government. The fabric of paternal government which we saw rising in
the time of the Tudor sovereigns remained almost intact through the
whole of this period. The regulation of the conditions of labor, of
trade, of importation and exportation, of finance, of agriculture, of
manufacture, in more or less detail, was part of the regular work of
legislation or administrative action. Either in order to reach certain
ulterior ends, such as government power, a large navy, or a large body
of money within the country, or simply as a part of what were looked
upon at the time as the natural functions of government, laws were
constantly being passed, charters formulated, treaties entered into,
and other action taken by government, intended to encourage one kind
of industry and discourage another, to determine rates of wages and
hours of labor, prescribe rules for agriculture, or individual trades
or forms of business, to support some kind of industry which was
threatened with decay, to restrict certain actions which were thought
to be disadvantageous, to regulate the whole economic life of the
nation.

It is true that much of this regulation was on the books rather than
in actual existence. It would have required a much more extensive and
efficient civil service, national and local, than England then
possessed to enforce all or any considerable part of the provisions
that were made by act of Parliament or ordered by the King and
Council. Again, new industries were generally declared to be free from
much of the more minute regulation, so that enterprise where it arose
was not so apt to be checked, as conservatism where it already existed
was apt to be perpetuated. Such regulation and control, moreover, were
quite in accord with the feeling and with the economic and political
theories of the time, so there was but little sense of interference
or tyranny felt by the governed. A regulated industrial organization
slowly expanding on well-established lines was as characteristic of
the theory as it was of the practice of the period.

*54. BIBLIOGRAPHY*

Gardiner, S. R.: _The History of England, 1603-1642_, ten volumes.

Many scattered passages in this work and in its continuations, like
those in Froude's history, referred to in the last chapter, apply to
the economic and social history of the period, and they are always
judicious and valuable.

Hewins, W. A. S.: _English Trade and Finance, chiefly in the
Seventeenth Century_.