REVERSIO\S IN MODERN INDUSTRIAL LIFE. 781 

 REVERSIONS IN MODERN INDUSTRIAL LIFE. 



By FKANKLIN SMITH. 

 PART FIRST. 



IF the law of reversion holds true of physical life, it holds 

 equally true of industrial life. Under its operation is revived 

 the career of institutions as indicative of conditions long passed 

 away as any deformity that may once have saved from extinction 

 a race of brutes. However useful in the elevation of man from 

 degradation and savagery, they contributed, after the completion 

 of their purpose, no further service than one of evil. To many 

 social reformers, the legislation in revival of the old trade and 

 professional corporations, whose noble achievements fill one of 

 the lighter pages of history, seems important and beneficent. But 

 an error more alluring and dangerous was never current. Such 

 legislation will not, as Herbert Spencer has often shown, further 

 human welfare. On the contrary, it will undo the work of civili- 

 zation, and renew the ravages of barbarism. 



When feudal corporations came into the world, there was 

 an excuse for them. It was to prepare the way for modern in- 

 dustrial civilization. They found Europe in a state of anarchy. 

 Every man's hand was against his neighbor's. War was almost 

 the universal occupation. The men not engaged in robbery and 

 slaughter were the menials the serfs and slaves. It was in the 

 midst of this disorder and carnage that the feudal corporations 

 were born. The natural and spontaneous product of the times, 

 and not of the wisdom of some philanthropist or statesman, they 

 met the most urgent of needs peace and security. " The working- 

 men's corporation and the commercial guild," says Pigeonneau, 

 " were, first of all, an instrument of defense, a kind of mutual 

 assurance against the violence, the exactions, or the negligence of 

 the seignior and his representatives." * For these most unfortu- 

 nate people, there was no police, no armed force for protection, no 

 public security of any kind. They were plundered and murdered 

 with impunity. For them there were no schools, no charities, no 

 social organizations. Even religious privileges were denied them. 

 Under the stress of threatened extermination, as well as the loss 

 of all the blessings of life, the industrial classes, the most con- 

 temptible of human creatures, came together in powerful organ- 

 izations for mutual aid and protection. " Individuals," says 



* Histoire du Commerce de France. Par H. Pigeonnean, vol. i, j). 111. See Palgrave, 

 Dictionary of Political Economy. Corporations, l)y Prof. .J. K. Ingram, vol. i, p. 429. 



