The Waikato Times With which is Incorporated The Waikato Argus. THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 23, 1922. RE-ENTER THE GUILDS

Waikato Times, Volume 96, Issue 15101, 23 November 1922, Page 4

The Waikato Times With which is Incorporated The Waikato Argus. THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 23, 1922. RE-ENTER THE GUILDS

An American reviewer sees in some recent happenings connected with the management of certain public amusement enterprises in the United States indications of a return of the' guild system, which during the Middle Ages exercised such power throughout Europe. "It is," he writes,, "a curious circumstance that American baseball, the movies and the theatre should turn to the Middle Age guilds for a model of self-government, with big business taking notes and ready to join hands jn similar expedients for recapturing public confidence." • These interests, it seems, have selected arbiters from among themselves with power to rule over their affairs, after the fashion of the gulids of olden days, and "business," the writer considers, is interested in copying the pattern laid down for interior regulation by the guilds because it sees a chance to settle industrial troubles behind closed doors instead of in the full light shed by printer's ink. Penalties visited upon offenders against the common good would be expected" to compel observance of a rigid trade standard. The delegation of such powers to these men by the crafts over which they rule means, the reviewer considers, the growth of government within a government, exactly parallel to that exercised by the guilds of the Middle Ages, and he goes on to say that several large industries, following leadership of the building trades, are reported ready to inaugurate courts of their own in an effort to escape criticism and keep their washing at home. Development of the. guild principle has been evident in almost every line of American business during the last ■ few years. The modern trade association is merely the guild under another name. It remains only for each such association to choose its own judge and adopt a code of ethics

to have the old guilds restored in all essentials. Many associations already have such a code, and if their critics may be believed it has not always been in the general public interest. Samuel Untermyer,' in the New York building trades investigation, brought out evidence that the associations of that industry had banded together for the maintenance of prices and limitation of production. Mr. Untermyer has charged that the operation of this system constituted a monopoly in which he sees danger, not alone to the public, but to business as a whole. His investigation proved that it was a common practice to compare bids, agree on prices, browbeat competitors and set aside territories for exploitation by certain firms or groups. In carrying on these practices large funds were , obtained from members and spent where they seemed likely to produce the best results. It is of more than passing interest that the building trades should adopt a form of self-government and call in a public figure to administer that government so soon after the Untermyer revelations. This has proved again that public opinion is the dominant factor in every large undertaking to-day, that its power is more far-reaching and decisive than most of us even conceive. Scarcely a big institution of the times has been able to withstand extended public criticism. Wherever this has developed institutions have been compelled to yield, to bend, no matter how adamant they may have appeared*to be. By changing a few names and dates, everything charged against the building trade associations —and some of those in other fields — would be found to have been laid at the door of the guilds in centuries past. It is an interesting reflection ■ that'"they were strongest when Governments were weakest, administering their own laws according to their own concepts, with little accountability to anybody. They bargained with Kings and Princes for privileges which weighed heavily upon many a community, and often sold the allegiance of a city so as to extend their own grants. Some of the guilds were stronger than their rulers, and all sought, by every l means they could command, to be a law unto themselves. The tendency of the times to revive the guild system provides proof that, even though business has come a long way and expanded a thousandfold, its models of procedure may be found in remote days—thEtt there is nothing new. The Saxon guilds and, their counterparts in France and Germany would seem to have developed from the family group. In time tliey came to consist of people in a particular neighbourhood or occupation, a variation, perhaps, of our modern unions. Expanding commerce gradually changed the structure of the guild. As an institution it became a body of merchants. Some of these guilds were representative of certain trades, in others they served for a whole community, and the most in Cluential corresponded to our Chambers of Commerce. Both merchants and journeymen belonged to the trade guilds after their early evolution, about the tenth and eleventh centuries. From the middle of the twelfth century, English commerce began to take on international aspects, opening up a new kind of relations abroad, principally with ythe French and the Dutch. <sAs this commerce grew, more money came into the land and trade assumed a definite part in the social scheme. The guilds were transformed, into a class organization and only merchants admitted. Perhaps the boot summary of the change was provided in the resolution of me guild that no person should be taken in who had "dirty hands." Anothe" provided !hat a prospective member must have laid aside his tools at least one year before joining. Each guild had a head called a Warden or Marshal, and they worked out a set of rules which laid considerable responsibilities upon their members, but which- also granted them broad opportunities. The operations of the guilds closely resembled the activities of a present-day trade association. Every guild endeavoured ' to escape with the least possible taxation, delegating members to appear before their rulers in furtherance' of such claims, and, incidentally, to have taxes laid upon the shoulders of other guilds. These members corresponded'very well with the legislative lobbyists of the present day. All the guilds were highly monopolistic and when an independent merchant appeared members in the guild of his trade acted against him as a unit, and, unless a man of,unusual power and spirit, he was compelled either to join or give up business. Credit has to be given the guilds for their spirit of enterprise, which established the foundations of modern commerce; whilst their combined influence, always in favour of peace rather than for war, did as much toward the destruction of feudalism as anything else. But, as the writer quoted points out, in the end they were destroyed by the very thing they, had created. Prosperity became too general. The guilds could not control it, competition arose on every, hand, and the elaborate institution developed through centuries fell by the wayside. The spirit of individualism, which developed since the collapse of the guilds, seems lately to have passed iLs zenith, and that it is gradually being supplanted by the older system may be inferred from the frequently heard remark that "this is the day of big organisations." In the case of America, the writer considers, a marked development of the guild system might mean that the activities of the nation would be governed by hundreds of courts without any legal sanction or recognition. His final conclusion is that though this would weaken the existing judicial system in the United States the disadvantage of such a slate of affairs might he more fancied than real, since the judicial system of that country has now become so involved and ineffective that many troubles linger along for years under the present method, whereas more vigorous institutions would probably dispose of them quickly. ■