August 30.
Or the various institutions which nursed the early political life of Europe, none, perhaps, exercised greater influence than the Media-val Guilds. Formed for commercial and other purposes, they grew to power by enfranchising themselves from feudal limitations, and the process affected the whole oni oF European history. Round the Guilds centred the life of medieval towns, and it was in the towns that men learned the art of ce-operation for definite political ends. On the Continent, this carly training took long to produce results, because it had to struggle, not only against the claims of Feudalism, but also against those of Empire. But in England, where Feudalism was comparatively weak, and where the Crown never put forward imperial pre-tentions, the Guild. system soon bore fruit. Accustomed from the earliest times to mutual respon-and taught the art of political representation by—the gradual growth of the Jury System, Englishmen had an organized Parliament by the end of the thirteenth century. From that date, English Parliamentary history becomes both detailed and progressive, and the tales of its successive victories at length react-upon the Continent, whose political training had commenced in similar schools. The result, to-day, is that Europe has a healthy constitutional life, the origins of which are, to a great extent, to be sought in the early medieval Guilds.
To all Europeans in China these facts are of the greatest interest, because, on the one hand, China is struggling towards a Constitation, and on the other, the Guild System has, for centuries, been one of the salient features of the life of the Far East. In Japan, i the 14th and 151 the Ashikaya Shoguns ruled in Kyoto, and monopolies of all the principal staples were sold to associations of merchants at prices highly remunerative to the Government. The guilds so formed were joint-stock corporations, the shares of which were transferable by sale, or bequeathable from father to son. In the seventeenth century, a farther development took place, when the kaka-ya or " agent" took over from the Samurai, placed in charge of "store mansions," the business of converting into money the rice which formed the incomes of feudal chiefs. Corresponding with the kaka-ya of Osaka was the Sude-sashi of Yedo, who exercised similar functions. From' the beginning of the eighteenth century, these jude-sashi were organized into confederations, each subdivided into six classes with six houses in each class. Finally, in' the middle of the eighteenth' century, the organization of the Guild was borrowed from the fishmongers of Yedo, and applied to nearly every branch of trade, to maritime enterprise and to operations connected with currency. In Korea the Pedlar's Guild dates back for centuries, and almost every commodity has been handled by similar associations.
But it is here in China that the Guild System is most worthy of attention, Its origin ix clearly given in the Constitution and By-law of the Ningpo Guild at Wei chieh, in a preamble, says " We kuan were first established at the metropolis by mandarins among compatriots or fellow-provincials for mutual aid and protection. Subsequently, merchants formed Guilds like those of the mandarinate, and now they exist in every province." These metropolitan Guilds, which served asa model, were probably known as early as the Tang Period, namely as early as the ninth and tenth centuries, and, being of the nature of clubs, their origin may have been much more ancient. To-day, foreigners apply the term Guild to two classes of institution, to Weikuan or " Club-house" and to Kungso or Public Halls." The former may be compared to Chambers of Commerce, and the latter to Trade Unions. They exercise a general supervision over their members, and protect them from commercial frauds. They fix the market rate of all kinds of produce, and insist upon equitable dealings with the outside world. Their rules are read in the Courts of China as if they were part of the statutory law of the Empire, and the Central Government would, probably, hesitate to consider, against their known wishes, almost any subject whether commercial or political. In addition to the Guild System proper. there are societies. of inds, all of them illustrating the hinese genius for ce-operation, whilst nowhere, perhaps, is ti capacity more noticeable than the organization of the Chinese market. When we remember the commercial capacities of the Chinese, and recall the well-known jibe that the English are a nation of shopkeepers, a comparison of the Guild Systems of Bast and West becomes so suggestive as to be almost prophetic. For the Guild System of England helped to produce n Constitution upon which all the Constitutions of the Western world are modelled, and what stands out clearly from the comparison is the capacity for co-opera tion which exists alike in England and in China. In both countries the Guilds have been primarily -|commercial, and in our own they have -led to a highly organized political life. Tu China so few de-Unetions ure possible, that one hesi-tutes before being logical; but if we go so far as to say that, theory erically, the Guild System of the East should produce similar results, we shrill hardly he accused of hasty generalization. We can, at any rate, point to the confidence of H. E. Yuan Shih-kai, and we can hazard a guess at the premises upon which it is based. That Chinese ce-operation has not resulted in a general representative system is almost paradoxical, and there is much in the epigram which says that a paradox isa truth standing on its head to attract attention.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.