Chapter 1640： Rebuild Handicraft Guild

In fact, Marin had long wanted to engage in the wool spinning industry, but there were no steam engines in the past, and there were no rivers with a large gap in the North Sea country. There was no need to engage in hydraulic machinery.

Although Marin in the North Sea State has built an artificial reservoir near Lyle City, artificially raised the water level, and then impacted the hydraulic forging hammer to make weapon armor.

However, the cost of the artificial reservoir is too high, and Marin gritted his teeth to create a weapon armor. This kind of industry, which is related to national security, is worthwhile no matter how large the investment is. However, it is not worthwhile to build a labor pool for the wool industry. Mainly, it is not cost-effective economically.

Today, wool spinning is mainly done in Ghent and Bruges in the Flemish region, and in England.

However, it seems that the wool industry in England has more advantages in this respect. Because, the wool acquired, needs to be rinsed and combed. Among them, the rinsing process, the Flemish region mainly relies on workers to step on the basin, which consumes manpower. The wool spinning center in England is concentrated near the reservoirs and waterfalls in the mountainous areas with abundant hydraulic resources, and hydraulic machinery has been replaced by labor. Therefore, the cost is still lower. Including rinsing after the woolen cloth is woven, you can use a hydraulic bleaching machine to replace manual.

However, the higher labor wages in the United Kingdom offset many cost advantages. For example, the daily wages of textile workers in Flanders are no more than two or three Finneys. The wages of British textile workers are as high as four or five pence (the equivalent of pennies and finney), which is more than 1.5 times that of the Flemish region. This is so because the price of British food is about 1.5 times that of the German region. In this era, textile workers mainly made money to buy food. Therefore, wages around the country mainly follow the food price.

Of course, British woolen fabrics are still cheaper, about 66 shillings per horse, most of them are high-grade woolen fabrics. Because British wool is originally high-grade wool. Woven woolen fabrics are naturally high-grade woolen fabrics.

The Flemish region is more tragic, because for more than a century, England has implemented a policy of high tariffs on exported wool since Edward III, in disguise to encourage the development of the wool industry in England. Therefore, the cost of importing wool from England in the Flemish region is very high. This is because England raised the tax rate on wool exports to more than one third. In this era when the pound tax is only one or two pence, it is definitely a super high tariff, which is the earliest trade protection tariff.

In mainland England, when a purchaser buys wool from a sheep-raising noble manor or monastery, the cost of acquiring a bag of wool (364 pounds) is only about £ 4, which is 80 shillings.

But the wool buyer needs to pay taxes to the king, and at the same time, it needs to get a sufficiently high profit. Therefore, in the English market, mainly the port market, the price of a bag of wool is around 8 pounds.

However, after the royal family levied more than one-third of the high wool export tariffs, the cost of shipping and the local management tax levied at the port of Calais is already high at £ 12 or even £ 13. Its cost accounts for three quarters of the price of woolen cloth in Flanders.

In other words, the profitability of textile factories in the Flemish region is already very meager after eliminating the costs of textile workers' wages, depreciation of machinery, and taxes.

Therefore, the textile factories in the Flemish region have closed down in large numbers. In particular, small textile factories with few looms are forced to close because of low profits. Only a large-scale textile factory, relying on a large amount, can barely survive.

Fortunately, because of the marriage with Spain, the Habsburg family relied on this relationship to find a new source of wool for the textile factories in the Flemish region-Spanish merino wool!

The quality of Spanish merino wool is better than that of British wool. However, the price is more expensive. Moreover, Florence, Italy's woolen center, is also fighting for Spanish merino wool as a raw material. Therefore, the price of Spanish merino wool is high, and because of the competition in Florence, not much can be obtained.

However, because the quality of merino wool is very high, textile factories that rely on the quality of merino wool to produce and sell high-grade woolen fabrics are also very moist. These textile factories, which can get merino wool, are generally the noblemen of the Netherlands who have great energy behind the scenes. The textile workshops run by other civilian merchants are still struggling to survive.

Of course, how difficult these Flemish textile factory bosses have is has nothing to do with Marin. Instead, Marin intends to take advantage of this opportunity to poach a group of skilled craftsmen and textile workers from the wool spinning industry. After all, the Flemish region is a well-known center of the woolen industry in Europe, and there are still many skilled craftsmen.

This problem was naturally handed over to Kohler to arrange for him to dig people. At this time, many textile factories in the Flemish region closed down, and naturally there were many skilled craftsmen and skilled weavers in the wool spinning industry who were unemployed at home ...

...

Sure enough, when Kohler sent people to Flanders, many wool craftsmen and textile workers who had not worked for a long time all expressed their strong willingness to come to Beihai. After all, the most important thing for them is to make money to support their families!

However, when Kohler's men recruited craftsmen and skilled hand-weaving workers in the wool industry in Ghent, they attracted the attention of Prince Philip, who lived in Ghent, and caused his dissatisfaction.

Then, Prince Philip came to the North Sea country angrily, accusing Malin of digging him in the corner ...

You know, this year, artisans and textile workers have to pay taxes. Unlike farmers, no matter whether it is a craftsman or a textile worker, taxes are required every year.

Therefore, the kings of England like to develop the local woolen textile industry instead of exporting wool directly. Because, vigorously developing the wool textile industry, not only can solve the livelihood of many unemployed nomads, but also contribute taxes to the country.

Needless to say, unemployed homeless people have the potential to become rioters and are a factor of social instability. The taxes for textile artisans and textile workers are mainly collected by the handicraft guilds popular in the Middle Ages.

In England, the handicraft guild is responsible for taxing all craftsmen and workers in the industry. And all artisans and textile workers must also be forced to join the handicraft guild.

Generally speaking, the handicraft guild adopts the tax package system. The king gave the handicraft guild a tax indicator, and then the handicraft guild of each industry was responsible for collecting it.

Moreover, the handicraft guild also has the function of uniformly pricing and distributing raw materials for products in the industry, and the power is very large.

Generally speaking, the handicraft industry will set prices for products, so it will reserve profit margins so that practitioners in the industry can pay taxes.

And the king let the handicraft guild levy taxes on their behalf ~ www.novelhall.com ~ saves a lot of trouble. Because, in this era, the king's men did not have so many professional tax talents. The tax is handed over to the handicraft guild, which saves labor and saves labor costs.

However, if the handicraft guild is in the hands of a wicked person with a wrong mind, it will also become a scourge. Moreover, apart from taxation, handicraft guilds are almost not subject to official control, and are somewhat like independent social organizations. The most important thing is that if the leaders of the handicraft guild incite, the workers in this industry may rise up to rebel ... this is a big hidden danger ...

Therefore, from the beginning, Marin did not allow Beihai to establish handicraft guilds. The captured princes also banned handicraft guilds to avoid becoming a hidden danger to social stability.

However, after the ban on those old handicraft guilds, Marin found out that-he had a little weaker control over those handicraftsmen.

The area originally controlled by Beihai was okay, and the craftsmen were basically controlled by Marin himself. But the princes that were seized later, after the dissolution of the handicraft guild, Marin found that he could not control those handicraftsmen ...

How to solve this problem? After thinking about it, Marlins finally thought of a solution-to establish a new handicraft guild, or to establish a new type of handicraft guild similar to the later Huaxia trade union!