Thomas Allan Ingram

“ Octroi taxes have a respectable antiquity, being known in Roman times as vectigalia. These vectigalia were either the portorium, a tax on the entry from or departure to the provinces (those cities which were allowed to levy the portorium shared the profits with the public treasury) ; the ansarium or foricarium, a duty levied at the entrance to towns; or the edulia, sale imports levied in markets. Vectigalia were levied on wine and certain articles of food, but it was seldom that the cities were allowed to use the whole of the profits of the taxes. ”

“ The change, for example, from horse carriages to motor cars has brought much unemployment in its train. Then there is the unemployment due to decaying or declining trades, brought about through a persistent falling off of the demand, or through some change of process or of fashion; the removal of an industry from one place to another, the displacement of adult labour by that of women and boys, the continuous migration of unskilled labour from the country to the towns, and the depression in general trade caused by the occurrence of something unforeseen, as war. ”

“ Trade was paralysed and all manufacturing establishments were closed down. Attempts by the Convention to increase the value of the assignats were of no avail. Too many causes operated in favour of their depreciation: the enormous issue, the uncertainty as to their value if the Revolution should fail, the relation they bore to both specie and commodities, which retained their value and refused to be exchanged for a money of constantly diminishing purchasing power. Even between the assignats themselves there were differences. ”

“ The person appointed is almost invariably a qualified legal or medical practitioner; how far one is a more “fit person” than another has frequently been a matter of dispute—a Bill of 1879, which, however, failed to pass, decided in favour of the legal profession. The property qualification for a county coroner (“having land in fee sufficient in the same county whereof he may answer to all manner of people,” 14 Ed. III. st. 1, c. 8) , although re-enacted in the Coroners Act 1887, is now virtually dispensed with. The appointment is for life, but is vacated by the holder being made sheriff. ”

“ By the Stamp Act 1891 a duty of one penny is imposed upon a receipt for or upon the payment of money amounting to £2 or upwards, and also a fine of £10 upon any person who, in any case where a receipt would be liable to duty, refuses to give a receipt duly stamped. If payment be made under a mistake of fact, it may be recovered, but it is otherwise if it be made under a mistake of law, for it is a maxim of law that ignorantia legis neminem excusat. Money paid under compulsion of law, even though not due, cannot generally be recovered where there has been no fraud or extortion. ”

“ The royal power, however, gradually asserted itself, and it became the rule that permission to levy local taxes should be obtained from the king. From the 14th century onwards, we find numerous charters granting (octroyer) to French towns the right to tax themselves. The taxes did not remain strictly municipal, for an ordinance of Cardinal Mazarin (in 1647) ordered the proceeds of the octroi to be paid into the public treasury, and at other times the government claimed a certain percentage of the product, but this practice was finally abandoned in 1852. ”

“ If payment be made by a stranger without the assent of the debtor, it seems uncertain how far English law regards such payment as a satisfaction of the debt. If the debtor ratify the payment, it then undoubtedly becomes a satisfaction. Payment must be made to the creditor or his agent. A bona fide payment to an apparent agent may be good, though he has in fact no authority to receive it. Such payment will usually be good where the authority of the agent has been countermanded without notice to the debtor. ”

“ A coroner of our Lord the king ought to inquire of these things, first, when coroners are commanded by the king’s bailiffs or by the honest men of the county, they shall go to the places where any be slain, or suddenly dead or wounded, or where houses are broken, or where treasure is said to be found, and shall forthwith command four of the next towns, or five, or six, to appear before him in such a place ”

“ The Labour Exchanges Act defines a labour exchange as any office or place used for the purpose of collecting and furnishing information, either by the keeping of registers or otherwise, respecting employers who desire to engage workpeople and workpeople who seek engagement or employment. The act gave the Board of Trade power to establish and maintain labour exchanges in such places as they might think fit, and to collect and furnish information to employers and workpeople. ”

“ It would be complicated, too, by having of necessity to include the shiftless and unemployable sections of the population, as well as those on the borderland of employment (those who are worth some sort of wage in times of pressure) , while at the same time it would be necessary, to make the census of practical value, to obtain returns of the demand for labour, in order to value the true character of the supply. Such statistics are obtainable possibly only in theory, but every country makes an endeavour to obtain statistics of a sort. ”

“ In most civilized countries attempts have been made to solve this or that particular phase of the problem by improved methods. There is, however, always a great difficulty in knowing the extent of unemployment even in any one particular country. No census has ever been taken in any country of those of the whole population who were employed and unemployed on any particular day, and even if it were possible to take such a census modern conditions of industry might render its results valueless almost immediately after. ”

“ The post office department is compelled to carry anything sent under a penalty frank, and franks are used by all the departments and their agents for the purpose of carrying everything they choose to send (Report, postmaster-general, 1893) . The expenditure does not include the amounts certified to the Treasury for the transportation of mails over aided Pacific railways, or any allowance for the use of such buildings as are provided by the government.
Contrary to expectations repeatedly expressed, each year shows a deficit. ”

“ The class of under-employed includes not merely the whole of the men in such occupations as dock and wharf labour and market porters, and a waxing and waning share of the lower grades of the building operations, but also a very extensive fringe of men more or less attached to particular industries, and working at them only by way of brief and casual jobs. ”

“ In England the Board of Trade, for example, has compiled valuable memoranda on the percentages of unemployment in the more important trade union groups of trades, which may be taken as a measure of unemployment in the more highly organized industries; while other memoranda throwing light on the subject deal with the amount of time lost by workpeople through want of employment and other causes; with cyclical trade depressions; the extent to which female labour has displaced adult male labour of late years; seasonal industries and industries carried on by casual labour ”

“ If the man is found to have refused work, he can be sent to a labour colony as a “work-shy” for from three months to two years. Owing in great measure to the success of these labour colonies, Vagrancy has considerably diminished in Switzerland, and the colonies everywhere are small; that at Witzwyl, the largest, having less than 200 inmates. Punishment is generally inflicted by reduction of food; the inmates receive no wages, but by industry may earn are mission of their period of detention. ”

“ The carriage of newspapers by post is conducted by the post office at a loss.
It has been frequently stated on behalf of the post office that the halfpenny post is unremunerative. Representations are, however, made from time to time in favour of lower postage for literature of all kinds. It may therefore be of interest to mention that the postmaster-general of the United States has, in successive annual reports, deplored the effect on the post office service of the cheap rates for “second-class matter.” The cost of carriage over so large a territory is heavier than in the United Kingdom ”

“ The advantage of the English system of labour exchanges will be found in the fact that it is a national system, with the support of the state behind it. Unless, as has been proposed, it is made compulsory in all large trades, much of its success will depend on the patronage extended to it by employers, which in its turn must be justified by the efficiency of the service rendered. ”

“ Then too, there are to be added the numberless frictions of industrial life, all contributing their quota to unemployment, such as the bankruptcy of an employer, changes in management, the arbitrariness of a foreman, &c. There are also what may be termed the political causes of unemployment, which depend on the commercial policy of the nation, in so far as it adopts Free Trade or Protection. ”

“ Almost forty years later a like question was again raised in the House of Commons (March 1882) by some Irish members, in relation to an alleged examination of correspondence at Dublin for political reasons. Sir William Harcourt on that occasion spoke thus: “This power is with the secretary of state in England In Ireland it belongs to the Irish government. . . . It is a power which is given for purposes of state, and the very essence of the power is that no account [of its exercise] can be rendered. To render an account would be to defeat the very object for which the power was granted. ”

“ As it appears on examination that some trades are more suitable to be dealt with by insurance than others, either because the unemployment in these trades contains a large insurable element, or because it takes the form of total discharge rather than short time, or for other reasons, it follows that, for the scheme to have the best chance of success, it should be based upon the trade group, and should at the outset be partial in operation. ”

“ Then there are the accidental circumstances which incidentally produce unemployment, such as the displacement of labour by the progress of invention and improvement. The example of the distress brought upon the hand-loom weavers by the invention of the power-loom is only one of many, but the process is continually going on. ”

“ The statistics issued by the Labour Bureaus of many of the states in the United States are of considerable value, in particular, those of Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut and Wisconsin. Germany, France and Belgium also publish statistics, but like the figures of other countries, they far from represent the actual state of unemployment. ”

“ Under the Workrnen's Compensation Act of 1897, sums awarded as compensation might be invested in the post office savings bank. This arrangement proved so convenient that an act of 1900 authorized a similar investment of money paid into an English county court in ordinary actions at common law, and ordered to be invested for the benefit of an infant or lunatic. ”

“ The regulations of the exchanges provide that no person shall suffer any disqualification or be otherwise prejudiced on account of refusing to accept employment found for him through a labour exchange where the grotuid of refusal is that a trade dispute which affects his trade exists, or that the wages offered are lower than those current in the trade in the district where the employment is found. ”

“ The colonial law of 1657 required every planter to provide a messenger to convey the dispatches as they arrived to the next plantation, and so on, on pain of forfeiting a hogshead of tobacco in default. The government of New York in 1672 established “a post to goe monthly from New York to Boston,” advertising “those that bee disposed to send letters, to bring them to the secretary’s office, where, in a lockt box, they shall be preserved till the messenger calls for them, all persons paying the post before the bagg be sealed up.” ”

“ The actual causes of unemployment in any one country will always remain to a certain extent controversial, as will the comparative weight to be assigned to each cause. Putting aside the much disputed theories of economists as to the causes of cyclical depressions of trade, there are certain well-observed facts which present themselves in connexion with the question of unemployment, and to each one of them some contributory Causes of Unemployment. ”

“ By it, the king “at the grievous and clamorous complaints of the great men and commons of the realm of England” enacts “that all the people of the king’s ligeance of what condition that they be, which shall draw any out of the realm in plea” or any matter of which the cognizance properly belongs to the king’s court shall be allowed two months in which to answer for their contempt of the king’s rights in transferring their pleas abroad. ”

“ By § 13 personal chattels seized or taken possession of under a bill must not be removed or sold until after the expiration of five clear days from the date of seizure, and, if the goods have been wrongly seized, the grantor may within the five days apply to the High Court or a judge in chambers for an order to restrain the grantee from removing or selling the goods. The Bills of Sale Acts 1878 and 1882 do not apply to Scotland or Ireland. According to Scots law no security or charge can be created over moveable property without delivery of possession. ”