ABSTRACT
The Guilds of the middle ages were but the forerunners of the Trades’ Unions of to-day; and the strikes of modern times have had their counterpart in the Jacquerie riots of the fourteenth century. The penalties with which combinations in restraint of trade were punishable under former laws, now happily repealed, simply had the effect of causing proceedings to be conducted in secrecy. Resistance to a proposed reduction of wages was the cause of the Engineers’ strike in 1852; of the strike at Preston in 1853; of the strike in the Iron Trade in 1865; and of the strike of the Colliers at Wigan in 1868. Trades’ Union agitators have too often sought to win the admiration of their auditory by thoughtless declamation against the alleged rapacity of employers, and by loud professions of sympathy with the wrongs of their industrial brethren.
