ABSTRACT
In Asia the Guilds have continued down to this day, though they are suffering from European competition. In India they are in a state of disintegration ; their integrity having been undermined by the British Government, which deprived them of their privileges in the interests of Lancashire manufacturers. The idea which underlay the Guild System was that men should be organized in groups, and that the State existed to facilitate their co-operation. In the sphere of industry the natural division was that of trades. Two functions engaged the activities of the Guilds. One of them was that of mutual aid ; the other was the safeguarding of the standard of production against commercial abuses. In order to justify the present age, it has been the custom of modernists to misrepresent the past. Feudalism was a comparatively humane institution—but misrepresented out of all resemblance to the original.
