Part II

, section II, Nos. 9, 10, 11, 15), seem to have been administered with considerable strictness, which was only to be expected in view of the interest which gilds, boroughs, traders and craftsmen generally had in seeing that they were carried out. Judicial interpretations seem, however, to have begun at an early date to whittle them away to some extent (No. 17), for the Judges disliked rules "in restraint of trade" (No. 24 and section II, No. 18).

The wage clauses of the Statute present a more difficult problem. There is no doubt that their object was to fix a maximum (not a minimum) wage for agricultural labour (Nos. 6 and 14), which, however, should move with movements in prices. This policy was not so oppressive as it appears to us, because of the wide distribution of landed property, the consequent fact that comparatively few rural workers depended entirely upon wages for their living, and the relatively small difference between the social position of the small farmer or master craftsman and the hired persons whom they employed. In a colony like Massachusetts, where the policy of fixing maximum wages was adopted, its motive was seen in the simplest form (No. 21). Even in England, however, the same motives were at work to a less degree (Nos. 5, 22 and 23). The policy of fixing a maximum wage was, in fact, on a par with that of fixing prices, and probably popular with the small masters and small landholders, who formed a large proportion of the urban and rural population. It did not come to an end with the destruction of the absolute monarchy, but continued, with fair regularity, down to 1688, and, after that, with much less regularity, at any rate to 1762.

The regulation of wages did not, however, only aim at fixing a maximum. It also aimed on some, perhaps rare, occasions at fixing a minimum, at any rate for workers in the textile industries. These latter were treated in a special way, because the development of capitalism in the textile industries (Nos. 2, 3, 8, 16 and 19) had created a wage problem of a modern kind, at any rate in the south and east of England, such as did not yet exist in agriculture. Municipal authorities had in the past fixed minimum rates for textile workers (section II, No. 5). In 1593 four Bills were drafted which proposed to do the same by legislation, of which one is printed below (No. 8), and in 1603-04 an Act (No. 10) was passed to this effect. Two examples of the establishment of minimum rates are given from the proceedings of the Wiltshire Quarter Sessions, in 1602 and 1623. In the former case (No. 9) a piece list was drafted by a committee of clothiers and weavers, which was subsequently issued without alteration by the Justices (No. 13). In the latter case (No. 18) the textile workers of Wiltshire asked the Justices to enforce the assessment of wages on their employers, and the Justices complied by ordering the rates to be published at Devizes. This shows that the regulation of wages did in some cases protect the workers. Naturally, however, the Justices required stimulating in this part of their duties, and during the period of Charles I's personal government the Privy Council intervened to compel them to fix rates, as it did to compel them to administer the Poor Laws. In 1630 it received a petition from the textile workers of Suffolk and Essex complaining that their wages had been reduced, and appointed commissioners to investigate the matter (No. 19), who compelled the employers to raise wages (No. 20). The policy of fixing _minimum_ rates seems to have come to an end with the fall of the absolute monarchy in 1640, though it was occasionally revived by Parliament in the sixteenth century. ( Part III , section III, Nos. 3, 4 and 15).

AUTHORITIES

The more accessible of the modern writers dealing with the subject of this section are:--Cunningham, _English Industry and Commerce, Modern Times_, Part I ; Ashley, _Economic History_, Vol. I,