324 History of ihc English Lauded Interest. 



people at this period, wc find that the statute of 5 Eliz. c. 4 

 directed that each year, in Easter sessions, the justices should 

 assemble and call upon such discreet and grave persons as they 

 thought meet, to limit, rate and appoint the wages of all 

 labourers, artificers, workmen, or apprentices of husbandry by 

 the year, week, month, or otherwise, with or without meat 

 and drink, and what wages every workman or labourer shall 

 take by the great for mowing, reaping, or threshing of corn, or 

 for mowing or making hay, or for ditching, paving, railing, or 

 hedging, by the rod, perch, pole, etc., and for any other kind 

 of reasonable labour or service." This statute had not as yet 

 been repealed ; but had been extended by 1 Jac. I. c. 6, to the 

 rating of wages of all labourers, weavers, spinsters, and work- 

 men or workwomen. The law empowered the justices to 

 punish defaulters, whether amongst the ranks of employer or 

 employed, and even went so far as to forbid any retainer, 

 promise, gift, or pa^'ment of wages contrary to the spirit of 

 the Acts. 



Now though in the legislation prior to the reign of Elizabeth 

 it was undoubtedly the intention of our statesmen to prevent 

 excessive wages, yet in the statute of Elizabeth it is expressly 

 mentioned that its object was to benefit the labourer and 

 hireling, so that they should have, both in the time of scarcity 

 and in the time of plenty, a convenient iiroportion of wages. 

 In other words the laws antecedent to the reign of Elizabeth 

 imited the maximiun of wages, those enacted since were 

 intended to fix publicly the permissible minimum of wages. 

 There is very little to say in favour of even the latter prac- 

 tice. In times when labour was scarce it might possibly have 

 cheeked any development of that economy since known as 

 "the sweating system." But at the end of the eighteenth 

 century, when the supply of labour exceeded the demand, it 

 Avas too harsh an expedient to find public favour, as the House 

 of Commons very soon decided when Whithead attempted in 

 1705 to resuscitate the Act of Elizabeth, 



For all the evil results of these labour laws the landlords, 

 or rather their representatives on the magisterial bench, in- 

 curred the blame. But it may be pointed out in their ex- 



