruders even thus early figure frequently on the records. In those of the Tailors and Skinners the decision of the company under date of August 23, 1627, is recorded thus:--"The Wardens and Sitters met and agreed that the Wardens should fetch process for Intruders and implead them before the Council in the Marches, and Mr Chelmicke to draw the bill against them." The history of the Welsh woollen trade in its connection with Shrewsbury well exhibits the economic policy of the day, and as it therefore illustrates several of the points with which we have been concerned it may be given here at some length. [Sidenote: _The features of the period seen in history of Welsh woollen trade of Shrewsbury._] [Sidenote: _Flourishing in reign of Elizabeth,_] In the earlier part of the 16th century Oswestry appears to have been the principal market for the Welsh products. At Shrewsbury however there was also a large woollen trade, as we learn from the Act 8 Elizabeth, cap. 7, entitled, "An Act touching the Drapers, Cottoners, and Frizers of Shrewsbury." This statute recited that there had been time out of mind a Gild of the art and mystery of Drapers legally incorporated in Shrewsbury, which had usually set on work above six hundred persons of the art or science of Shearmen or Frizers. Of late however it had come to pass that divers persons, not being members of the said company, neither brought up in the use of the said trade, had "with great disorder, upon a mere covetous desire and mind, intromitted with and occupied the said trade of buying Welsh cloth or lining, having no knowledge, experience or skill in the same." The result is asserted to be that the men of the company are impoverished and like to be brought to ruin unless speedy remedy be provided. It is therefore forbidden that anyone inhabiting Shrewsbury shall "occupy the trade" of buying Welsh woollens, unless he be free of the company of the Drapers[142]. [Sidenote: _but injured by over-regulation caused by selfish interests._] Such a stringent regulation of trade met with directly contrary results to those which had been expected. A statute six years later acknowledges the failure of the measure, although it attempts to shift the blame from the shoulders of the Government by representing the measure as one taken at the request of the Drapers, instead of as a piece of state-craft[143].