102 
Urdalil—Historical Survey of Fee Systems. 
conception of this development, it is necessary to constantly bear 
in mind the economic and political condition of the people and 
governments of the colonies. The English, Dutch, and the 
Swedes, who became the founders of the American colonies, came 
directly from old countries, in which everything had so long 
been firmly established by law and custom that the citizens had 
not become conscious of their rights to make or change their 
own laws at will. 
It is conceivable that these borrowed institutions and laws 
which the governors attempted to apply to the colonies, worked 
very well at first. But a short period of time sufficed to prove 
to these early pioneers, that the English law was not suitable 
to all conditions. The problems which the English law attempted 
to solve, were not the problems which confronted the colonist. 
They did, no doubt, at the very outset, attempt to regulate the 
marriage relation in the same way that they had been accus¬ 
tomed to in their home countries. They, or at least the gover¬ 
nors, did think it necessary to regulate the titles and rights to 
land. But the lack of any provision regulating the Indian trade, 
was not felt, until this trade with its abuses had assumed such 
proportions as to threaten the safety of the colony. Here they 
had no English precedent to fall back upon, and were therefore 
forced to devise some new means of dealing with the subject as 
it presented itself. 
The people who carried on the Indian trade were, as a class, 
disreputable and not to be trusted. 1 The most natural solution 
was, to allow only responsible and trustworthy people to engage 
in this traffic, and, to secure this end, it was enacted that no 
one should engage in the Indian trade without a license therefor 
from the colonial governor. This is the first stage of the evo¬ 
lution of a license fee; regulation by the state without any 
charge for the privilege, except perhaps a very small recorder’s 
fee for the clerk. An examination of the laws of the various 
colonies will reveal a large array of subjects which, to the mind 
of the colonial legislator, seemed equally liable to abuse. As 
examples the following might be cited: the occupations of tan- 
Dinwiddie, Virginia Historical papers, II, 340. 
