536 INDUSTRIAL INSTITUTIONS. 



Apparently without formal combination there is thus a tacit 

 agreement to maintain certain rates of payment. Some 

 thing of kindred nature is found in parts of Africa. Reade 

 says that a sort of trade-union exists on the Gaboon, and 

 those who break its rules are illtreated. The natives on the 

 coast endeavour to keep all the trade with the white man in 

 their own hands; and if one from any of the bush tribes is 

 detected selling to the white man, it is thought a breach of 

 law and custom. But the trade-union as we now know it, 

 obviously implies an advanced social evolution. There is re 

 quired in the first place a definite separation between the 

 wage-earner and the wage-payer; and in the second place 

 it is requisite that considerable numbers of wage-earners 

 shall be gathered together; either as inhabitants of the same 

 locality or as clustered migratory bodies, such as masons 

 once formed. Of course fulfilment of these conditions was 

 gradual, but when it had become pronounced 



&quot; The workmen formed their Trade-Unions against the aggressions 

 of the then rising manufacturing lords, as in earlier times the old free 

 men formed their Frith-Gilds against the tyranny of mediaeval mag 

 nates, and the free handicraftsmen their Craft-Gilds against the ag 

 gressions of the Old-burghers.&quot; 



Xot that there was a lineal descent of trade unions from 

 craft-gilds. Evidence of this is lacking and evidence to the 

 contrary abundant. Though very generally each later social 

 institution may be affiliated upon some earlier one, yet it 

 occasionally happens that social institutions of a kind like 

 some which previously existed, arise de novo under similar 

 conditions; and the trade-union furnishes one illustration. 

 Akin in nature though not akin by descent, the trade-union 

 is simply a gild of wage-earners.* 



* Materials which I have collected in the course of years, though con 

 siderable in amount, would not have sufficed for proper treatment of this 

 large topic. For the needful further information, I am indebted to the 

 comprehensive and elaborate work by Mr. and Mrs. Sydney Webb on The 

 History of Trade Unionism a work which must henceforth be the standard 

 authority on the subject, considered under its historical aspect. 



