614 LABOUR AND WAGES. 



remitted, as they had been tacitly by the omission of the 

 clauses in n Henry VII, cap. 22. It is probable that the City 

 was exempted, for most of the London artificers were included 

 in those companies whose property has been appropriated in 

 later times by people who have no relation whatever to those 

 handicraftsmen and trades who gave the funds, and expected 

 that the craft or trade would be permanently benefited by 

 them. 



In vol. iv. p. 1 20. I reprinted from Elizabeth's proclama- 

 tions the assessment which, in pursuance of this statute, the 

 Rutland magistrates issued in June, 1563. This assessment, 

 printed by the Queen's order and circulated, was intended to 

 be the type of similar regulations to be applied to all counties 

 in England, with such differences as customary and local prices 

 might suggest. Thus there can be little doubt that general 

 prices were lower in the North of England than they were 

 in the South, and it will be found that the Northern assessors 

 fixed the wages of labour at lower rates than the Southern 

 magistrates did. It should be added, that there were in 

 existence statutes which inflicted death penalties on what we 

 now call trade unions, and that those who administered the law 

 were beginning to make what they called a conspiracy a 

 matter of exceedingly elastic and dangerous interpretation. 



The legislature had long been accustomed SPnx prices, 

 and had entrusted the function of such a regulation to officials 

 and corporations. Henry the Eighth and his successors often 

 fixed the price of meat, wine, beer, and many similar com- 

 modities. The Assise of Bread and Beer is so ancient a 

 statute that it is undated. It did not fix the price of these 

 articles, but it fixed the price at which the baker and brewer 

 should vend what they produced. Even at that early age it 

 was seen that no human power could fix the price at which 

 wheat and malt should be sold, and the statute gives a 

 schedule of what the weight and the price of the loaf or 

 barrel should be, as the price of wheat or malt rose or fell. 

 They who were greatly interested in determining the rates at 



