550 INDUSTRIAL INSTITUTIONS. 



allel between the ancient craft-gilds and the modern wage- 

 earners gilds. In past times gild-restrictions had often the 

 effect of driving away craftsmen from the towns into ad 

 jacent localities, and sometimes to distant places. And now 

 in sundry cases wage-earners, having either through legis 

 lation or by strikes, imposed terms w T hich made it impossible 

 for employers to carry on their businesses profitably, have 

 caused migration of them. The most notorious case is that 

 of the Spitalfields weavers, who in 1773, by an Act enabling 

 them to demand wages fixed by magistrates, so raised the 

 cost of production that in some fifty years most of the trade 

 had been driven to Macclesfield, Manchester, Norwich, and 

 Paisley. A more recent case, directly relevant to the action 

 of trade-unions, is that of the Thames-shipwrights. By in 

 sisting on certain rates of pay they made it impracticable 

 to build ships in the Thames at a profit, and the industry 

 went Xorth ; and now such shipwrights as remain in London 

 are begging for work from the Admiralty. As pointed out 

 to a recent deputation, the accepted tender for repairs of a 

 Government vessel was less than half that which a Thames- 

 builder, hampered by the trade-union, could afford to offer. 

 So is it alleged to have been in other trades, and so it may 

 presently be on a much larger scale. For the trade-union 

 policy, in proportion as it spreads, tends to drive certain 

 occupations not from one part of England to another but 

 from England to the Continent : the lower pay and longer 

 hours of continental artisans, making it possible to produce 

 as good a commodity at a lower price. ISTay, not only in for 

 eign markets but in the home market, is the spreading sale 

 of articles &quot; made in Germany &quot; complained of. An in 

 stance, to which attention has just been drawn by a strike, 

 is furnished by the glass-trade. It is stated that nine-tenths 

 of the glass now used in England is of foreign manufacture. 

 One striking lesson furnished by English history should 

 show trade-unionists that permanent rates of wages arc 

 determined by other causes than the wills of either employ- 



