Every man who voted for the election of Lord Mayor was therefore bound
to be a liveryman--_i.e_., a member of a Company. This restriction is
still in force; that is to say, the City of London, the richest and
the greatest city in the world, now allows eight thousand liverymen,
or members of the Companies, to elect their chief magistrate.
Why do I tell over again this old threadbare tale? Perhaps, however,
it is not old or threadbare to you: perhaps there are some here who
learn for the first time that association, trade union, combination,
is a thousand years old in this ancient city. I have told it chiefly,
however, because the history should be a warning to you of London;
because it shows that association itself may be made the very weapon
with which to destroy its own objects; in other words, because you
must find in this history an illustration or the great truth that the
forms of liberty require the most unceasing vigilance to prevent them
from becoming the means of destroying liberty. The Companies failed
because they could be, and were, used to destroy the freedom of the
very men for whose benefit they were founded. At present, as you know,
some of them are very poor indeed: those which are rich are probably
doing far more good with their wealth in promoting all kinds of useful
work than ever they did in all their past history.
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