Thomas Allan Ingram

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ UNEMPLOYMENT, a modern term for the state of being unemployed among the working-classes. The social question involved is intimately bound up with that of relief of the poor, and its earlier history is outlined in the article Charity and Charities. ”

“ 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 fact that in some countries marriage is forbidden until a man has completed his military service, in another, that consent of parents is requisite, in another, that “once a bastard always a bastard” is the rule, while in yet another that the merest of subsequent formalities will legitimize the offspring, must account in some degree for variations in figures. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ A depositor might telegraph for his money and have his warrant sent to him by return of post, or he might telegraph for his money and have it paid to him in an hour or two on the authority of a telegram from the savings bank to the postmaster. The first method cost the depositor about 9d., the second cost him about 1s 3d. for the transaction. On the 3rd of July 1905 a new system of withdrawal was instituted, under which a depositor, on presentation of his book at any post office open for savings bank business, can withdraw immediately any sum not exceeding £1. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Yet, when Palmer suggested that by building mail-coaches expressly adapted to run at a good speed, by furnishing a liberal supply of horses, and by attaching an armed guard to each coach the public would be greatly benefited, and the post-office revenue considerably increased, the officials maintained that the existing system was all but perfect. ”

“ They are seasonal industries and industries carried on by casual labour. There are many industries affected by certain states of the weather or by the changes of the seasons, as the building and allied trades, the furriers' trade, confectionery trades, &c. But more important are those industries which depend largely in times of pressure on casual and unskilled labour, such as port and riverside work of all kinds, construction works and to a certain extent the iron and steel industries. ”

“ In the case of soldiers an affiliation order cannot be enforced in the usual way, but by the Army Act 1881, if an order has been made against a soldier of the regular forces, and a copy of such order be sent to the secretary of state, he may order a portion of the soldier’s pay to be retained. ”

“ If the minister is not fit to exercise the power so entrusted, upon the responsibility cast upon him, he is not fit to occupy the post of secretary of state.” [35] The House of Commons accepted this explanation; and in view of many grave incidents, both in Ireland and in America, it would be hard to justify any other conclusion. ”