THE trade clubs of eighteenth-century handicraftsmen regarded the limitation of apprentices and the exclusion of illegal men as the pivot of their Trade Unionism. Down to 1814 the policy of regulating the entrance into a trade could claim the sanction of law, and the workmen's organisations did their utmost to prevent the repeal of the Statute of Apprentices. ı Notwithstanding the legal opening of every occupation, the Parliamentary committees of 1824-25 and 1838, and the Royal Commission of 1867 revealed numerous cases in which Trade Unions sought to regulate the entrance into their respective trades. It has accordingly been assumed by many writers that the policy of restricting numbers forms an integral part of Trade Unionism. In the following pages we shall examine how far this assumption holds true of the Trade Unionism of the present day; we shall estimate the number of Trade Unions that aim at restricting the entrance into their trades; and we shall analyse the actual working of such regulations in order to discover how far they succeed in effecting their object. For the purpose of this analysis it will be convenient to classify all rules dealing with admission to a trade under the four heads of Apprenticeship, Limitation of Boy-Labor, Progression within the Trade, and the Exclusion of Women.