The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1885-05-30

the support of almshouses, the relief OF
poor members, to schools-among them
some of the best in and near London-to
education in trades, towards which large
sums have recently been granted, and in
one case to the care of the blind and other
such charities The halls of the great
companies are often fine old architectural
piles, and their plate and furniture are of
such splendor that their value is estimated
at over million of dollars. These com
panies date from various periods, some, in
deed, are SO old that their origin is lost in
remote antiquity, while others are clearly
traced back to the twelfth, thirteenth and
fourteenth centuries The annual income
from assessments and other charges (out-
side of the four millions above mentioned
as derived from corporate property amounts
to only hundred thousand dollars-the
gifts, grants and bequests made during the
long period of their existence, largely in
vested in land in and near London, now
enormously enhanced in value, make up
the bulk of both capital and income About
two hundred thousand dollars year 90 to
the members for their services, real or
nominal, about three hundred thousand
dollars a year in salaries, and while seven
hundred and fifty thousand dollars are
spent in public and benevolent objects, their
famous entertainments cost FIVE hundred
thousand dollars annually.
Their membership has long since ceased
to consist of the Tailors, Goldsmiths, Fish
mongers, Grocers, Gunmakers, Apotheca-
ries, Scriveners, Stationers, Vintners, Iron.
mongers, Joiners, and other trades repre-.
sented by these names, Among those who
came forward to defend these ancient cor
porations were the leading men of all ranks
and professions, headed by the Lord Chan
cellor of England as representative of the
Mercers' Company, with lawyers, states
men and noblemen of distinction in both
public and private life. One ground of
the claim made on behalf of the companies
to the exclusive management of their prop
erty was the fact that the aggregate debt
owed by them amounted to the respectable
sum of a million of dollars. A stronger
argument was based on the fact that dur
ing the last ten years large sums of money
have been spent on technical education by
the companies both singly and in combined
effort The City and Guilds Technical In
stitute has aided in establishing a school
for the promotion of textile industries on
scientific principles, on which half million
of dollars have been spent, and besides sub
sidising existing technical schools, and as
sisting in the support of evening classes for
special trade instruction, it has set on foot
model techninal schools in London and has
just spent half million dollars in erecting
a central polytechnic school, on the plan OF
those that have been so successful in Ger
many, France, Switzerland and Italy, Ii
has increased the number of applicants for
examination in industrial arts from 200 in
1879 to 2400 in 1888. One of the Lon
don technical schools has thousand stu
dents, in building that cost nearly two
hundred thousand dollars. The London
Companies have secured the Central Insti-
tute an income of hundred and twenty
five thousand dollars year and over five
hundred thousand dollars for its building
and furnishing One company, the Gro
GERS, has contributed to the general work
by endowing scholarship for scientific re-
search, while the Royal College of Music
has received sixty-6ve thousand dollars for
IT'S support from the others. Thus the de
fcnders of their right to be let alone make
a strong showing of the good work done
by the London Companies, and, although
much is due to the pressure of the pending
investigation and the fear of hostile legisla-
ton, it is satisfactory to see that along side
of acknowledged abuses there have also
been efforts to restore to the public some
share of the vast wealth accumulated in the
long life of the past. Even the Companies
that have few of the old trade in their
membership have tried to maintain and
improve the guild by exhibitions, such as
those of the Fanmakers, and by prizes, such
as those given by the Turner's, and by
other means of utilizing their great halls
and their large resources. The wasteful-
ness of spending vast sums in gorgeous en-
tertainments is now freely admitted, and,
although it is claimed that the enormous
wealth belonging to the Companies should
be left to them still, it is admitted that
hereafter it can and ought to be used for
the benefit of the workmen of all trades and
handicrafts, and especially by providing for
them that great need in London, whole
some dwellings, and those gifts of nature
now denied them in the wretched homes of
many of the poor. The Commission has
advanced, after thorough examination of
each and all of the London Companies, the
doctrine that their property is only held in
trust for the benefit of trade and manufac-
ture in London, and therefore Parliament
is justified in abolishing the existing cum
brous machinery and establishing some
simple method of applying the vast sums
accumulated in the lapse of eight senturies
or more to the needs of our own time in
the most direct way. Indeed the advocates
of a thorough-going reform urged that the
Companies should be totally and absolutely
dissolved, and their property of every kind
vested in the government. Able counsel
resisted this, and succeeded in limiting the
recommendation of the Commission to the
appointment of Board to sit for FIVE years,
devising public uses for the funds of the
Companies, while for three years the Com
panies themselves should be allowed to
frame plans of their own for the same gen.
eral good, no property or income to be
given away in the meantime. Sanguine
people look on this great fund as source
from which to provide for technical educa-
ton of all grades, with an abundant sur
plus for peoples parks, hospitals, libraries,
museums, baths and other such general
public purposes, besides affording the means
of improving working mems homes, and
even endowing beneficial societies If then
the London Companies have outlived their
usefulness, their wealth is likely to do more
good than was ever conceived of by those
who gave it in centuries long past.
Discomfort is the want of self-relianee;
it is infrmity of will.