Gild Socialists and others who have formed a false conception
of the mediaeval craft gilds and base fantastic theories upon them should read a short article on the subject by Miss Eileen Power in History, the organ of the Historical Association, for January (Macmillan, 2s. net). Miss Power points out that the Ideal craft gild, composed of master craftsmen with journeymen and apprentices who would in time become masters, did not exist in every town or at any particular period, and that by the fourteenth century the craft gilds, where they flourished, no longer included all craftsmen, but rather accentuated the dis. tinction between employers and wage-earners in the larger towns. The historical evidence, so far as it goes, shows that craft gilds, however admirable in theory, were a failure, and that the capital- ist system was well developed long before the Middle Ages came to an end. Lieutenant-Commander Dower's article on "The Need for Naval History " for the better training and organization of the Navy is also very much to the point.
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