But it has always encountered obstacles which have arrested its progress. First there have been disagreements between those who favour the idea. Should the guild be optional or compulsory, open or closed? What share should masters and workmen take in it? Should it aim only at mutual assistance, or should it be competent to act in disputes between members? On the one hand there were those who were afraid of reviving the tyrannical monopoly of the old wardenships and on the other those who were afraid of forming, without meaning to do so, the framework for a socialistic organization of labour. All this was enough to paralyse those who might have been willing to join. But there was an even greater difficulty; though some of the great employers, those of the Val des Bois for example, supported the cause, the working classes, not unreasonably, stood aloof, uneasy and defiant. They dreaded any sort of patronage in which the heads would bombard them with pious exhortations and hold up to them the dismal virtue of resignation; they remembered M. Claudio Jannet’s confession that he looked to Christianity “to solve the social question by inspiring masters with the spirit of justice and charity, and by making the less-favoured classes accept their lot.” They could not forget that the Holy Father had written that the guilds should have “religion for their guide,” and they thought they had a foretaste of the fate in store for them, in the statutes of association of the printer-bookseller-bookbinders of Paris in the new model (1879): “Art. III. To belong a man must be a Catholic. Art. IV. Must bind himself not to work, or employ another on Sunday. Art. V. To print no irreligious book.” In short, they were afraid of putting themselves under the yoke of the confessional and of losing their liberty of thought, and they looked on an institution from which were excluded in advance all who did not hold a certificate of orthodoxy, as too much resembling the Middle Ages, and as an anachronism in a society where rights are equal for all citizens irrespective of religion.
A few theorists[149] no doubt prided themselves on enlarging this narrow conception; but the compulsory guilds, open and federated, which they dreamed of instituting, were so different from the old guilds that there was really nothing in common except the name.
It was in Austria, in surroundings less cut off from the past than in France, that guilds more resembling the original type awoke to an appearance of life.[150] Created by law in 1883, they have set before themselves some of the aims of the Arti of Florence, viz. the safeguarding of the honour of the trade and, to this end, the regulation of apprenticeship; the foundation or assistance of institutions for technical instruction; the exaction of a preliminary examination from any one who wishes to set up as a craftsman or merchant; the buying of raw material at the expense of the community; the provision of arbitrators to settle trade differences, and the insurance of members against sickness, etc. They even try, as in old times, to secure the legal monopoly of a craft and to forbid hawking, etc. They remind one very much of what I have called the capitalistic guilds of the Middle Ages, and those of great commerce and “great” industry, with the sole difference that they are compulsory for all who carry on the same trade. (See [p. 28].) All the authority, in fact, is in the hands of the masters, and although they are reminded of their duties towards the workers, the latter are subordinate, can only present petitions, and are only allowed to decide as to the administration of benefit funds. It is more than doubtful whether this reproduction of the most hierarchical form of the ancient guilds has much chance of spreading at a time when ideas of equality have made such headway and when the working classes are strong enough to refuse meekly to submit to the conditions employers lay down. It must also be remembered that “great” industry, for and by whom this method was formerly designed, is excepted from Austrian legislation, which forces it on the “small” trades, to which this renewal of the regulations of the old statutes seems to be a great hindrance. Imitation of this system, which is itself only a more or less successful imitation, has so far not gone farther than Hungary and Germany (the Innungen). In Belgium, Switzerland, and even in France, Christian associations are to be found on the same model. They always include two groups which never assimilate; masters and workmen who have separate representation and pay unequal subscriptions. The principle is always Charity, the devotion of one class to another, no doubt an honourable sentiment, but one with which is mingled a protective spirit it seems impossible to do away with. For Pope Leo XIII. himself, in his Encyclical of May 16, 1891, states that, in civilized society, it is impossible that every one shall rise to the same level, and that, in consequence, there will always be rich and poor. “Just as, in the human body, the members, in spite of their diversity, adapt themselves so marvellously to each other as to form a perfectly proportioned whole, which may be called symmetrical, so, in society, the two classes are destined by nature to unite in harmony, and to maintain together a perfect balance.” Life and experience, however, would seem to prove the opposite. The only thing to be gained by these attempts to return to a time that has disappeared for ever is the combination of crafts—a necessity which seeks to-day, as it has always done, its legitimate satisfaction. But new methods of production and sale demand new forms of organization of sellers and producers, and have brought us to the system, evolved by those concerned, spontaneously, without prejudiced or preconceived theories, by the direct force of circumstances—the system of Trade Unionism, which has succeeded the guild system as the defender of trade interests.
[AUTHOR’S BIBLIOGRAPHY]
Arte dei medici, speziali e merciai. (State Archives of Florence.)
Arte di Calimala. (Statutes, edition Filippi Giovanni, Torino, 1889. Gr. 8vo.)
Arte di Por Santa Maria. Statutes, Archives of Florence, and for all the other Arti.
Ashley (W. J.). Economic History.