In the second place, the handicraft system had given a distinct political right and power to skilled workmen.

The craftsmen, and the burghers of cities who represented them, had to be called upon by kings and nobles to give assent to wars and to furnish the sinews of war after the Guilds had gained money-power.

And there has as yet developed in modern government no substitute for this older and more direct political appeal to individuals, through their work, to make the vote alluring to the imagination of modern laborers.

In the third place, the transition from the feudal law of personal service from each class to each class above to the tax system of modern times, whereby a citizen pays his dues to society in cash instead of in such personal service, took place in the era of handicraft and was so bound up with the apprentice system and the Guild organization that the connection between labor and public right and duty was obvious and definite.

We feel that it is an advance in political development when a man, and now a woman, also, gains the franchise directly as a human being without regard to social station or vocational approach to life.