EVANGELICAL SOCIALISTS. 
105 
meetings commence with prayer, and the Bible lies on the 
table of the council. Those addicted to drink are inexorably 
excluded. The association possesses an insurance fund which 
pays 3000 dollars to the widow or orphans of a deceased 
member, and in this way more than a million dollars have been 
distributed. It has not taken part in any strike, but the number 
and union of its members constitute a force with which the 
railway companies have to reckon. The corporate spirit, and 
the sense of honour resulting therefrom, are guarantees of good 
behaviour and good work. The engine-drivers, the public, and 
the companies themselves have only to be congratulated on 
these happy results, and it would be a good thing if similar 
results could be obtained in all trades. This, however, is a 
free association, founded on the initiation of its members. If 
the State were to try to found similar associations by authority 
it would probably fail, and by giving them a monopoly it 
would quickly disorganize the present working of industries. 
Some attempts at establishing trade corporations have 
actually been made in Germany. Thus, at Osnabrück, the 
artisans formed a corporation under the inspiration and patron 
age of the burgomaster, Herr Miquel, and the Staats-Sodalisi of 
the 5th October, 1878, published their statutes. According to 
the report of Councillor F. Reuleaux, the watchmakers of all 
Germany formed an association represented by a central com 
mittee of delegates, and formulated regulations for the admission 
of apprentices. At the present time they are occupied in 
introducing the methods of manufacture employed in the 
United States. The engravers, the potters, the tinsmiths, the 
engineers, all followed this example. Their principal aim is to 
tram up good workmen and to arouse the corporate spirit. 
Councillor Reuleaux praises these efforts, because he sees in 
them a means of raising German workmen to a level with those 
of England or America. Recently, however, the greater 
number of these associations were dissolved by virtue of 
the new Anti-Socialist law. 
The “Central Union for Social Reform” obtained the ad 
hesion and even the co-operation of several well-known econo 
mists, such as Professor Adolf Wagner, of Berlin University ;