The times., 1897-04-11
wages being practically acknowledged by

| wages being practically acknowledged by
! the act OF 23, Henry vi, cap. II. d
| For over 100 years the contest had been
going on between the government and the
| laborers before the wages demanded by the
| laborers were acknowledged to be legal,
/ and the serf had become practically a free
! man. This result mainly accomplished
| through the organizations called guilds
/ Had these not been already formed and
| grown powerful, the cause of the iabOriDg
| people must have at once gone down before
the power OF the government, directed by
| the lords OF the soil.
The guilds at the time OF the black death
had grown numerous and powerful, being
! organized in the country villages as wel
| as in the cities. Guilds seemed to have
| originated among the German people, prob
| ably before their conversion TO Chris
uanity, and were brought TO England by
the Saxons- The word guild means feast.
| and the feast continued to be a feature
| of the guilds as long as they existed. The
! first known guilds seem to have been purely
| religious societies, and all had relgious
| features. The members were all Of the
same religious belief They were natives
| of England and devoted to the nteTest
| of their guild There were as few divisions
| among the members as would be possible
among any people. Before the black death
the craft guilds, TO which the artisans
all belonged, were the strongest body Of
men in the Kingdom, and practically gOvz
emed the cities, or had share in their
government. The farmer guilds controlled
the villages. These two evidently united
their strength to foil the efforts of the
government TO enforce the statute of
| laboreTs-
The working people of the middle ages
We're provident and directed the affairs
| Of the guilds as well as they Gid their own.
| The eui1ds received moneys from dues and
| fines and from entering fees; their mem
! bers gave them by VIII or donation moneys
and lands or other property for various
purposes, chiefly that masses might be
said for the deceased donors. They ac-
eumulated in the several hundred years
| OF their existence considerable lands and
money. They built guild halls, some Of
| which are still standing they loaned some
Of their funds to poor members without
interest, but exacting security; they used
| part in apprentieing poor boys and giIls;
| in giving INDECENT rnaidens marriage por-
tions; in pensioning widows and Teliey-
| ing destitute members of the craft, and
| Many of them established and carried
on free schools and two guilds at Cam
bridge united their funds and founded one
of the older colleges of the university.
The guilds were the chief means of ad-
vancing the people OF England, making
them wiser, better, richer and happier,
| and enabling them 10 resist the expressions
of the governmental and to assistin establish
ipo, Of frae ar
the pride and boastof English-speakingp peo-
| pie. Those OF London often turned the scale
in the civil contests OF the kingdom
They assisted LanGton and the barOns in
compelling King John to sign the Great
Charter; they aided i n putting the house OF
York on the throne of England, and they
put Mary Tudor on the throne instead Of
Lady Jane Grey. FoT this act they re-
Ceived neither reward nor consideration
No Tudor ever kept faith with anyone.
Henry VIII devised a scheme for debauch-
ing his daughter, This same Mary. andIaid
q wager that It would succeed What
could be expected Of the child OF such q
man, the foulest and meaneSt tyrant that
ever ruled a people:
This monster, compared with whom
CaliguIa and Nero were decent and COM
passionate rulers, so corrupted the Par
lament and theIords temporal and spi ritual,
executing the best men Of the kingdom
who opposed him, that the tyranny be
established continued until the final over
! throw of the Stuarts. No wonder that the
working people during his reign and that
| of his son and daughters, lost all they
! had gained n the previous 200 years.
The downfall of the working people
mas been dSCribed TO several causes, all Of
which undoubtedly contri buted TO it, viz,
the religious revolution, eStTIDging the
people and divi ding them: the rise OF
prices by debasing the coin of the realm,
and the cOnfiscation OF the property OF
the guilds. Henry VIII attacked the guilds,
but did not live 10 carry out his schemes.
which were to conf scate not only the
guild property, but that Of the universities
of oxford and Cambridge and the schools
of Eton and Winchester
The guilds held some OF their property on
the condition that masses should be said for
the souls of the donors This was decided
by Henry to be a superStitiouS practice.
and the men whom Henry had educated in
yillainy until they were second in vileneSs
only TO their teacher, and to whom he had
given the care of his son during his
minority, determined this was sufficient
cause to cOnfiscate their property and
divide it among themselves, which they
proceeded 60 do; the guilds OF London only
saving theirs by the pa yment of large
sum OF cash money. These London guilds,
however, permitted their funds to be di-
verted from their original purpose, as en-
dowments of chairs at oxford and Cam
bridge for the education of the poor have
been diverted so that they are now used
exclusively for the education OF the rich.
The coin was partially debascd before
the time of Henry VIII, but as there wasno
rise in prices Prof. Rogers thinks that be
| fore his reign coin passed by weight in
| stead Of by tale. Whatever the reason,
prices rose so per cent in less than twenty
wears, while wages remained stationary.
The guilds had permitted their powerto slip
away from them, and with the loss Oftheir
property they were shorn of their strength
| and were unable to keep up the proportion
| of wages to prices The result was that
| i'm the early part of Eizabeth's reign it
took an artisan forty weeks to earn the
| same amount OF supplies that one earned
| fifty years before in ten weeks, and he
worked over eleven hours in the twenty
| four. while the former one only worked
| eight hours. And such was the changed re-
! Iation of labor to prices that an agricultu-
| raj Iaborer in the later time could not earn
| in a whole year what on e could have earned
in fifteen weeks fifty years before In the
| former time the labOrers fixed their own
wages, at least in practice; in the later they