ABSTRACT

Trade must not be entered into as a thing of light concern; it IS called business very properly; for it is a business for life, and ought to be followed as one of the great businesses of life.

QUALIFICATION as a fundamental condition of admission to a trade was one of the leading principles of the mediaeval guild system. It has been so fully and so frequently described by economic historians that it is unnecessary to describe it again as an interesting parallel to the present aspirations of trade associations. This very system led by its stringency to destruction of the guild system from within, for it became the main target for attack by modern manufacturing industry in its fight against the guilds. It is appropriate to quote Adam Smith on this matter, writing just before the entire abolition of the trade guilds. After strongly criticising the whole system of long apprenticeships, he describes how " the most insignificant trades carried on in towns" have managed to become incorporated, " and even where they have never been incorporated, yet the corporation-spirit, the jealousy of strangers, the aversion to take apprentices . . . generally prevail in them, and often teach them by voluntary associations and agreements to prevent free competition which they cannot prohibit by bye-laws". He contrasts the position in agriculture: "No apprenticeship has ever been thought necessary to qualify for husbandry, the great trade of the country." He further observes that a "public register" is apt to favour such methods of limited admission, for it " gives every man of the trade a direction where to find every other man of it ". His criticism of the system is sharp:

The pretence that corporations are necessary for the better government of trade, is without any foundation. The real and effectual discipline which is exercised over the workman, is not that of his corporation, but that of his customers . .. An exclusive corporation necessarily weakens the force of this discipline . .. It is upon this account that, in many large incorporated towns no tolerable workmen are to be found, even in some of the most necessary

trades. If you would have your work tolerably executed, it must be done in the suburbs, where the workmen, having no exclusive privilege, have nothing but their character to depend upon, and you must then smuggle it into town as well as you can.1