[35] In an able pamphlet dated 1681, entitled _The Trade of England Revived_, it is stated that “we cannot make our English cloth so cheap as they do in other countries, because of the strange idleness and stubbornness of our poor,” who insist on excessive wages. But the author attributes this state of things, not to the existence of combinations, of which he seems never to have heard, but to the Poor Law and the prevalence of almsgiving. [36] _Wealth of Nations_, bk. i. ch. x. p. 59 of McCulloch’s edition, 1863. In an operative’s description, dated 1809, of the gatherings of the Paisley weavers, we see the Trade Union in the making. “The Paisley operatives are of a free, communicative disposition. They are fond to inform one another in anything respecting trade, and in order to receive information in a collective capacity they have, for a long course of years, associated in a friendly manner in societies denominated clubs.... When met the first hour is devoted to reading the daily newspapers out aloud.... At nine o’clock the chairman calls silence; then the report of trade is heard. The chairman reports first what he knows or what he has heard of such a manufacturing house or houses, as wishing to engage operatives for such fabric or fabrics; likewise the price, the number of the yarn, etc. Then each reports as he is seated; so in the period of an hour not only the state of the trade is known, but any difference that has taken place between manufacturers and operatives” (_An Answer to Mr. Carlile’s Sketches of Paisley_, by William Taylor, Paisley, 1809, pp. 15-17). [37] See Dunning’s account of the origin of the Consolidated Society of Bookbinders in 1779-80, in the Social Science Association’s _Report on Trade Societies_, 1860, p. 93; also _Workers on their Industries_, edited by F. W. Galton, 1895; _Women in the Printing Trades_, edited by J. R. MacDonald, 1904, p. 30.