Book excerpt: Excerpt from The North British Review, Vol. 46 Art. I. - 1. Trades-Societies and Strikes. Report of the Committee on Trades-Societies, appointed by the National Association for the Promotion of Social Science. 1860. 2. Trades-Unions and Strikes: their Philosophy and Intention. By T. J. Dunning, Secretary to the London Consolidated Society of Bookbinders. 1860. 3. Strikes and Arbitrations: with the Procedure and forms successfully adopted by the Building Trade at Wolverhampton. Written at the request of the Working Men's Club. By Rupert Kettle. 1866. 4. The Beehive Newspaper. 1866. 5. The Builders' Trade Circular. 1866. Report of the Conference of Trades' Delegates of the United Kingdom, held at Sheffield, July 17-21, 1866. The history of attempts to adjust the relation between workmen and their employers in England, extends over a period of more than five hundred years. The first Statute regulating wages was passed in 1350, after a great plague had thinned the labouring class, and when the survivors, taking advantage of the small supply of workmen, were claiming an advance of wages. The animus of the Legislature of the day is shown in the preamble, where this very natural desire is ascribed to idleness and malice, and declared to be the cause of 'great damage of the great men, and impoverishing of all the commonalty.' Farm-labourers were bound down to a certain rate of wages, under penalty of three days in the stocks for disobedience to the law; while workmen in the building trades were exposed to fine and imprisonment at the discretion of the Justices. At an early period combinations began to be formed among workmen to free themselves from the effects of this and similar enactments; but the iron fingers of the Legislature were ready-to nip such attempts in the bud. So far back as the reign of Henry vi., persons causing general chapters of masons to be held were declared felons, and persons attending such chapters were to be punished by imprisonment and fine. In 1549 an Act was passed to suppress the confederacies of workmen who had conspired together to determine, among other things, how much work was to be done daily, and at what hours and times; and it was declared that any one convicted of such a crime should for the first offence pay 10; for the second, 20; for the third 40; with the alternative of twenty days' imprisonment in the first case; the pillory, in the second; and the pillory and loss of one ear in the third. But it was soon found that this law was too stringent, and when, next year, the city of London petitioned against it, on the ground that it would drive away their craftsmen and artificers, and impoverish their city, it was 'made void for ever.' A kindlier spirit towards the labouring classes, however, appeared in some of the legislation of this period; and efforts were not wanting to check the oppression to which they were often exposed. In the fifth year of Elizabeth, an important and well-known enactment was passed, requiring that every workman should have served as an apprentice seven years, and restricting the number of apprentices which masters might employ. Another important provision of this Statute was, that the wages of labour were to be fixed every year by the Justices of the Peace at the Easter Quarter Sessions. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com"