members of the trade from which disputes are brought to them-half of them being employers, the other half workmen,-exist in many towns, after having been first introduced in Lyons in the year 1806. In Germany a statute, passed in 1890, has introduced trade tribunals (Gewerbegerichte), composed of a chairman, a deputy chairman, two employers, and two workmen; they must, in the first instance, try to induce the parties to compromise; and if that attempt fails, adjudge in the dispute in the same manner as an ordinary court of first instance.

2. The legislation as to disputes between combinations of workmen and employers is partly of a repressive, and partly of a conciliating nature; but the repressive legislation has been to a great extent repealed. Its development, together with the development of the doctrine of "conspiracy in its application to combinations for the purpose of improving the wage of workmen, is admirably described in Stephen's History of the Criminal Law, vol. iii. pp. 202-226, and summed up by the same writer as follows: "First, there is no law at all, either written or unwritten. Then a long series of statutes aim at regulating the wages of labour, and end in general provisions, preventing and punishing as far as possible all combinations to raise wages. During the latter part of this period an opinion grows up that to combine for the purpose of raising wages is an indictable conspiracy at common law. In 1825 the statute law is put upon an entirely new basis, and all the old statutes are repealed; but in such a way as to countenance the doctrine about conspiracies in restraint of trade at common law. . . . In 1871 the common law doctrine as to agreements in restraint of trade being criminal conspiracies is repealed by statute. But... the doctrine of a conspiracy to coerce or injure is so interpreted as to diminish greatly the protection supposed to be afforded by the act of 1871. Thereupon the act of 1875-being the Conspiracy and Protection of Property Act 1875 quoted above-specifically protects all combinations in contemplation or furtherance of trade disputes . . . and provides positively that no agreement shall be treated as an indictable conspiracy unless the act agreed upon would be criminal if done by a single person."

By the side of the repressive legislation there is already at an early date an attempt to provide machinery for the purpose of conciliation, and in 1824 a consolidation act was passed, repealing the anterior legislation on the subject (5 Geo. IV. c. 96), but this act as well as the Councils of Conciliation Act 1867, and the Arbitration (Masters and Workmen) Act 1872, remained ineffective, and was, together with the last-mentioned statutes, repealed by the Conciliation Act 1896. This act enables the board of trade, in the case of any difference existing between an employer or any class of employers and workmen-(a) to inquire into the circumstances of such differences; (b) to take steps for bringing the parties together; (c) to appoint a person or persons to act as conciliator, or as a board of conciliation; (d) on the application of both parties to appoint an arbitrator. The act also provides for the registration of boards of conciliation and for the furnishing of periodical

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returns to the board of trade by such boards, and gives power to the board of trade to aid in the establishment of boards of conciliation for districts or trades, in respect to which adequate means do not exist for having disputes submitted to conciliation. In France an act for the settlement of trade disputes between whole classes of workmen and employers was passed in 1892. It provides that the justice of the peace of the district shall convene representatives of the contending parties, and appoint an umpire for the settlement of the dispute, unless they can be induced to agree to a friendly arrangement, or in the selection of arbitrators, or of an umpire. In Italy an act was passed on the same subject in 1893. In Germany the act of 1890 (mentioned above) gave power to the trade tribunals (see above) to act as boards of conciliation, but the provisions in question do not seem to have had much practical effect.

[See statutes named above; also Macdonell, Law of Master and Servant.-Ramsey, Handbook for Employers and Employed.-And Professor Stieda's articles in Conrad's Handwörterbuch, s.v. Einigungsämter"; "Gewerbegericht," and the same author's article "Einigungsämter" in the supplemental volume (see CONCILIATION, BOARDS OF; CONSEILS DE PRUD'HOMMES; ENGINEERING AND ALLIED INDUSTRIES AGREEMENTS PRUD'HOMMES, and TRADE DISPUTES ACT 1906.* E. S. TRADE DOLLAR. See DOLLAR.

TRADE, FOREIGN, REGULATIONS OF (to the time of the Commonwealth). Before the Danish settlement, England had little foreign trade. English merchants travelled to the great continental fairs, and in 796 Charles the Great granted a safe-conduct to subjects of Offa of Mercia, trading in his dominions, on condition that Offa extended the like protection to men of the Empire. English exports consisted of raw produce to be worked up by other nations, and, in order to keep up the price of material on which the foreign market depended, Edgar prohibited the sale of a weigh of wool for less than 120d. on pain of forfeiture of 46s. from both buyer and seller. A minimum price of wool, the chief strength of England, was also fixed by Edward III. Ine, and after him Athelstan, encouraged commerce by making thegn-worthy merchants who had thrice crossed the sea by their own means (see MERCHANTS, HISTORY OF ENGLISH). Ethelred's laws declared that "the men of the Emperor who come in their ships are held as worthy of good laws as we are," and companies of German merchants, of whom the most important were men of Cologne and of the HANSE TOWNS, early founded a colony in London, and obtained extensive privileges from Henry II. and his sons. By the laws of Edward the Confessor, foreign merchants were forbidden to take up work on which natives were employed, and to sell retail or to each other, restrictions reimposed in the fifteenth century, when the citizens complained that alien merchants encroached on their privileges (see FOREIGN TRADERS AND THEIR RIGHTS). By

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granting safe-conducts and licences to trade, in return for a fine, the king kept the control of trade in his hands, and prohibition to export wool was a weapon ready to his use in time of dispute with Flanders, the great cloth-making country. Freedom from excessive dues and tolls was promised by the Great Charter, but it was one of the complaints of the barons at the parliament of Oxford 1258, that the king's exactions on merchandise impoverished English merchants and kept away aliens, and the resistance caused by the seizure of the wool in 1297 led to the confirmation of the charters. Edward I. improved the conditions of trading by making it subject to the same laws throughout the kingdom, instead of being regulated only by local custom and authority. The Statute of Merchants enacted in 1283 that debts owing to foreign merchants, and acknowledged in appointed towns before the king's officers, could be distrained for; before this time there was "no speedy law provided for them to have recovery of their debts at the day of payment assigned, and by reason hereof, many merchants have withdrawn to come into this realm with their merchandises." The fixing of the customs in 1275, on wool, woolfells and leather, the chief exports, and on wine, the chief import, was another measure of this reign for the regulation of trade. In 1303, by Carta Mercatoria, aliens agreed to pay higher customs in return for permission to stay longer than the usual forty days, to sell spice retail, and other privileges (see IMPORTS AND EXPORTS). To develop cloth

manufacture in England, Edward III., 1337, offered protection to Flemish weavers and prohibited export of wool on pain of death, and import of cloth on pain of forfeiture. These restrictions did not continue in force for long, and in 1353 it was provided that imported cloths under ASSIZE (q.v.) were to be allowed for in price, instead of being forfeited, because alien merchants "do withdraw them to come with Cloths into England." The export of wool and import of wine were both regulated in the interests of foreign merchants, the fare between Calais and Dover was fixed, and, in 1353, aliens were placed under the king's protection by the Statute of the Staple, which organised more fully the Company of Merchants of the Staple who exported wool (see STAPLE). A result of the encouragement given to foreign merchants was the large circulation of base money in England (see POLLARDS AND CROCKARDS). In order to check the import of this coin, and also the export of English money, much of which was taken abroad in payments to Rome, it was enacted in 1335 that "no Religious Man or other" carry gold or silver out of England; in 1340, for every sack of wool exported, silver plate of two marks value was to be imported, but the Flemings also forbidding export of bullion,

this act was repealed. The extensive import of finished goods, chiefly brought by the Italians, interfered with the growing industries of the English. In 1435, import of silken goods was forbidden, and in 1463 and 1484 the prohibition was extended to very many small wares, the artificers having "piteously shewed and complained" that they "be greatly impoverished and much hindered and prejudiced of their worldly Increase and daily Living, by the great Multitude" of ready-made goods imported, Side by side with the laws to keep foreign goods out of the kingdom in the interests of manufactures were those to keep gold and silver within it as the measure of the national power. In 1390, aliens were required to spend half the value of their imports (extended, in 1402, to the whole) on exports; at the same time, denizens were forbidden to export wool, and merchant strangers were to be well treated in England "to the Intent that they shall have the greater Courage to repair into the same." In 1478, half the payments for staple wares were required to be in money and bullion, sent in three months to the mint, while export of gold and silver was made a felony; it was not allowed without a licence before 1660, but in 1510 the penalty of felony was repealed. The object of these laws, and also of the Navigation Acts, passed in 1381 and renewed under the Tudors, for the protection of English shipping (see NAVIGATION LAWS), was to increase the national power; while the aim of Edward III. had been to promote the present well-being of the people themselves. The immediate result of his regulation of trade was that foreign luxuries became cheaper and more numerous and trade increased, but it led to the decay of native shipping and the injury of native manufactures. Against these dangers, legisla tion was directed from the time of the Good Parliament (1360-1377). As commerce became a national matter, commercial treaties took the place of safe-conducts and licences. By the Treaty of Utrecht in 1474, the HANSARDS were confirmed in their privileges in London, but the English were to be free to take part in the Baltic trade which had always been carried on by the Hansards (see HANSEATIC LEAGUE). In 1496 the Great Intercourse (see INTERCURSUS MAGNUS) secured free trade with the Netherlands, to the advantage of the Company of Merchant Adventurers, who exported cloth, and had their mart at Antwerp (see ADVENTURERS, MERCHANTS). The protective policy of the 15th century continued through the 16th. The extensive conversion of arable land into pasture (see ARABLE LAND, CONVERSION TO PASTURE) in the reigns of Henry VII. and Henry VIIL drove a large proportion of the rural population into the towns, and the consequent competition among craftsmen was increased by the number of foreign wares imported, many of them by the

Merchant Adventurers.

In 1515 it was forbidden, as it had been in 1336, to those not of high rank to wear foreign cloth. In 1512, import of hats and caps was prohibited as the cause of "great Idelnesse, enpoveryshyng and utter undoing of great multitude of the Kyngis naturall subjectis borne wythin this said Realme"; in 1529 they could be imported, but sold only at fixed prices. Statutes of Henry VIII.'s reign prohibited the sale of the best cloth to aliens unless there were no English buyers, the import of tinware, and the buying'up of wool for alien merchants. An act was passed 1563, and confirmed 1628, prohibiting import of small wares, such as cutlery and haberdashery, which had been imported so largely as to lead "to the decay of the population of towns and the loss of skill in the like mysteries within the Realm of England." Attempts were made by restricting the import of wine and foreign luxuries, to check the extravagance and 66 excesse of apparell," which was "at these daies so gorgious that" godly and necessary lawes, made of our Princes, and oft repeated with the penalties, can [not] bridle this detestable abuse." Velvet hats were forbidden, in 1566, to those below the rank of son of a knight or lord. Elizabeth welcomed Protestant refugees from Flanders and France, who introduced new industries, especially new methods of working up wool into bayes, sayes, arras," and worsted, as the Flemings, under Edward III.'s protection, had developed English cloth manufacture. Export of live sheep was forbidden in 1566, on pain of forfeiture of goods, a year's imprisonment, and loss of the left hand, a second offence being felony; for nine unwrought cloths exported one was to be exported wrought "for the better employment and Reliefe of greate multitudes of the Queenes Majesties Subjectes using the Arte and Labour of Clothe woorking." MONOPOLIES (q.v.) were granted for manufacture of salt, paper, and other things which before had been imported. The associations formed in the 16th and 17th centuries for trade and exploration, unlike the older trading societies, were jointstock companies; the monopoly which they enjoyed was an incentive to extend trade. Muscovy Company (see RUSSIA COMPANY) obtained a charter in 1553, and the following year eastern trade was granted to them on condition that they employed English ships and sailors, and exported only English cloth. Much of the carrying trade with the east had been in the hands of the Venetians, whose "Flanders Galley," instituted in 1317, yearly visited Southampton and Bruges; this trade declined in the 16th century, partly in consequence of the legislation against the import of ready-made goods. In 1588 the Levant Company (see TURKEY COMPANY), founded 1581, undertook the trade of the Venetians, whose last fleet to Southampton was wrecked off the

VOL. III

The

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Needles in 1587. The revenue from feudal dues having decreased, James I., in order to supplement the parliamentary supplies, levied an imposition on imports which was resisted by a merchant named Bate (see BATE'S CASE). The case was tried, and the king was declared to be keeping within his prerogative. Impositions were also exacted during the Commonwealth, though the same party had opposed them when levied by the king. The English, who from being an agricultural were becoming a commercial nation, had formidable rivals in the Dutch, who, in the first half of the 17th century, had control of most of the trade formerly carried on by the Venetians and Hansards. The aim of the Stuart policy, as of the Elizabethan, was to develop trade as a means towards the security and power of the kingdom, rather than to increase its wealth. In 1608, James I. withdrew the charter of the Merchant Adventurers until 1615, with the object of encouraging in England the finishing processes of manufacture, for which cloth was usually sent to the Netherlands. A commission on trade was appointed in 1622 to inquire into the fall in the price of wool, the regulation of merchant companies, the best means of obtaining money payments for exports, and many other matters concerning trade. A trade commission was also appointed by Cromwell in 1655. The EAST INDIA COMPANY (q.v.), incorporated in 1600, had many struggles with the Dutch, who themselves founded an East India Company in 1602; the Navigation Act of 1651, prohibiting any import from Dutch fisheries, and imports from the colonies unless brought in English ships, while it caused the price of imports to rise, increased the English carrying-trade at the expense of the Dutch.

[Statutes of the Realm.-W. Cunningham, The Growth of English Trade and Industry, 1890, 92. The Commercial Policy of Edward III. (Trans. R. Hist. Soc., New Series, vol. iv.) 1889.-H. Hall, A History of the Customs Revenue of England, 1885.-W. J. Ashley, An Introduction to English Economic History and Theory, 1892.-W. Stubbs, Select Charters, 1870.-A Constitutional History of England, 1880.-Social England (ed. H. Traill), vols. 1-4, 1893-95.-J. B. Williamson, The Foreign Commerce of England under the Tudors (Stanhope Essay), 1883.-B. Thorpe, Ancient Laws and Institutions of England, 1840.-T. Rymer, Foedera, 1816.-H. R. F. Bourne, English Merchants, 1886.-C. Armstrong (temp. Henry VIII.), A Treatise concerning the Staple and the Commodities of the Realm (R. Pauli, Drei volkswirthschaftliche Denkschriften, 1878).-D. Macpherson, Annals of Commerce, 1805.]

TRADE, FREE. See FREE TRADE.

M. T. M.

TRADE, LARGE AND SMALL. Many of the considerations raised in the discussion of the relative advantages and drawbacks of production on a large and a small scale (vide PRODUCTION) are either identical with, or at

20

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least analogous to, those which present them- | selves in any estimate of the respective merits and demerits, from an economic point of view, of trade pursued on a large and a small scale. In the sphere of that commercial competition, which arises in trading, as contrasted with the industrial competition distinguished by CAIRNES as affecting production, the larger competitors enjoy certain advantages of buying and selling, of handling a mass rather than a small quantity of goods; while the smaller competitors are able to pay greater personal attention to the peculiar wants of individual customers. On the one hand, the larger houses can spread their purchases over a wider market, they can employ more competent and experienced buyers, they can offer a better chance of a regular demand, they can afford more easily to risk the loss of having some goods left on their hands. They command more extensive resources than those at the disposal of their smaller competitors. They can also sell on better terms. They can advertise their goods more effectively. They can employ a larger and abler staff of commercial travellers to push their wares. They can acquire more easily a high reputation, which inspires their customers with confidence in their disinclination to cheat or adulterate. They can offer a greater variety of goods to suit different tastes. In the internal management of the business they are able to avail themselves of the economies which attach to organisation on a large scale. They can apply the principle of the division of labour more fully; and it may be noticed that, even where the small producer has an advantage in the personal superintendence of his workmen -in preventing them from wasting time or material the same advantage is by no means so obvious in the business of the trader, selling to customers the goods which others have produced. There is here hardly so much opportunity for waste, and it is easier to secure the effective superintendence of subordinates. is conceivable that economic considerations may point in the direction of large trading in goods, which are produced most successfully on a small scale. The qualities required for a competent dealer are perhaps more generally diffused, and more readily tested. On the other hand, in spite of the growth of large establishments in retail trade, which reproduce on a great scale the general shop of the country villages, and offer to customers the convenience of completing their various purchases within one building, it is still true that the personal attention, which a small shopkeeper can give to the personal idiosyncrasies of his customers, has an economic importance which is hardly realised, and with difficulty attained, in a large establishment. Time may, as it seems, be wasted, both by buyer and by seller, but the waste is agreeable to the one and is indirectly

It

profitable to the other. It is a commonplace of economic treatises that friction is more prevalent in retail trade than in other departments of economic action; and this friction it is which assists the small shopkeeper to hold his own against the larger dealer. Charles BOOTH has remarked in his investigations into the conditions of London Life and Labour that one of the most characteristic features of London industry is, contrary to a common opinion, the number of small undertakings; and, though the more obvious feature of the times in trade as distinct from industry seems to be the concentration of small businesses, and the extended development of large concerns, this change, which often amounts in reality to a substitution of wholesale for retail trade, may still be accompanied by the constant creation of supplementary and independent shops, where scope is left for the close vigilance and minute attention of the smaller trader. From a social standpoint it may be observed, on the one hand, that individuals unable to become capitalists themselves, may secure tolerable incomes as the salaried agents of large concerns; and on the other, that the suppression of the small traders by immense companies tends to remove a useful element from the life and activities of small towns. In this, as in so many instances, it is easy and tempting to generalise, but the process is not seldom as dangerous as the results are untrustworthy. [Cp. Arts. on EMPLOYERS AND EMPLOYED, and INDUSTRIES, LARGE AND SMALL.]

L. L. P.

TRADE MARK. The term "trade mark" denotes a distinctive mark or device showing that the article to which it is affixed is manufactured or sold by a certain house or firm. By recent statutes a trade mark must consist of or contain at least one of the following essential particulars :

(a) A name of an individual or firm printed, impressed, or woven, in some particular and distinctive manner; (b) a written signature or copy of a written signature of the individual or firm applying for registration thereof as a trade mark; (c) a distinctive device, mark, brand, heading, label, or ticket; (d) an invented word or words; (e) a word or words having no reference to the character or quality of the goods, and not being a geographical name.

The common law recognised the exclusive right of a manufacturer to use a trade mark which had come to be recognised as distinctive of his goods. A register of trade marks was established in 1875, and remodelled in 1883. Anybody wishing to register a trade mark must make application to the comptroller - general of patents, designs, and trade marks. register contains the names and addresses of proprietors and a record of every change of property in a trade mark. It is necessarily open to public inspection. Registration is

The

prima facie evidence of a right to the exclusive use of a trade mark, and becomes conclusive evidence after the lapse of five years. It must be renewed every fourteen years. No action can be brought for the infringement of an unregistered trade mark. For an ordinary infringement the remedy consists in damages and an injunction; but fraudulent infringement is a criminal offence, punishable with fine and imprisonment, beside forfeiture of the goods in respect of which the offence has been committed. Foreign goods bearing a trade mark in use in the United Kingdom may not be imported unless the trade mark is accompanied with a definite indication of the country in which the goods were produced. As the right to a trade mark is always the exclusive right to use it in connection with particular class of goods, it can be assigned or transmitted only in connection with the goodwill of the business concerned in making those goods. It is determinable with that good-will. [See the Patents, Designs, and Trade Marks Act 1883 (46 & 47 Vict. c. 57), amended by the Act 51 & 52 Vict. c. 50; the rules and orders made in pursuance of the statutes and the cases, Select Committee on Merchandise Marks, 1887.]

TRADE NAME. See FIRM.

F. C. M.

a

TRADE REVIVAL. See REVIVAL, TRADE. TRADER. A trader is principally distinguished from a merchant in economic phraseology, if such a distinction can be said to exist at all, by the comparative magnitude of their commercial transactions, though there is also a possible implication, approved by convention, that the former is more actively, the latter more passively engaged in trade (see TRADE). Similarly a tradesman is differentiated from a trader by being more personally occupied in the actual purchase and sale, and especially the sale of goods, while the trader rather provides them for him. In legal language any person engaged in any kind of mercantile or industrial business is called a trader. Before 1869 only traders were subject to the bankruptcy law, and even now, in the case of married women, a distinction is made between married women "carrying on an independent trade separately from their husbands' and other married women. Bankruptcy proceedings cannot be taken against the latter.

"

R. W. C. T.

TRADE UNIONS.* A trade union has been defined as "a continuous association of wageearners for the purpose of maintaining or improving the conditions of their employment" (Sidney and Beatrice Webb, History of Trade Unionism, ch. i. p. 1).

No organisation corresponding exactly to this definition appears to have existed before the beginning of the 18th century, when employers and employed first became permauently differentiated in certain important in

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The

dustries. The principal object of the original trade unions was to secure the better enforcement of various protective laws, such as the statute of apprentices (5 Eliz. c. 4), which were fast falling into abeyance (see APPRENTICESHIP, STATUTE OF). But when the factory system had grown up and caused these laws to be repealed, the function of trade unionism changed. workers combined no longer to enforce the law, but to maintain restrictions which the law had ceased to countenance. In so doing, they found themselves opposed by the mass of legislation that had gradually grown up against combinations to affect wages and to hamper the free course of trade. These statutes were consolidated and strengthened in 1799, and it was not till after their repeal in 1824 that membership of a trade union ceased to be a statutory criminal offence (see COMBINATION LAWS). The legalisation of trade unions, however, was not yet complete. For, in 1867, the Court of Queen's Bench held, in Hornby v. Close, that the objects of a trade union, though no longer necessarily criminal, were still so far illegal as being "in restraint of trade" that no contract or trust undertaken in respect of them could be enforced. No action could, therefore, be maintained against a trade-union official for wrongfully withholding a portion of the union funds. It was the agitation provoked by this decision that led to the passing of the Trade Union Act of 1871, which has given trade unions their present legal status. According to this act, every trade union is recognised, whether its objects be "in restraint of trade or not, as a legitimate object of a trust. Thus, it can hold property, both real and personal, in the name of trustees, who can sue or be sued in respect of such property. But it has no legal personality so as to enable it to sue or be sued directly as a corporate body, nor can its officials be sued on behalf of its members collectively except in order to assert or defend their proprietary rights (see Temperton v. Russell (No. 1), 1893, 1 Q. B. 435). It cannot, therefore, either directly or through representatives, enter into collective agreements on behalf of its members, so as to become liable, in case of breach of contract, to be sued for damages payable out of its funds. The Trade Union Act, as amended in 1876, relates to "any temporary or permanent combination for regulating the relations between employers and employed or for imposing restrictive conditions on the conduct of any trade or business," and therefore applies to associations of employers as well as to associations of workmen.

"

It is pointed out in the 149th paragraph of the report of the royal commission on labour that, where employers and workmen have surrendered the settlement of their mutual contracts to associations which cannot sue or be sued for damages if their members break the