ages. Finally, there was a
widespread feeling that trade unions were unscrupulous bodies which
overawed the great majority of their fellow-workmen, and then by their
help tyrannized over the employers and threw trade into recurring
conditions of confusion. That same great body of uninstructed public
opinion, which, on the whole, favored the factory laws, was quite
clearly opposed to trade unions. With the incompetency of their own
class, the power of the law, and the force of public opinion opposed
to their existence and actions, it is not a matter of wonder that the
development of these working-class organizations was only very
gradual.

Nevertheless these obstacles were one by one removed, and the growth
of trade unions became one of the most characteristic movements of
modern industrial history.

*80. Legalization and Popular Acceptance of Trade Unions.*--During the
early years of the century combinations, more or less long lived,
existed in many trades, sometimes secretly because of their
illegality, sometimes openly, until it became of sufficient interest
to some one to prosecute them or their officers, sometimes making the
misleading claim of being benefit societies. Prosecutions under the
combination laws were, however, frequent. In the first quarter of the
century there were many hundred convictions of workmen or their
delegates or officers. Yet these laws were clear instances of
interference with the perfect freedom which ought theoretically to be
allowed to each person to employ his labor or capital in the manner
he might deem most advantageous. Their inconsistency with the general
movement of abolition of restrictions then in progress could hardly
escape observation. Thus the philosophic tendencies of the time
combined with the aspirations of the leaders of the working classes to
rouse an agitation in favor of the repeal of the combination laws. The
matter was brought up in Parliament in 1822, and two successive
committees were appointed to investigate the questions involved. As a
result, a thoroughgoing repeal law was passed in 1824, but this in
turn was almost immediately repealed, and another substituted for it
in 1825, a great series of strikes having impressed the legislature
with the belief that the former had gone too far. The law, as finally
adopted, repealed all the combination acts which stood upon the
statute book, and relieved from punishment men who met together for
the sole purpose of agree