de and traders
have no dignity any more in the eyes of any one, except what money lends to
them; and these outward symbols scarcely rouse even a passing feeling of
curiosity. And yet these companies were once something more than names.
They are all which now remain of a vast organisation which once penetrated
the entire trading life of England--an organisation set on foot to realise
that most necessary, if most difficult, condition of commercial excellence
under which man should deal faithfully with his brother, and all wares
offered for sale, of whatever kind, should honestly be what they pretend to
be.[58] I spoke of the military principle which directed the distribution
and the arrangements of land. The analogy will best explain a state of
things in which every occupation was treated as the division of an army;
regiments being quartered in every town, each with its own self-elected
officers, whose duty was to exercise authority over all persons professing
the business to which they belonged; who were to see that no person
undertook to supply articles which he had not been educated to manufacture;
who were to determine the prices at which such articles ought justly to be
sold; above all, who were to take care that the common people really bought
at shops and stalls what they supposed themselves to be buying; that cloth
put up for sale was true cloth, of true texture and full weight: that
leather was sound and well tanned; wine pure, measures honest; flour
unmixed with devil's dust;--who were generally to look to it that in all
contracts between man and man for the supply of man's necessities, what we
call honesty of dealing should be truly and faithfully observed.[59] An
organisation for this purpose did once really exist in England,[60] really
trying to do the work which it was intended to do, as half the pages of our
early statutes witness. In London, as the metropolis, a central council
sate for every branch of trade, and this council was in communication with
the Chancellor and the Crown. It was composed of the highest and most
respectable members of the profession, and its office was to determine
prices, fix wages, arrange the rules of apprenticeship, and discuss all
details connected with the business on which legislation might be required.
Further, this council received the reports of the searchers--high officers
taken from their own body, whose business was to inspect, in company with
the lord mayor or some other