Note 176-10 — Chapter III

The English unions even forbid their members to exceed the established time of work, or the established task. Thus, for instance, a penalty of one shilling for carrying at any time more than eight bricks in the case of masons, and a similar penalty inflicted on the person's companions who witness the violation of the rule and do not report the guilty party. Equality of wages for all members; piece-wages allowed only when the surplus earned is divided among one's companions. Hence the complete discouragement of all skill or industry above the average. If an employer exceeds the prescribed number of apprentices; if he engages workmen not belonging to the union; if he introduces new machines, a strike is ordered. With all this the severest exclusion respectively of one class of tradesmen by the other. If a carpenter lays a few stones, a strike immediately! (Quart. Rev., October, 1867, 363, 373.) Rigid shutting out of the products of one district from another. (Edinburg Rev., October, 1867, 431.) The poor hand-weavers were thus prevented going from their over-crowded trade into another. (J. Stuart Mill, Principles, II, ch. 14, 6.) However, many trades-unions still seem to be free from these degenerations, and the most influential unions the most moderate in their proceedings. (Count de Paris, ch. 8, 9; Thornton, III, ch. 2.) Brentano expressly assured us that such degeneration of the unions in England is confined to the building trades-unions. (I, 68, 188.)