[Sidenote: _Attempts at regulation of trade._]
The Unions already aim at ensuring stability of employment through deliberate regulation of trade. By this means they hope to strike a death-blow at that root-evil of our present industrial system, irregularity of employment and uncertainty of wages.
[Sidenote: _Further necessary approximation to Gilds._]
But they yet fall short of the Gilds in two important particulars, and until these deficiencies are made good Trades Unions can only be considered as insufficient means to a highly desirable end.
[Sidenote: _Appreciation of the common interests of masters and men,_]
In the first place there must be no association of men against masters, or masters against men, but union of men with masters for the common good of the craft. Fifty years ago it was pointed out[235] that "the recent destruction of the old Gilds was a purely negative policy, which required to be followed up by a reconstruction on similar, but modified, lines[236]." But of course nothing was attempted, though it is for their care in seeing that the public was well served that the Gilds are chiefly praised to-day.
[Sidenote: _and of the necessity of ensuring a higher standard of work._]
In the second direction much less advance has been made[237]. Yet it cannot be expected that a high standard of wages is to be maintained unless a high standard of workmanship is also ensured. Improvement in pay can only with justice accompany improvement in skill and application. Something of the sentiment and tradition of good work which so strongly characterised the Middle Ages must be brought back. As yet it is wofully lacking. Up to the present the Trades Unions have made no real attempt to grapple with this evil, though its removal is a necessary preliminary to anything like completeness in our industrial reformation. Until they can show their ability to direct trade in this respect in a manner more beneficial to the community than competing capitalists have done during the past, the student will find their analogy to the mediæval Gilds incomplete (and that in a point where the latter might be followed with benefit), and the public will consider their usefulness to society unsatisfactory.