32 



TRADE UNIONISM AS A FACTOE IN SOCIAL 

 EVOLUTION. 



By Alfred J. Taylor, F.L.S., F.R.G.S., E. 



In any endeavour to trace the evolution of social life, we 

 may safely assume as a starting point that the family is the 

 natural foundation of all social relations. 



Blood relationship would naturally, in its infancy, form the 

 strongest tie between members of the human race. Then 

 would come the ties of kinship : and these in turn would 

 broaden out into the realisation of duties as between man and 

 man — the observance of which would be necessary to give 

 stability to a brotherhood based on the foundations of a 

 general social relationship. As the conditions of society 

 became more complex, various and conflicting interests would 

 necessarily arise ; and in time would become developed those 

 -well-defined separations of interests that characterise the 

 social relations of the Nineteenth-Century Civilisation. 



It is with one of these well-defined lines of development in 

 social life that I have now to deal : and as all social and 

 political changes are of slow growth, it must be remembered 

 that I cannot possibly do more than touch upon some of the 

 salient points in a subject so vast and interesting as that 

 which we are about to discuss :— rTrade Unionism as a Factor 

 in Social Evolution. 



In the first place I would remind my hearers, that 

 as one of the necessary factors in the development of 

 a higher civilisation a tim6 was reached in the history of the 

 human race when it became necessary for those having 

 special regard for particular interests to combine for the 

 promotion and protection of those interests. 



Combination became necessary, for example, to counteract 

 influences that were likely to become dominant to the injury 

 of the common good : and thus we find that in the middle 

 ages combinations known as " Craft Guilds " were formed in 

 which masters and workmen united to protect the interests of 

 certain trades. 



These Craft Guilds, after long and obstinate struggles, 

 succeeded in winning certain privileges and political powers 

 that paved the way for the succeeding victories that have 

 been won by the modern combinations known as Trade 

 Unions. 



The Craft Guilds, however, differed from the Trade Union 

 in so far that, while under the fonner, masters and men 

 combined for the common object of protecting their parti- 

 cular trades ; the Union is designed to regulate the interests 



