ement, we may note that the growth of municipal trading in
the 'nineties was, in principle, an application of the consumers'
association to monopolies of distribution such as tramways, water,
electricity, and gas.

The State was altogether hostile to the growth of the Trade Union. The
Charter of Emancipation, won by the guile of Francis Place in 1824, was
severely curtailed in 1825. Huskisson[68] depicted in lurid terms the
tyranny of a military trades unionism, 'representing a systematic union
of the workers of many different trades'. It was a 'kind of federal
republic', whose mischievous operations, if not checked, would keep the
commercial classes 'in constant anxiety and fear about their interests
and property'. Arnold, of Rugby, a decade later wrote of them in the
same strain: 'you have heard, I doubt not, of the trades unions; a
fearful engine of mischief, ready to riot or assassinate; and I see no
counteracting power.'[69]

The counteracting power was their own weakness. The early militancy
burnt itself out, and was succeeded at the turn of the century by a 'New
Spirit and a New Model'. The new spirit was anti-militant, and the new
model was a trade union representing the _elite_ of the skilled trades.
The Amalgamated Society of Engineers was founded in 1850 and served as a
model to the Carpenters, Tailors, Compositors, Iron-founders,
Brick-layers, and others. The Trades Unions were now respectable, and in
1867 the State recognized the fact.

The period of collectivism is denoted by the growth of the Labour Party
in Parliament, and the increasing part played by the State in industrial
disputes and the regulation of wages. The nationalization of railways
and the nationalization of mines are burning questions.

4. In all the movements we have described, the spiritual stimulus, the
initial drive, and the solid successes have been provided by voluntary
association. The State has not been the pioneer of social reform. Such a
notion is the mirage of politicians. It has merely registered the
insistent demands of organized voluntary effort or given legal
recognition to accomplished facts. This is the distinctive note of
English social development in the nineteenth century.

FOR REFERENCE

Dicey, _Law and Opinion_.

Robinson, _The Spirit of Association_.

Hovell, _The Chartist Movement_.

Sombart (tr. Epstein), _Socialism and the Socialist Movement_.

[Cd. 9236], _Report of Committee on Trusts_.

FOOTNOT