LAW IN POLITICS. 37 I 



different directions. There were laws restricting 

 free interchange in the products of labour; and 

 there were other laws restricting the free em- 

 ployment of labour itself. He denounced both. 

 Labour was deprived of its natural freedom by 

 laws forbidding men from working at any skilled 

 labour, unless they had served an apprenticeship 

 of a specified time. It was also deprived of its 

 natural freedom by monopolies, which prevented 

 men from working at any trade within certain 

 localities, unless allowed to do so by those who 

 had the exclusive privilege. The first mode of 

 restriction prevented labour from passing freely 

 from one employment to another, even in the 

 same place. The second mode of restriction pre- 

 vented labour passing freely from place to place, 

 even in the same trade. Both of these restric- 

 tions were as mischievous, and as destructive of 

 their own object, as restrictions in the free inter- 

 change of goods. They both depended on the 

 same vicious principle of attempting to obtain by 

 Legislation results which would be more surely 

 attained by allowing every man to sell his goods 

 or his labour when, where, and how he pleased. 



