The Connecticut labor news., 1923-04-27

1 preceive no difference in the kind or degree of inter ference with liberty, the only matter with which we have any concern, between the one case and the other. The bargain Is equally affected whichever half you regulate.
 It will need more than the nineteenth amendment to convince me that there are no differences between men and women, or that legislation can not take those differences into account l should not hesitate to take them into account If 1 thought 1t necessary to sustain this act.
 This statute does not compel anybody to pay anything. It simply forbids em- ployment at rates below those fixed as the minimum requirement of health and right living.
 1t is safe to assume that women will not be employed at even the lowest wages allowed unless they can earn them. or unless the employers business can sustain the burden.
 In short, the law in its character" and operation Is like hundreds of so-called police laws that have been upheld see no greater objection to using board to apply the standard fixed by the act than there is to the other commits sions with which we have become familiar, or than there is to the require 1nent of license in other cases.
 The fact that the statute warrants classification, which like all classihca- tions may bear hard upon some indi- viduals or in exceptional cases notWith- standing the power given to the board to issue a special license, IS no greater -infrmity than Is incident to all law. But the ground on which the law IS held to fail Is fundamental. and therefore 1t ic &0 nf tail.
 The criterion of constitutionality IS not whether we believe the law to, be for the public good We certainly can not be prepared to deny that reasonable man reasonably might have that belief in view of the legislation of Great Britain, Victoria, and number of the states of this Union. The belief IS fortified by very remarkable collection of documents submitted on behalf of the appellants, material here, 1 conceive, only as show he'd.
 In Australia the power to fix a mini mum for wages III the case of industrial disputes extending beyond the limits of any one state was gwen to court, and its president wrote a most interesting account of the operations. If a leglsla- ture would adopt what he things the doctrine of modern economics ot all schools, that freedom of contract is a misnoner as applied to contract be- tween an employer and an ordinary in- dividual employe," 1 could not pro- nounce an opinion with which 1 agree impossible to be entertained by reason able men. If the same legislature should accept his further opinion that industrial peace was best attained by the device of court having the above powers 1 should not feel myself able to contradict 1t, or to deny that the end justified restrictive legislation quite as adequately as beliefs concerning Sun day or exploded theories about usuary. should have my doubts, as 1 have them about this statute-but they would be whether the bill that has to be paid for every gain, although hidden as in- terstitia1 detriments, was not greater than the gain was worth-a matter hat 1t Is not for me to decide.
 l. am of opinion that the statute IS valid,