Carroll Davidson Wright

“ Turning back to still earlier times, legislation—whatever its source or authority—must clearly be devoted to aims very different from modern aims in regulating labour, when it arose before the labourer, as a man dependent on an “employer” for the means of doing work, had appeared, and when migratory labour was almost unknown through the serfdom of part of the population and the special status secured in towns to the artisan. ”

“ The education of the masses in the elementary facts of political and economic science is one of the greatest educational ends of the day. The whole effort of government, therefore, to put the people in the possession of facts concerning all their conditions in life, so far as the same may be subject to official inquiry, belongs to the educational work of the people. It is the mission of government to secure that information which is essential for the proper understanding of industrial and social conditions. ”

“ Important decisions in 1888 and 1889 showed this belief Meaning of “wages.” to have been ill-founded. The essential point lies in the definition of the word “wages” as the “recompense, reward or remuneration of labour,” which implies not necessarily any gross sum in question between employer and workmen where there is a contract to perform a certain piece of work, but that part of it, the real net wage, which the workman was to get as his recompense for the labour performed. ”

“ The contributions of the tenth census to social science constitute the most colossal official contribution that had ever been made by any government. The great variety of topics, their exhaustive treatment, the large number of specialists engaged, the clearness of presentation—everything connected with the tenth census—marked it as an epoch-making investigation. ”

“ The powers of an inspector are to enter, inspect and examine, by day or by night, at any reasonable time, any factory or workshop (or laundry, dock, &c.) , or part of one, when he has reason to believe that any person is employed there; to take with him a constable if he has reasonable cause to expect obstruction; to require production of registers, certificates, &c., under the acts; to examine, alone or in the presence of any other person, as he sees fit, every person in the factory or workshop, or in a school where the children employed are being educated ”

“ The general welfare and the blessings of liberty can neither be secured nor promoted without an intelligent understanding of all the conditions surrounding life.
In obedience to this lofty sentiment, the framers of the constitution further provided for a decennial census, and that organic provision for a periodical census was the first of its kind in any country. The framers of the constitution led the way in all civilized countries for the systematic collection of facts from which the study of the relations of men could be intelligently made. ”

“ Even while it is clear, however, that manual labour, or the application of the bodily forces—with or without mechanical aid—to personal maintenance and the production of goods, remains the common lot of the majority of citizens of the most developed modern communities, still there is much risk of confusion if modern technical terms such as “labour,” “employer,” “labour legislation” are freely applied to conditions in bygone civilizations with wholly different industrial organization and social relationships. ”

“ He is the friend, therefore, of the historical school, and welcomes every endeavor of societies and of organized government to secure accurate and sufficient data bearing on the questions which interest him. So the efforts of governments everywhere to report the facts relative to the conditions of the people, their numbers, their habits, their business interests, their moral, economic, and social relations—everything, in fact, which grows out of the relations of men to each other and to society—are welcomed with enthusiasm. ”

“ Employment outside a factory or workshop in the business of the same is limited in a manner similar to that laid down in the Shop Hours Act, to be touched on presently. Overtime in certain classes of factories, workshops and warehouses attached to them is permitted, under conditions specified in the acts, for women, to meet seasonal or unforeseen pressure of business, or where goods of a perishable nature are dealt with, for young persons only in a very limited degree in factories liable to stoppage for drought or flood, or for an unfinished process. ”

“ While our knowledge continually increases of the remains of ancient craft, skill and massed labour, much has yet to be discovered that may throw light on methods of organization of the labourers. While much, and in some civilizations most, of the labour was compulsory or forced, it is clear that too much has been sometimes assumed, and it is by no means certain that even the pyramids of Egypt, much less the beautiful earliest Egyptian products in metal work, weaving and other skilled craft work, were typical products of slave labour. ”

“ He may advocate reforms, he may insist upon changes in legislation, upon the adoption of new systems of finance or commerce, but he does all this because to his mind the ascertained facts lead to his conclusions, and until they are completely overturned he will adhere and must adhere to his position ; yet he knows well that statistical statements are open to much criticism, and that the results of any governmental inquiry are open to the charge of inadequacy, even when the integrity of the inquiry cannot be questioned in the least. ”

“ The power of the courts to interfere in labour disputes is through the injunction and punishment thereunder for contempt of court. It is a principle of law that when there are interferences, actual or threatened, with property or with rights of a pecuniary nature, and the common or statute law offers no adequate and immediate remedy for the prevention of injury, a court of equity may interpose and issue its order or injunction as to what must or must not be done, a violation of which writ gives the court which issued it the power to punish for contempt. ”

“ Notwithstanding desultory enumerations and the unsystematic collection of information by foreign countries and by the home government through our colonial period, the credit of the first regularly organized periodical census is due to the United States, and our government has, commencing with 1790, made regular enumerations of the population, and, beginning with the year 1850, has conducted what may be properly called a national census, comprehending many features beyond the mere enumeration of the inhabitants. ”

“ Agreements among strikers to take peaceable means to induce others to remain away from the works of an employer until he yields to the demands of the strikers are not held to be conspiracies under the common law, and the carrying out of such a purpose by peaceable persuasion and without violence, intimidation or threats, is not unlawful. However, any interference with the constitutional rights of another to employ whom he chooses or to labour when, where or on what terms he pleases, is illegal. ”

“ Most of the work of this institution is of a purely scientific nature, but in its publications much information of value to social science is to be found.
No more important contributions to social science have been made under government auspices than those of the Bureau of Ethnology. Striking at the very roots of social science itself by reporting upon the conditions of tribes and peoples, it must take first rank in the estimation of social scientists. ”

“ In comparing legislation affecting factories, mines, shops and truck in the chief industrial countries of the continent with that of Great Britain, it is essential to a just view that inquiry should be extended beyond the codes themselves to the general social order and system of law and administration in each country. Further, special comparison of the definitions and the sanctions of each industrial code must be recognized as necessary, for these vary in all. ”

“ While, however, the constitution contained the germ of the census in its modern proportions, the men who framed it and who were first called upon to carry its provisions into effect comprehended the necessity of immediately expanding the germ, and they at once set the pace for official inquiry, which pace not only has not slackened during the present century, but has been accelerated even to a speed which has sometimes been criticised. ”

“ A number of states and the Federal government have enacted statutes providing for the incorporation of trade unions, but owing to the freedom from regulation or inspection enjoyed by unincorporated trade unions, very few have availed themselves of this privilege. A number of states have enacted laws tending to give special protection to and encourage trade unions. Thus, nearly one-half of the states have passed acts declaring it unlawful for employers to discharge workmen for joining labour organizations, or to make it a condition of employment that they shall not belong to such bodies. ”

“ Care is taken to secure only that information which has a positive bearing upon the current problems of the times, and the men engaged in the collection of the information are almost invariably so thoroughly interested in the ascertainment of the truth that their work is free from bias and may be accepted by the scientist as worthy of his use.
From the categorical statements that have been made it must be concluded that the Federal Government has been most generous in its contributions to social science, and that its study could not be carried on without such contributions. ”

“ The majority of the provisions of the Federal labour law apply to adult workers of both sexes, and the general limit of the 11–hours’ day, exclusive of at least one hour for meals, applies to men as well as women. The latter have, however, a legal claim, when they have a household to manage, to leave work at the dinner-hour half an hour earlier than the men. Men and unmarried women may be employed in such subsidiary work as cleaning before or after the general legal limits. On Saturdays and eves of the eight public holidays the 11-hours’ day is reduced to 10. ”

“ Mines are only included so far as truck, Sunday and holiday rest, prohibition of employment underground of female labour, limitation of the hours of women and young workers are concerned; otherwise the regulations for protection of life and limb of miners vary, as do the mining laws of the different states. To estimate the force of the Industrial Code in working, it is necessary to bear in mind the complicated political history of the empire, the separate administration by the federated states, and the generally considerable powers vested in administration of initiating regulations. ”

“ In studying the nature, the value and the extent of the contributions of the Federal Government to social science, one turns naturally to the efforts of the first Secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton. ”

“ Thus the acts 1831 to 1887, and also the act of 1896, apply to all workers (men, women and children) engaged in manual labour, except domestic servants; they apply not only in mines, factories and workshops, but, to quote the published Home Office Memorandum on the acts, “in all places where workpeople are engaged in manual labour under a contract with an employer, whether or no the employer be an owner or agent or a parent, or be himself a workman; and therefore a workman who employs and pays others under him must also observe the Truck Acts.” ”

“ A weaver in a cotton factory, where there are hundreds of operatives, is injured by the neglect or carelessness of the engineer in charge of the motive power. Under the common law the weaver could not recover damages from the employer, because he was the co-employé of the engineer. So, one of thousands of employés of a railway system, sustaining injuries through the carelessness of a switchman whom he never saw, could recover no damages from the railway company, both being co-employés of the same employer. ”

“ In most of the great inquiries into conditions of child labour the fact has come clearly to light, in regard to textile and non-textile trades alike, that parents as much as any employers have been responsible for too early employment and excessive hours of employment of children, and from early times until to-day in factory legislation it has been recognized that they must to some extent be held responsible for due observation of the limits imposed. ”

“ The relations between the state inspectors of factories and the ordinary police authorities are regulated in each state by its constitution. Prohibitions of truck in its original sense—that is, payment of wages otherwise than in current coin—apply to any persons under a contract of service with an employer for a specified time for industrial purposes; members of a family working for a parent or husband are not included; outworkers are covered. Control of fines and deductions from wages applies only in factory industries and shops employing at least 20 workers. ”

“ A considerable number of states have enacted laws which fix a day’s labour in the absence of any contract, some at eight and others at ten hours, so that when an employer and an employé make a contract and they do not specify what shall constitute a day’s labour, eight or ten hours respectively would be ruled as the day’s labour in an action which might come before the courts. ”

“ In some cases the restriction of the hours of labour of women and children is general, while in others it applies only to employment in one or more classes of industries. Other provisions of law for the protection of women and children, but not usually confined in their operation to factories and workshops, are such as require seats for females and separate toilet facilities for the sexes, and prohibit employment in certain occupations as in mines, places where intoxicants are manufactured or sold, in cleaning or operating dangerous machinery, &c. ”

“ In many states the hours of labour have been limited by law in occupations in which, on account of their dangerous or insanitary character, the health of the employés would be jeopardized by long hours of labour, or in which the fatigue occasioned by long hours would endanger the lives of the employés or of the public. The occupations for which such special legislation has been enacted are those of employés on steam and street railways, in mines and other underground workings, smelting and refining works, bakeries and cotton and woollen mills. ”