14 



ENFORCEMENT OF THE STATUTES OF LABOURERS 



it ; ' its importance consisted mainly in the much-needed 

 administrative details'" and in the definite mention of addi- 

 tional classes of labourers and of specific rates of wages. 

 While many duties are still left to local ofificials, the 

 "justices" who are to be assigned, and who are described 

 as coming into the country to hold their sessions, are 

 given, in successive clauses, full powers in regard to the 

 labour legislation, including the responsibility for inquir- 

 ing into the misdeeds of local officials and also for hand- 

 ing over to the collectors of the current tenth and 

 fifteenth the penalties arising from infringements of the 

 act. Every phrase in the text serves to confirm Lam- 

 bard's inference that these justices were " speciall lustices 

 for the causes of Labourers alone."-' Hence it is a dis- 

 tinct surprise to find that the form of the first commis- 

 sions issued as the result of the statute duplicates almost 

 exactly that of the joint commissions of the first period.* 

 The first three clauses as to the peace, array and violence 

 of malefactors, are identical in phraseology ; clause 4, in- 

 stead of referring merely to excess wages as does the 

 corresponding clause of the earlier commission, has be- 

 come a general clause for the enforcement of both the 

 ordinance and the statute of labourers ; clauses 5 and 6 

 relating to the supervision of certain officials are exactly 

 identical ; clause 7, on the punishment of all offences 

 against the legislation, has only slight verbal modifica- 

 tions ; while clause 8, dealing with homicides and felon- 

 ies, is considerably amplified. Commissions of the type 

 just described were now issued for forty-two districts, 



'Introduction, p. 2. 



-Ibid.; the complaints that the ordinance is not obeyed find expres- 

 sion in the preamble to the statute; evidently the first system of ad- 

 ministration had proved a failure. 



'* Supra, p. 9, note i. *App., 21-24, and 34. 



