anticipated, centuries before, the model Guilds of the Middle Ages? The reasonableness of presuming the same with regard to others is not too far fetched when it is borne in mind that they were friendly societies actuated by a religious spirit. They all had their god by choice-he was their own selection from Roman deities or imported ones, though sometimes a mixed or hybrid brand got the preference-and a religious code that did not forbid the helping of a friend in distress. Where harmony, charity, and benevolence, tempered by a religious spirit, exist, is it reasonable to suppose that the sick confrère was abandoned and that his door was shunned, that his sufferings and the privations of his family did not concern his fellow-craftsmen? And if the society had no common fund for such a purpose, were not the rich patrons there to add another note of benevolence and philanthropy-dulcia vitia they were-to those sonorous epithets which graced their statues in the collegia or the pillars and bas-reliefs in those pleasant gardens which the patrons had secured as property for the Guild? The weight of the celebrated Theodore Mommsen can be quoted for this view. No man studied more closely the coins, inscriptions, and Roman remains generally, no man was more versed in the historians of the Roman period, and no man was better equipped to form an im partial judgment. It is said of him, he had 'pupils, followers, critics, but no rivals.' Without deviating too much from our subject, we may mention an incident relative to a statement made above. We said that a mixed or hybrid brand of religion sometimes got the preference in the collegia. This is exemplified in the Guild of 'Nautae,' or watermen of Lutetia, the modern Paris. Here was a collegium which had a modest beginning, but which afterwards, when it expanded and prospered, entered largely into the municipal life of the Capital. Excavations, carried out in 1711 under the present choir of Notre Dame de Paris, discovered their altar and located their place of worship. A strange medley of Keltic and Gallo-Roman figures, carved in relief on the front of the altar, disclose their favourite deities. The remains, preserved now in the Musé de Cluny, are mainly Keltic there is the god-a horned bull surmounted by three cranes, with oak leaves, so sacred to the Kelt, in the background-which guarded the cattle for a people mainly given to agriculture, and especially for a collegium which plied their trade in agricultural pursuits in small barges on the Seine. Esus, the god of the Gaulish summer, reaps with a sickle. Vulcan and Jove represent the Roman colour which the 'nautae ' must have unwillingly adopted as a conquered race. Local gods of war and favourite gods of plenty are interspersed to complete the picture. The collegia were far removed from the perfection of the Middle Age Guilds, where religion and moral principles were fundamental factors. To them we do not look for the high degree of efficiency in the craft, or the more than ordinary craftsmanship displayed in the artistic structures which are inherited from the ages of faith. In a ruder time economic activities were beyond control, and the labour market was not governed by a standardized wage. The colleges, it must be borne in mind, were powerless in preventing the evils inseparable from a pure capitalistic system. They were for the most part poor and barely capable of keeping up an outward show. They were the shadow, the Guilds were the reality. In the Roman State the capitalist was supreme, everything opulent flowed towards him on a magnetic stream: he had a monopoly. He saw discontent and jealousy develop as a result of the system, but availed himself of them as a pretext to crush the lower orders. It was otherwise when the Catholic Church was in its heyday. Then economical and ethical principles went hand in hand, then the usurer was treated as a leper so that the more fortunate could not exploit the less fortunate; then, too, economic, social and political questions were kept well in hand by the Guilds. The pavor internus did not arise for they got their inspirations from the Church, and had the moral principles which she inculcates to guide them: revolt was out of the question, there was nothing to revolt against. When revolt came, it was organized by the Crown; it was a revulsion against the elementary rights of labour and property; it was a doctrine of plunder and sauve qui peut. The Middle Age Guilds then, from the points of view of continuity, were the legitimate successors of the collegia. More than a memory of the Roman Empire was expressed in the medieval Guilds. They were the collegia, functioning in harmony with the divine ideal of labour, due account being taken of the protection of the labourer, the protection of the trade, the growth and expansion of industry. In a word, they were the figura et substantia at once. but many will say, 6 The Guilds failed and disappeared.' It may be pertinently remarked of them that 'The great ideals of the past failed not by being outlived (which must mean overlived) but by not being lived enough. Mankind has not passed through the Middle Ages. Rather, mankind has retreated from the Middle Ages in reaction and rout. The Christian Ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult and left untried.' Precisely; this is applicable to the Guild system. The ideal position of labour had never been realized for long, because the remedy was too tedious for those in revolt against God and who desired a short cut to wealth, irrespective of honesty. It has been well said that 'history does not consist of completed and crumbling ruins; rather it consists of half-built villas abandoned by a bankrupt builder.' Failure to apply a remedy is not a fault of the remedy, it must be sought elsewhere. Is it not in the order of wisdom to give the remedy a fair chance, and then judge the results ? Appetites and thirsts for labour reform have grown to a not inconsiderable degree within the last decade. The secular remedy has been tried, but only to morbidly accentuate the evil by creating false thirsts and false appetites. An impasse has been arrived at, and things are too serious at present to entrust them to a policy of drift, or await the reckless solution of blind fate. The absolute in fact has been tried; why not now make room for the infinite in ideal? The best that is in man deserves too to be tested; there is always the hope that he would respond with new powers to new opportunities. Who can dare assert that the time is not opportune for giving the Middle Age Guilds a practical trial ? If a beginning is to be made in solving the complex problem of labour, we must go back on history. In 1700, by a series of blunders, England had become capitalist; she then had a vast needy proletariat which saw capital and land in the hands of a few. If the Distributive State is to be established again, if all men who work and produce wealth are to be economically and politically free, it can only be by reverting to the Guild system-though it may be called by another name, and thus gild the pill for consumption. In the comparatively free and untrammelled society of Ireland (it is not yet under the heel of trade union bosses and exploiters) there is room for the experiment. But labour must be trusted: the necessity of count. ing on its fidelity has been amply shown during this Warcrisis. It is quite capable of working out its own salvation, but if it is to be reconciled, with a view to its helpfulness, its way should be smoothed. In vain doth valour bleed, while avarice and rapine share the land.' Faith must be kept with labour. There is more in the labour question, it is true, than wages, but in wages we have the predominant matter. The conservation of the workers' earning power is akin to it; and all modern disputes turn on this point. When history repeats itself by entering on a pre-lived cycle, it has all the advantages which a man possesses who has had the experience of pioneering dangerous ground, who knows the pitfalls and has located Scylla as well as Charybdis. His meandering is no longer tentative in the rut of comparative incapacity, but he bears himself along triumphantly on the Route Nationale macadamized and paved by progress. Life is enriched, previous barrenness is vitalized, mediocrity is brought to a high standard, experience eliminates the blunders of previous inexperience. Even institutions have a knack of adaptability which galvanizes the necessary organs and staves off decay. In the light of recurring history, much might be expected from a re-establishment of the Guilds. A quasi-religious association, which has for its motto Faith and Fatherland, is firmly established throughout Ireland. Its influences cannot be gainsaid: it is a power in the religio-social world. The working of the Insurance Act is for the most part connected with the A.O.H. or with diocesan societies which are under ecclesiastical guidance. A beginning could be made in two of our Catholic cities; and it is not utopian to think that, with some patience, good organization, and efficient centralization, Guilds could be started which would have autonomy, or, preferably, be grafted on to some of the existing societies for the present. With the wisdom which comes from cautious procedure, difficulties may be overcome, and the bias of the captious critic may be parried until a smoothly working system could be devised. We are far from thinking that the scheme is workable on the lines of an exact science from the beginning, but development is the result of assiduous care and painstaking application. There is a fine field for such an effort pro Deo et Patria. Courage and perseverance in such a cause would establish ideal labour conditions, the vampire of organized strikes, with their untold miseries, would be banished, morality would again obtain in contracts, and religion would be the pledge of faithfulness and security. There is time still to avoid the snares pointed out by Ovid : Sed trahit invitum nova vis: aliudque cupido, Deteriora sequor. T. O'HERLIHY, C.M. |
