Freeland tribune. (Freeland, Pa.) 1888-1921, 1901-09-20
LABOR IN ENGLAND.
INTERESTING EXTRACTS FROM THE
PAGES OF HISTORY.

With slight omissions, the following
Is an article by Andrew A. Bruce, as
sistant professor of law in the Univer-
sity of Wisconsin. which appeared In a
recent issue of the Chicago Record
| Herald:
Prior to the thirteenth or fourteenth
century there was practically speaking
no labor question in England for the
courts or the parliament to grapple
with, since limited Industrial devel-
opment and the institution of slavery
had simplified the whole problem.
Personal liberty indeed was a thing
| unknown to the great masses of the
| people, and 1t is a significant fact that
even the much vaunted Magma Charta
exacted from King John by the insur-
| gent barons at time when 75 per cent
Of the inhabitants Of England were in
a state of practical slavery was worded
so as to apply only to free men"
In 134S and 1349 the terrible vista
| ton of the black plague spread over
England and carried off tens of thou
sands of the English peasants and la
| borers, and the survivors, taking ad-
vantage of the reduction in their num-
bers and the consequent scarcity of la
Dor, began everywhere to demand such
eXorbitant wages that bankruptcy
threatened the smaller employers and
the larger could operate only at loss.
The consequence was that the landed
proprietors, whose serfs most of these
| InI
| had but recently adopted the custom of
practically liberating such persons by
granting to them the use of small per-
cells Of land and the right to substitute
yearly payments of money or produce
for the personal service owing to their
lords, became incensed not only at
| their own loss of revenue, but at this
seeming ingratltude on the part of
their former bondmen.
The parliament being made up al
most entirely of their own numbers,
legislation was in their own hands, and
in 1319 the famous statute of laborers
was passed. The statute provided that
the farm laborers and the members Of
nearly all the skilled trades then fol-
lowed In England should not thereafter
decline to work for or demand higher
rates of wages than those which pre-
vailed in the year Immediately preced-
ing the visitation of the black plague
and In spite of the constant fuctua-
tions In the price of the commodities
which the laborers were compelled TO
buy and of the rent to be paid by them
remained In force until the reign of
Elizabeth, when 1t was repealed, but
only to make way for another statute
equally oppressive.
This latter statute provided that all
persons able TO work rs laborers or ar
tisans and not having Independent
means might be compelled to work at
agricultural pursuits and gave to the
justices of the peace, always members
of the landed or employing class, the
right to fix the rate of wages and the
hours of labor, while the statute passed
at about the same time 1913, made 'all
conspiraces and covenants of work
men not to make or do their work but
at certain rate or price" Illegal. These
latter statutes, although re-enacted
from time to time and changed in their
minor details, remained in force until
the beginning of the nineteenth cen
tury.
1t was the passage of these statutes
at so early a time in the history of
England-or, rather, the English deci-
slons based thereon-which has led so
many Of our American judges, reading
no doubt the decisions without realiz-
ing that there were statutes behind
them, to hold that in the eyes of the
law all strikes and boycotts must be
essentially Illegal.
In America the statutes have, with
| but few exceptions, not regulated the
rates of wages, and yet many judges
have adopted the rulings and opinions
of the English judges. We do, however,
have analogous statutes. If it had not
been for the interstate commerce and
antitrust statutes, both state and ma
tional, which make acts in restraint of
trade unlawful, we would hardly have
the plethora of injunctiOns leveled
against the labor unions with which we
are now visited.
Rigorous though the statutes directed
against labor may have been they were
not out of accord either with the gen
eral judge or legislature made law of
England in regard to other callings and
| trades, but were a part of a general
system of law and legislation enacted
and enforced by landed and military
aristocracy to which labor and trade
alike appeared seryile and debased and
to the interests of which the prosperity
of either class seemed equally detri-
mental. The story indeed of the legal
control of labor in England was, in its
earlier stages at any rate, but chapter
in the legal control of trade and indus
try generally, and was the result of the
same political and economic philoso-
! ply.
The statute of laborers, which as we
| have seen, originally regulated the rate
of wages of the worlingman, also CON
taned provision which required food
to be sold at reasonable prices, and at
least one statute definitely laid down
| the prices that should prevail for "lenS,