1. Factory laws now limit in many ways the employment of women and children, and the hours of work. Factory legislation began in England, early in the nineteenth century, to check some of the worst evils then showing themselves in the factories. It has since increased in England and has been copied rapidly by other countries. Some of the agricultural states of the Union have as yet no factory laws, but the states industrially more advanced have many. They are made, first, to apply to children. The evil of forcing children into factories is easily recognized. The child, subject to the commands of his parents or guardians, is not a free agent. At times a lazy father is tempted to support himself in idleness on the wages of his young children. Often poverty leads the parents to rob their children of health, of schooling, and of the joys of childhood. Child-labor depresses the wages of adults and the evil grows. Children laboring long hours in close and grimy factories, and growing into blighted and ignorant manhood, are a threat to society. In agricultural conditions, such as have prevailed generally in America, there is far less need of limiting the hours of work and the age at which children may begin to work. The barefoot boy trudging over clover-fields to carry water to the harvesters may be the happier, healthier, and better for his work.

Growth of child-labor legislation.

Women's work and shorter hours.

The work of women in factories tends to depress the wages of men, is inevitably harmful to family life, and, when the work is arduous and continuous, the evils are visited upon succeeding generations. In the early days of the factory system in England, the hours of work were lengthened in order to make the machinery earn as much as possible. The first laws regulating hours applied especially to women and children, limiting their work to ten or twelve hours daily. Later, this regulation was made to apply to men, and now is found in most civilized lands. In recent years the agitation has been for an eight-hour day, and doubtless it will some day be adopted in the majority of trades.

The workmen's remedies for injuries.

2. Many laws provide for the health and safety of workers in factories and mines. Both workman and employer are in many ways interested in providing against danger from fire, bad ventilation and lighting, bad sanitation, unprotected and dangerous machinery, and bad moral conditions in the factories and other places of work. What can the workman do to protect himself? (1) He may refuse to work whenever the conditions are bad. But this requires that he inspect the factory and judge of the sanitary conditions in each case, and that he then resist the temptation to accept employment of which he may be sorely in need. (2) He may ask higher wages to compensate for the added risk. But this is not practically possible with his insufficient knowledge of conditions, and it supposes an equal caution in many other workers. It is well that individual men are not excessively cautious, or the state would lack brave citizens and defenders. It is better that the forethought be in part exercised by the community collectively. (3) The person injured in health or limb may sue for damages. But this, with his means and knowledge, is often impossible, and is a costly process, yielding a pitiful recompense for a blighted life.

The employer is interested in attracting better workmen at lower wages, and in avoiding damages by making the conditions of work favorable. The law seeks the same end by more economical ways when it sets a minimum standard. Experience shows that certain safety appliances should always be present to prevent the evils; for a state to leave their provision to self-interest, is to trifle with the welfare of its citizens. Factory legislation usually is opposed by employers because of the expense it causes; but if the regulations apply to all factories, the expense becomes a part of the cost of production and is shifted, like the other expenses of production, to the general body of consumers, of which the employers form only a small part.

Factory laws to reduce accidents.

3. Laws regulate the form, time, and methods of payment in manufactures and mining. Companies sometimes keep stores and pay the workers in mines and factories in goods, instead of money. Such a store in the hands of a philanthropic employer might easily be made, without expense to himself, a great boon to his workmen, giving them more than the benefits of consumers' cooperation. But the usual result is told by the fact that such stores are known as "truck stores," "pluck-me stores." They are most often found where some one large corporation dominates in the community, as in mines, where the workers are in a very dependent condition. If the higher prices demanded practically lower real wages, it would seem that the worker had an immediate remedy in his power to demand higher money-wages. Recognizing that this is for the most part an illusion - for it is just in such places that the conditions for free competition are least present - the law in many states prohibits these stores. It regulates also the measuring of work, fixing the size of screens and of cars used in coal-mining. The law is especially favorable to the hand-laborer in regard to the collection of his wages, requiring regular monthly or fortnightly or sometimes weekly payments. Mechanics' liens give to workmen in the building trades the first claim on the products of their labor.

Legal regulation of wage-payment.

Limitation of freedom of contract.

4. In some cases the law forbids "contracting out/' and the courts fix the terms of the contract. In general, the law does not interfere with the right of the citizen to make any formal contract he chooses. It confines itself to providing rules and agencies for interpreting and enforcing the contracts when made. Employers often compel workmen to sign a release from damages in case of accident. This practice was forbidden even by common law, and many recent statutes have specifically provided that employers cannot "contract out" of the right to claim damages. The courts are particularly watchful of the interests of children, who are usually deemed incapable of entering into contracts binding them to their injury. Sailors, likewise, have long been protected and guarded by the law, because, journeying far from home, they are peculiarly in the power of their employers. The English courts may even change the contract if the sailors have been coerced by their masters. The rights of married women to mortgage their property is limited in some states in recognition of the undue influence that may be exercised by their husbands. The attempts in the last twenty years to settle the Irish land-question have resulted in a steady increase of the interference of law and courts with the freedom of contract between tenant and landlord. Though in many ways freedom of contract is thus limited, competition is not entirely destroyed; it is turned in other and usually better directions.

General nature of this social legislation.

5. This group of social laws resembles protective tariffs in preventing free competition, but differs from them in varying ways and degrees. Writers class all such laws as protective legislation, in that they depart from the rule of free trade taken in its broadest sense. It does not follow, however, that all these laws stand or fall together, - that if the protective tariff is wrong, all are wrong. The justification of every such measure is limited and relative, and therefore of varying strength. All protective measures are alike in that the free choice of the citizen is forbidden by law. The argument for the tariff is economic and political. The tariff does not seek to prevent a moral evil; foreign trade is morally as good as other trade. In a large majority of social laws the moral purpose is fundamental. It is the demand of humanity that competition be placed on a higher plane. Tariff legislation is primarily in the interest of a special well-to-do class, with which other citizens are compelled unwillingly to trade. Most social legislation is to protect the weak from being forced into contracts injurious to their welfare and happiness. In any case, social legislation is not to be justified by any but the most general abstract principle, - the attainment of the best social result. The best test of social protective laws is their contribution to a higher independence and to a freer competition on a higher, more worthy, and more humane plane.

Economic or moral objects primary.

Questions On Chapter 52. Other Protective Social And Labor Legislation

1. Is granting patents an interference with trade similar to tariffs?

2. What reasons are given in justification of laws closing barbershops on Sundays?

3. Can a person owning a lot on a residence street of a city erect a glue-factory on it?

4. What have you noted as to the benefits or hardships of restricting child labor in factories?

5. Are men less able to bargain for the loan of money than for other things?

6. Can law fix the rate of interest at any point desired? If so, then why not at zero; if not, then why fix any maximum rate of interest?

7. Are interest rates changing in America?

8. In what ways is the rate of interest affected by the rise or fall of the value of money?