TRADE-UNIONISM. 537 



826. That in common with multitudinous other kinds 

 of combinations, trade-unions are prompted by community 

 of interests among their members, is implied by facts show 

 ing that where, other things being equal, the interests are 

 mixed, they do not arise. At the present time in Lanca 

 shire 



&quot;The piecers, who assist at the mules, are employed and paid by 

 the operative cotton-spinners under whom they work. The big 

 piecer is often an adult man, quite as skilled as the spinner himself, 

 from whom, however, he receives very inferior wages. But although 

 the cotton operatives display a remarkable aptitude for Trade-Union- 

 ism, attempts to form an independent organization among the piecers 

 have invariably failed. The energetic and competent piecer is always 

 looking forward to becoming a spinner, interested rather in reducing 

 than in raising piecers wages.&quot; 



So was it with journeymen in early days. While the sub 

 ordinate worker could look forward with some hope to the 

 time when he would become a master, he was restrained 

 from combining with others in opposition to masters; but 

 when there had come into existence many such subordinate 

 workers who, lacking capital, had no chance of becoming 

 masters, there arose among them combinations to raise wages 

 and shorten time. 



If, with community of interests as a prerequisite, we join 

 local aggregation as a further prerequisite, we may infer that 

 the evolution of trade-unions has been very irregular: dif 

 ferent trades and localities having fulfilled these conditions 

 in different degrees. London, as the place which first ful 

 filled the prerequisite of aggregation, was the place in which 

 we find the earliest traces of bodies which prefigure trade- 

 unions bodies at first temporary but tending to become 

 permanent. At the end of the 14th century and beginning 

 of the 15th, we have the well-known complaints about the 

 behaviour of journeymen cordwainers, sadlers, and tailors, 

 in combining to enforce their own interests; setting ex 

 amples which a generation later were followed by the shoe 

 makers of Wisbeach. And here we are shown that just 



