Lamoille newsdealer. [volume] (Hyde Park, Vt.) 1860-1877, 1871-03-18
The Origin Of Trade Unions.

The Origin Of Trade Onions.
MIR. F. b. Perkins has made an inter
esting synopsis Of DR.. Luio Brentano's
work on the Genealogy of Trade Unions.
DIR. Brentano is a Bayarian, and his
book is entitled "The History of Guilds.
He contends that the trade unions Of
the present day, as organized in England
and America, were the successors Of the
"craft-gilds," OF trade organizations, of
the middle ages. Theses again succeeded
10 older and different sort of bodies
namely, the two gilds, or gilds' merchant,
which were local rather than professional
and included the commercial rather than
producing class. These were preceded
by a vet more ancient sort of gilds-the
religious or social clubs; for they were
mingled of both characters and before
these came the original gilds the firth
gilds of the Anglo Saxons, which seem
TO have been associations of neighbors
for mutual help and defense.
The craft-gilds were organizations of
free craft men for objects very like those
of the gild merchants, and which the
latter refused to the craftsmen. The
weavers were the richest and the most
influential of the craftsmen, and the
weavers' gilds were, accordingly, the
oldest and the most powerful, some of
them dating back to the eleventh Gen.
fury. As the bond handi-craftsmen be-
came emancipated they enlisted in these
gilds, and the gilds, pursuing the law of
their development, on one hand con-
tended with the partrician of the old
gild-merchant, and on the other prohib-
tied the exercise Of their craft to all ex-
cept members.
As they gradually got the upperhand
of the gid merchants, they succeeded
them to some extent in the local govern
ment, though the political authority was
by this time concentrating in the hands
of the kings or mobiles but the election
of their own wardens and other officers,
and the management of their own craft
concerns, remained in their own hands,
usually in consideration of the payment
of some tax to the king.
1t was within the craft-gilds that the
institution of apprenticeship grew up,
being simply the requirement of proper
term of training, and of moral character,
from whoever was admitted as a member
of the craft gid. This institution, now
lin this country at least almost entirely
disused was then accompanied with
much formality, as indeed was appropri-
ate; for it was not merely the introduce
ton to business, but to citizenship.
DR.. Brentano adds many curious par
ticulars about the internal organization
of the craft-gilds, their religious side,
their insurance and mutual aid features,
the position of journeymen, the ancient
way of fixing wages by law, some ancient
strikes" five hundred years ago and so
forth.
The craft-gilds gradually contracted
various abuses, not, like gid merchants,
in political directions, but rather as
monopolies of employments, and socie-
ties of greedy capitalists. The French
revolution broke them up in France in
Germany, "the large remnants were
destroyed in the North German indus
trial code of 1862" in England, they
withered, so to speak before the growth
of the modern vast industrial establish
ment and what remains of them, as, for
instance, the fishmongers' company, and
other socalled livery companies of Lon
don, consists almost entirely of peri
odical meeting to eat and drink.
Last come the trade unions. The
firth gilds were formed for common aid
against evil doors the religious gilds for
the promotion of common good ends /;
the gid merchants for help in business,
and protection against external violence;
the craft gilds for defense against the
monopoly and oppression of the partri-
clans, who represented the gild mer-
chants. The trade unions are not de-
veloped from any of these, in the way of
outgrowth or imitation but they are
like them as being founded on similar
mental faculties and desires, and as con-
templating similar purposes. "They
first sprang up" says DR.. Brentano, in
his quaint Germanic English, "as a
defense against the great capitalists, who,
like ever the strong, competed with each
other at the expense of the weak )" and
they were confined to England.
In summing up the significance Of
these trade unions, DIR. Brentano uses
the following language:
Already, since 1894, they have en-
joyed kind of recognition and already
they have fought contests quite as fierce
as those of the old craftsmen against the
patricians, if not fiercer. The history O.
their sufferings since the end of the eigh
teenth century, and of the privationl
endured for their independence, is rea
record of heroism.
1t is only to be hoped that now, whel
they are free from all legal restrictions
they may use only-instead of the arm
of violence, which belong to forme
times-the legal means which belong t,
our days, and which are thrown open t,
them by the franchise"
DR.. Brentano barely refers to the trad
union organizations in the United States
but those bodies would find fruitful
matter for consideration in the broa
view which he takes and proves, that tn
real and proper basis for all these variou
gilds is not aggressive but defensive
not restrictive and monopolizing, bu
reformatory and free.
AN Englishman recently hanged hin
self in Oxford because he had contr;hu