BY A. J. TAYLOR, F.L.S., F.R.G.S. 33 



of Trade " exclusively from tbe workman's point of view. 

 Instead of the Guild in which masters and men were as one, 

 we have on the one hand the association of the employers, 

 and on the other the unions of the workmen." (Subjects of 

 the Day, page 106, August, 1890.) 



At the time of the ancient Guild comparative equality 

 prevailed. The master trained, personally, his own 

 apprentices, who were in most cases inmates of his dwelling. 

 The relationship between master and man was almost that of 

 the family, " and their trade was a mystery not to be 

 communicated to outsiders." But as the conditions of society 

 changed, the masters, being the strongest, used their power 

 " rather to advance their own individual interests than to 

 serve the good of the whole trade," and this was the 

 disintegrating factor that ultimately led to the breaking up 

 of the Craft Guilds, and left labour without organisation 

 of any kind whatever. 



Taking advantage of their helpless condition, the dominant 

 class, for the time being, influenced the Legislature to pass 

 laws for the special government of the workers, to which we 

 can only now look back with wonder and amazement. 



Under the laws referred to, labour was enforced as a duty, 

 and refusal to work was punished as a crime. " The rates 

 of wages for which men should work were fixed by act of 

 Parliament ; and it was equally an offence for the workman 

 to demand, or the employer to pay, more than the law 

 specified. Combination of every kind was strictly prohibited, 

 and any found uniting for the purpose of dealing with the 

 conditions of labour were subjected to extremely severe 

 penalties." (Ibid., page 107.) 



Under Act 2 and 3, Edward VI., c. 15 (which is regarded 

 as the starting point of Legislation against combinations), it 

 was enacted "that if any artificers, labourers, etc., should 

 conspire, covenant, or promise that they should not make 

 nor do their work but at a certain rate, or should not work 

 but at certain hours, they should forfeit, lor the first offence, 

 <£10, or suffer twenty days imprisonment ; for the second 

 offence j£20, or the pillory ; for the third offence =£40 or the 

 pillory, and the loss of one ear," etc. 



This law, we are told by the writer I have already quoted, 

 " was in spirit but a type of all the Legislation affecting 

 labour which prevailed right down to the end of the first 

 quarter of the present century." " Indeed, " he observes, "it 

 is not too much to say, as Professor Rogers has done in his 

 book on wages, that from the times of the Wars of the Roses 

 up to the repeal of the combination laws, all legislation was 

 * a conspiracy concocted and carried out by parties interested 

 in its success, entered into to cheat the English workman of his 



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