506 INDUSTRIAL INSTITUTIONS. 



A concomitant effect occurred. Decrease in the pros 

 perity and power of the gilds was followed by disorganiza 

 tion of them. And then their progressive decline was in 

 most cases brought to a sudden end by confiscations of their 

 property. Malefactors reigning by divine right, who im 

 poverished the nation in their unscrupulous pursuit of per 

 sonal ends, robbed, among other bodies, the gilds, to the ex 

 tent in most cases of causing their dissolution. Of course a 

 resulting, but unintended, benefit was that of giving to mem 

 bers of gilds, as well as to others, freedom to carry on their 

 businesses as they pleased. The regime of free labour thus 

 was extended. 



814. Here we have to retrace our steps and observe the 

 advance from status to contract along another route. While 

 in some countries gilds were dissolving, in other countries 

 house-communities and village-communities were dissolving. 



Though need for mutual protection caused cohesion of 

 relations in clusters, there was at work from the beginning a 

 cause of dissolution ready to show its effects as soon as sur 

 rounding conditions allowed. Always the diligent and skil 

 ful felt annoyance at being unable to profit by their superi 

 orities. They were vexed on seeing the idle taking equal 

 shares of benefit with themselves. Says Sir Henry Maine 

 concerning the South Slavonian house-communities: 



&quot;The adventurous and energetic member of the brotherhood is 

 always rebelling against its natural communism. He goes abroad and 

 makes his fortune, and strenuously resists the demands of his relatives 

 to bring it into the common account. &quot; 



Where peace allowed, disintegration, thus instigated, began 

 long since and has continued; as witness the following 

 passage from Mr. Arthur Evans : 



&quot; The households here [Radovatz] are not so large as in other parts 

 of the frontier, and it is evident that in former times the inhabitants 

 must have found some means of evading the law, and dividing their 

 property . . . the effects of the Theilungsgesetze are beginning to be 



