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496 General History of Europe century. 1 At first the formation of unions was forbidden by English law. Men were sentenced to imprisonment or deporta- tion as convicts if they joined such "combinations," or unions, to raise their wages. In 1824 Parliament repealed this harsh law, and trade-unions increased rapidly. They were hampered, how- ever, by various restrictions, and even now, although they have spread widely all over the world, people are by no means agreed as to whether workingmen's unions are the best way of improving the conditions of the laboring classes. Another theory for permanently bettering the situation of the working people which developed was socialism. As socialism has played an important role in the history of Europe during the past fifty years, we must stop to examine the meaning of this word. IV. THE RISE OF SOCIALISM 882. The Social Ownership of the Means of Production. Socialists hold that "the means of production" should belong to society and not be held as the private property of individuals. "The means of production" is a very vague phrase and might include farms and gardens as well as tools ; but when the socialist uses it he is generally thinking of the machines which the Indus- trial Revolution has brought into the world, and the factories and mines which house and keep them going, as well as the railroads and steamships which carry their goods. In short, the main idea of the socialists is that the great industries which have arisen as a result of the Industrial Revolution should not be left in private hands. They claim that it is not right for the capitalists to own the mills upon which the workingman must depend for his living ; that the attempt of labor unions to get higher wages does not offer more than a temporary relief, since the system is wrong which permits the wealthy to have such a control over the poor. The person who works for wages, say the socialists, is not free ; 1 The craft guilds described in a previous chapter ( 413, 700) somewhat re- sembled modern labor unions, but they included both capitalists and laborers. Our labor unions did not grow out of the medieval guilds, but were organized to meet conditions 'that resulted from the Industrial Revolution.