" CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 549 



in another " Statute of Labourers," to deal with the relations 

 between masters and men. 



Among its enactments were that no person engaged in 

 trade or husbandry might leave the county or shire where 

 he was engaged to serve in any other without a testimonial, 

 which was to be shown to the authorities at the place where 

 he desired to make a fresh engagement, failing which he 

 was imprisoned ; and, if a satisfactory testimonial was not 

 produced within twenty-one days, he was further punished 

 by flogging. During harvest time the Sheriffs were em- 

 powered to seize able-bodied men, and even women, and 

 compel them to serve in the fields ; and refusal was to be 

 punished by the stocks or by imprisonment. 



All artificers and labourers hired by the day or week 

 were required to work 12 or 13 hours a day during one-half 

 of the year, and from dayhght to dark the other half. 



Legislation thus left the working classes no freedom of 

 residence, choice of work, arrangement of remuneration, or 

 limitation of hours of labour. They were not called slaves, 

 for it was proudly boasted that England had no slaves ; but 

 they were looked upon as a distinct and inferior class to the 

 governing powers — " a people to be ruled, and not to rule 

 others." 



From the middle of the eighteenth century the actual 

 laws relating to labour have been steadily growing more 

 liberal, especially as regards combinations of workmen, which 

 had been many times suppressed with a hisfh hand. Between 

 the times of Edward I. and George IV, between thirty and 

 forty Statutes were passed against the organization of labour. 

 Even a combination of two or more workmen to raise the 

 rate of wages, or shorten the hours of work, was a criminal 

 action as late as the year 1824. A Select Committee in that 

 year reported on the laws that had been enacted against 

 Trades Unions, and declared that, in their opinion, they were 

 ineffective and irritating. In accordance with their recom- 

 mendation an Act was passed, repealing the law against 

 Trades Unions ; but the sudden freedom revealed the exist- 

 ence of so many societies and combinations of workmen, 

 which had been secretly organised, and now first dared to 

 show themselves openly, that another Select Committee con- 

 centrated its combined intellect on the situation, and recom- 

 mended that the old state of things be restored, and that the 

 Bill to legalise Trades Unions be forthwith repealed, on the 

 plea that the combinations legalised by it were injurious to 



