med up in this conclusion; there must be an end of
the isolation of the individual labourer. This must be replaced by the
action of collectivities, associations, or syndicates, whose duty it
shall be to watch over the interests of every calling. In a word we must
go back to the system of corporations of the trades, _maitrises_, and
_jurandes_, under which labour was so long carried on in France.' This
Report found no favour in the eyes of the Radicals because it aimed at a
good understanding and practical co-operation between Labour and
Capital. Nine years afterwards, on March 21, 1884, a law was carried
through the French Parliament authorising the establishment of
'professional syndicates.' The object of the Republicans, then as now
controlling a majority of the Chamber, in passing this law, was to
strengthen the trades unions as against the employers of France. The
law, it will be observed, was passed at the time when a syndicate of
miners in the North, which had no legal right to exist before the
passage of the law, was actively promoting, under its leader, M. Basly,
the great strike at Anzin of which I have spoken in a preceding chapter.
But while the law of March 1884 legalised 'syndicates' of this
aggressive, and in the nature of things tyrannical, type, it also
necessarily legalised precisely such Christian corporations as those
contemplated in the Report of 1875, and long before organised on the
lines laid down by M. Harmel. A great and visible responsibility was
thus thrown upon the employers of France and upon what are called the
upper classes generally in that country. It was clear that, if they
would energetically and systematically throw themselves into the work of
bringing about a reconstruction of social order on the principles of
co-operation and sympathy as opposed to the principle of antagonism
between Capital and Labour, the law of 1884, intended to widen, might be
effectually used to close the threatening breach between the employers
and the employed. There seems to be little doubt that down to that time
the promoters of the Christian Corporation movement in France had made
greater headway with the working classes than with the employers. A
Report presented in 1885 by the general committee of the Catholic clubs
of France to the French bishops states this very plainly. This report
was signed by the Marquis De La-Tour-du-Pin-Chambly, who from the
beginning of M. Harmel's experiment at Val-des-Bois had b