Why did the European Merchants move to villages during 17th and 18th Century?
Answers
In the 17th and 18th century the merchants from the towns in europe began moving to the countryside because the availability of raw material wsa cheap asnd even the labourers were also available for more production.
The earlier phase of industrialisation in which large scale production was carried out for international market not at factories but in decentralised units.
(i) Huge demand : The world trade expanded at a very fast rate during the 17th and the 18th centuries. The acquisition of colonies
was also responsible for the increase in demand. The town producers failed to produce the required quantity.
(ii) Powerful town producers :
• The town producers were very powerful,
• The producers could not expand the production a: will. This was because in the towns, urban crafts and trade guilds were powerful. These were associations of producers that trained craftspeople, maintained control over production, regulated competition and prices, and restricted the entry of new people within the trade.
(iii) Monopoly rights : The rulers granted different guilds the monopoly right to produce and trade in specific products It was therefore difficult for new merchants to set up business in towns. So they turned to the countryside.
(iv) New economic situation in the countryside : Open fields were disappearing in the countryside and the commons were being enclosed. Cottagers and poor peasants who were earlier depended on common lands became jobless So when merchants came around and offered advances to produce, peasants households eagerly agreed.
Answer:
in the 17th and 18th centuries the merchants from municipalities in Europe started moving to the countryside at this as the supplies were accessible in abundance and at more affordable rates also the hand operated labours in the nation there in high numbers which were beneficial for enhancing production as this was the time of industrialisation large-scale generation was the requirement to rent of the commodities to the global exchange and to depreciate the cost associated with buying supplies and arranging labourers in the town and the wholesalers migrated to the farmland