(1436) Now, perhaps, we find the first use of the expression "restraint of trade," that most important phrase, in a statute forbidding by-laws of guilds or corporate companies "in restraint of trade," also forbidding unlawful ordinances by them as to the price of their wares "for their own profit and to the common, hurt of the people," and such by-laws are made penal and invalid except when approved by the chancellor; and this statute of Henry VI is re-enacted again in 1503 under Henry VII, where by-laws of guilds, etc., restraining suits at law are made unlawful, and so "ordinances against the common weal of the people." The meaning and importance of such legislation as this has been, I hope, made clear above. Note the words "to the common hurt of the people" and "against the common weal of the people." From this century, at least, therefore, dates that doctrine of the common law which makes unlawful any contract or combination in restraint of trade, and it was left for the succeeding century to develop the last great principle, that against monopoly, caused either by unlawful combination of individuals or grant by the crown itself.
The right to labor or to trade was thus fully established in England, and from the very earliest times we find statutes that merchants may freely buy and sell. The Statute of York, to this effect (1335), is re-enacted sixteen years later, and again under Richard II in 1391; and their right to carry away one-half the value of their imports in money, spending the other half in English commodities, in 1401.
This general right of trade may be defined as the right of any man to work at what trade he chose, and to buy or sell what and where he will, in the cheapest market. This right was indeed fundamental and needed no express statute. But all these laws concerning by-laws or combinations to prevent people from exercising their trade, or showing what were the liberties of trade in London and other towns (of which there are many) are exemplifications of it. That this law is far older than the statutes is well shown by an actual law report of a case decided in 1221 and first published by the Selden Society in 1877:
"The Abbot of Lilleshall complains that the bailiffs of Shrewsbury do him many injuries against his liberty, and that they have caused proclamation to be made in the town that none be so bold as to sell any merchandise to the Abbot or his men upon pain of forfeiting ten shillings, and that Richard Peche, the bedell of the said town, made this proclamation by their orders. And the bailiffs defend all of it, and Richard likewise defends all of it and that he never heard any such proclamation made by anyone. It is considered that he do defend himself twelve-handed (with eleven compurgators), and do come on Saturday with his law."
This is a remarkable report, for in twelve lines (ten lines of the law Latin) we have here set forth all the important principles of the law of boycott. The abbot complains that the Shrewsbury people do him many injuries "against his liberty,"i.e., the abbot claims a constitutional right to freely conduct his own business; then we have the recognition of the threat of a boycott as a particularly illegal act: "They have causedproclamationto be made that none sell merchandise to the abbot." This is nothing but our modern "unfair list." The defendants admit the illegality of their conspiracy, because they deny it as a fact; and the bedell likewise denies that he ever made such proclamation or threat, whereupon (the plaintiff being a man of the church) they are set to trial by wager of law instead of by actual battle, neither party nor the court making any question of the illegality both of the conspiracy and of the act complained of.
There is no question then that all contracts in unreasonable restraint of trade were always unlawful in England and are so therefore by our common law. There was probably no real necessity for any of our anti-trust acts, except to impose penalties, or, as to the Federal or Sherman Act so-called, to extend the principles of the common law to interstate commerce, which is under the exclusive jurisdiction of the Federal government. The common law, however, made the exception ofreasonablerestraint of trade, which the Sherman Act does not; that is to say, a contract between two persons, one of whom sells his business and good-will to the other and agrees not to embark in the same trade for a certain number of years or in a certain prescribed locality, was a reasonable restriction at the common law. So, if two merchants going down town to their business agree in the street car that they will charge a certain amount for a barrel of flour or a ton of coal that week, this would probably be regarded as reasonable at the common law; but the common law, like these early statutes of England, looked primarily, if not exclusively, to the welfare of the consumer; they always speak of the common weal of the people, or of combinations to the general hurt of the people, and general combinations to fix prices or to limit output are therefore always unlawful; so a combination that only one of them should exercise a certain business at a certain place—like that of our four great meatpacking firms, who are said to have arranged to have the buyer for each one in turn appear in the cattle market, thus being the only buyer that day—would be unlawful, when the restraint of trade resulting from an ordinary purchase would not be.
The fixing of ordinary prices, not tolls, was thoroughly tried in the Middle Ages and failed. Nor has it been attempted since as to wages, except in New Zealand by arbitration, and in England and (as to public labor) in the State of New York and a few other States where we have a recent statute that all employment in public work (that is, work for any city, county, or town, or the State, or for any contractor therefor) must be paid for "at the usual rate of wages prevailing in the trade"; this principle, taken from the last form of the English Statute of Laborers, being passed in the interest of the laborers themselves and not of the employers, as it was in early England. The result of this first piece of legislation was to impose some twenty thousand lawsuits upon the city of New York alone; the laborers working for a year or two at the rates paid by the city and then, after discharge, bringing suit and claiming that they had not been paid the "usual rate" of the trade; and as there were very heavy penalties, it is said to have cost the city of New York many millions of dollars. In the same way the union idea of having all trades under the control of an organization was carried to its extreme result in the Middle Ages also, so that the guilds became all-powerful; they imposed their rules and regulations to such an extent that it was almost impossible for any man to get employment except by their permission and under their regulation, or without membership. They naturally developed into wealthy combinations, more of employers than of journeymen, until they ended as the richly endowed dinner-giving corporations that we see in the city of London to-day. In France, at least, they were considered the greatest menace to labor, and were all swept away at the time of the French Revolution amid the joy of the masses and the pealing of bells. Unfortunately, our labor leaders are sometimes scornful of history and unmindful of past example; the fact that a thing has been tried and failed or has, in past history, developed in a certain manner, carries no conviction to their minds.
(1444) A servant in husbandry had to give six months' notice before leaving and wages were again fixed; and in 1452, the time of Jack Cade's Rebellion, one finds the first prototype of "government by injunction," that is to say, of the interference by the lord chancellor or courts of equity with labor and the labor contract, particularly in times of riot or disorder.
But the first trace of this practice, now obnoxious to many under the phrase quoted, dates back to 1327, when King Edward III found it necessary to adopt some more effectual measures of police than those which already existed. For this purpose justices of the peace were first instituted throughout the country with power to take security for the peace and bind over parties who threatened offence.[1] Fifty years later, in the reign of Richard II, it was found necessary to provide further measures for repressing forcible entries on lands. The course of justice was interrupted and all these provisions were rendered in a great degree ineffectual by the lawless spirit of the times. The Statute of 1379 recites that "our Sovereign Lord the King hath perceived … that divers of his Liege People claiming to have Right to divers Lands, Tenements, and other Possessions, and some espying Women and Damsels unmarried … do gather them together to a great Number of Men of Arms and Archers … not having Consideration to God, but refusing and setting apart all Process of the Law, do ride in great Routs … and take Possession of Lands and in some Places do ravish Women and Damsels, and bring them into strange Countries." Therefore the Statute of Northampton, the 2d of Edward III, is recited and confirmed and the justices of the king's commission ordered to arrest such persons incontinent without tarrying for indictment or other process of law. But that this summary process was already obnoxious to the people was shown by the fact that it was repealed the very following year because the articles "seemeth to the said Commons very grievous." Only the Statute of Northampton is preserved, and those who had been so taken and imprisoned by virtue of said article without other indictment "shall be utterly delivered."
[Footnote 1: See "Injunctions in Conspiracy Cases," Senate DocumentNo. 190, 57th Congress, 1st Session, p. 117.]
(1384) It is noteworthy that at the same time that this extra-common-law process begins in the statutes, we have other statutes vindicating the power of the common-law courts. For instance, six years later, in the 8th of Richard II is a clause complaining that "divers Pleas concerning the Common Law, and which by the Common Law ought to be examined and discussed, are of late drawn before the Constable and Marshal of England, to the great Damage and Disquietness of the People." Such jurisdiction is forbidden and the common law "shall be executed and used, and have that which to it belongeth … as it was accustomed to be in the time of King Edward." Again, four years later, it is ordained "that neither Letters of the Signet, nor of the King's Privy Seal, shall be from henceforth sent in Damage or Prejudice of the Realm, nor in Disturbance of the Law."
(1388) The next year we find a new Statute of Laborers confirming all previous statutes and forbidding any servant or laborer to depart from service without letters testimonial, and if found wandering without such letters shall be put in the stocks. Short of the penalty of the stocks, a condition of things not very dissimilar is said to exist to-day in the non-union mining towns of the West. In Cripple Creek, for instance, no one is allowed without a card from his previous employer which, among other things, sets forth that he is not associated with any labor union. This Statute of Richard II also provides that artificers and people of Mystery, that is to say, handicraftsmen, shall be compelled to do agricultural labor in harvest time. (The high prices of to-day, some one has said, are really caused not so much by the trusts or even by the tariff, as by voluntary idleness; if a man will not work, neither shall he eat, but the lesson has been forgotten! In the more prosperous parts of the country, in Massachusetts, for instance, it is sometimes impossible to give away a standing crop of grain for the labor of cutting it, nor can able-bodied labor be secured even at two dollars per day. The Constitution of Oklahoma, which goes to the length of providing that there shall be no property except in the fruits of labor, might logically have embodied the principle of this Statute of Richard II; and we know that in Kansas they invite vacation students to harvest their crop. So in France, practically every one turns out for the vendange, and in Kent for the hops; a merriment is made of it, but at least the crop is garnered.) The Statute of Richard goes on to complain of the outrageous and excessive hire of labor, and attempts once more to limit the prices, but already at more than double those named in the earlier statute: ploughmen seven pence, herdsmen six pence, and even women six pence a day, and persons who have served in husbandry until the age of twelve must forever continue to do so. They may not learn a trade or be bound as apprentices. Servants and laborers may not carry arms nor play at foot-ball or tennis; they are encouraged, however, to have bows and arrows and use the same on Sundays and holidays. Impotent beggars are to be supported by the town where they were born.
(1387) The barons protested that they would never suffer the kingdom to be governed by the Roman law, and the judges prohibited it from being any longer cited in the common-law tribunals;[1] and in 1389 we find another statute complaining of the courts of the constable and marshal having cognizance of matters which can be determined by the common law, and forbidding the same; and the statute of the previous year concerning laborers is confirmed, except that wages are to be fixed by a justice of the peace, "Forasmuch as a Man cannot put the Price of Corn and other Victuals in certain." Shoemakers are forbidden to be tanners, and tanners to be shoemakers; a statute which seems to have been much debated, for it is continually being repealed and re-enacted for a hundred years to follow.
[Footnote 1: Spence, I Eq. Jur., 346.]
(1392) The Statute of York, giving free trade to merchants, is re-enacted, and it is specified that they may sell in gross or by retail "notwithstanding any Franchise, Grant or Custom," but they are forbidden to sell to each other for purposes of regrating and they must sell wines in the original package and "Spicery by whole Vessels and Bales." "All the weights and measures throughout the Realm shall be according to the Standard of the Exchequer"—save only in Lancashire, where they are used to giving better measure.
(1402) Laborers are forbidden to be hired by the week or to be paid for holidays or half days. In 1405 the old Statute of Laborers is re-enacted, particularly the cruel law forbidding any one to take up any other trade than husbandry after the age of twelve, nor can any one bind his child as apprentice to learn a trade unless he has twenty shillings per annum in landed property.
(1414) The 2d of Henry V recites the Statute of the 13th of Henry IV against rioters, but power to suppress them is intrusted to the justices of the peace and the common-law courts "according to the law of the land." Only if default is made in suppressing them the king's commission goes out under the great seal, showing the beginning of the use of the executive arm in suppressing riots, of which our most famous instance was the action of President Cleveland in the Pullman-car strike in Chicago in 1893. And in the same statute the chancery arm is invoked, that is to say, if any person complain that a rioter or offender flee or withdraw himself, a bill issues from the chancery, and if the person do not appear and yield, a writ of proclamation issues that he be attainted, a more severe punishment than the six months' imprisonment usually meted out to our contemners. It is interesting to notice that the bills (petitions for legislation) are now in English; though the statutes enacted are still in French or Latin.
(1425) A statute recites that "by the yearly Congregations and Confederacies made by the Masons in their general Chapiters and Assemblies, the good Course and Effect of the Statute of Labourers be openly violated … and such Chapiters and Congregations are forbidden and all Masons that come to them are to be punished by imprisonment and fine"—an excellent example of the kind of statute which led to the doctrine that trades-unions were forbidden by the common law of England.
(1427) The next year the attempt to fix wages by law is again abandoned, and they are to be fixed by the justices, "because Masters cannot get Servants without giving higher Wages than allowed by the Statute."
The exact time of the appearance of the modern corporation has been a matter of some doubt. Its invention was probably suggested by the monastic corporation, or the city guild. This whole matter must be left for a later chapter, but we must note the phraseology of a statute of Henry VI in 1426, which speaks of "Guilds, Fraternities, and other Companies corporate," and requiring them to record before justices of the peace all their charters, letters-patent, and ordinances or by-laws,which latter must not be against the common profit of the people, and the justices of the peace or chief marshal are given authority to annul such of their by-laws as are not reasonable and for the common profit—the fountain and origin of a most important doctrine of the modern law of restraint of trade and conspiracy.
(1444) Servants in husbandry purposing to leave their masters were required to give warning by the middle of the term of service so that the "Master may provide another Servant against the End of his Term." Again a maximum price is fixed for the wages of servants, laborers, and artificers: the common servant of husbandry, fifteen shillings a year, with money for clothing, eleven shillings; and women servants ten shillings, with clothing price of four shillings, and meat and drink. But winter wages are less and harvest wages more than in summer; and men who refuse to serve by the year are declared vagabonds.
(1450) John Cade was attainted of treason, and in 1452 comes the famous statute giving the chancellor power to issue writs of proclamation against rioters or persons guilty of other offences against the peace, with power to outlaw upon default, quoted by Spence[1] as the foundation of the practice of issuing injunctions to preserve the peace, now bitterly complained of by Mr. Gompers and others; and it is most noteworthy as sustaining this adverse view that the Statute of Henry VI itself makes special exception, "That no Matter determinable by the Law of this Realm shall be by the same Act determined in other Form than after the Course of the same Law in the King's Courts having Determination of the same Law," and the act itself is only to endure for seven years.
[Footnote 1: "1 Eq. Jur.," 353.]
(1487) This year a Statute of Henry VII originates the criminal jurisdiction of the Court of Star Chamber,[1] an interesting statute reciting that the Mayor and Aldermen of London have forbidden citizens to go to fairs or markets, or trade outside the city, which is declared "contrary to the common weal of England" and the ordinance made void. In 1495 the laws against riots and unlawful assemblies are recited and confirmed, and authority to punish and prevent them given to the justices and the common-law courts, except that the justices themselves in a case of such disorder by more than forty persons are to certify the names of the offenders to the king and his council (that is to say, the Star Chamber) for punishment. In 1495 the wages of servants in husbandry and of artificers and shipwrights, master-masons and carpenters are again fixed, with the hours of work and meal time provided; in March, from 5 a.m. till 7 or 8 p.m., but with half an hour for breakfast, an hour and a half for dinner, and half an hour for supper, and in winter time from dawn till sunset, and "said Artificers and Laborers shall slepe not by day" except between May and August; but this whole act "for the common wealth of the poor artificers" is repealed the following year.
[Footnote 1: This court, says Lord Coke, was originally established to protect subjects against the offences and oppressions of great men by extortion, frauds, riots, unlawful assemblies, etc., leaving ordinary offences to the courts of common law, and Clarendon adds that "whilst it was gravely and moderately governed, it was an excellent expedient to preserve the peace and security of the kingdom." Nevertheless, "having become odious by a tyrannical exercise of its powers, it was abolished by a Statute of 16 Charles I."]
(1503) This year there is another important statute against private and illegal by-laws, reciting that "companies corporate by color of rule and governance to them granted and confirmed by charters and letters patent of divers Kings made among themselves many unlawful and unreasonable ordinances as well in price of wares as other things for their own singular profit and to the common hurt and damage of the people," and such by-laws are forbidden unless specially authorized by some official such as the chief governor of the city. The law so far dates from the 15th of Henry VI; but the present act goes on to provide that "no masters, fellowships of crafts or rulers of guilds or fraternities make any acts or ordinances against the common profit of the people but with the examination and approval of the Chancellor and Chief Justice of England, and that there shall never be any by-law to restrain any person from suits in the common-law courts." A Federal statute similar to this was proposed by a late president to apply to all corporations, or at least to all corporations conducting interstate commerce; the approval of their by-laws or other contracts to be by the Federal commissioner of corporations; while the last section forbidding trades-unions to deny to their members the right of suing them or other persons in the ordinary courts is part of our constitutional law to-day and much objected to by the unions themselves, as it was in the time of Henry VII The tendency to create special courts (commerce, patents, etc.) seems to be beginning anew, despite the malign history of the ancient courts of the Constable and Marshal, Star Chamber, Requests, Royal Commissions, etc.
(1512) Under Henry VIII the penalty for paying higher wages than the law allowed was removed from the employer and applied only to the employee taking the wage; and in 1514 comes perhaps the most elaborate of all the earlier acts fixing the wages and hours of labor. Their meal times and sleep times are carefully regulated, they are forbidden to take full wages for half-day's work and forbidden to leave a job until it is finished, and the rates of pay of bailiffs, servants, free masons, master carpenters, rough masons, bricklayers, tilers, plumbers, glaziers, carvers, joiners, shipwrights, ship carpenters, calkers, clinchers, agricultural laborers, both men and women, mowers, reapers, carters, shepherds, herdsmen, and possibly others, are again prescribed; this list of trades in the England of the early sixteenth century is interesting. Bailiffs who assault their overseers may be imprisoned for a year, and an exception is made from the act of all miners of lead, iron, silver, tin, or coal, "called See Cole, otherwise called Smythes Coole," or for making of glass, but that part of the act fixing wages was repealed the very next year as to the city of London.
(1514) The abuse of monopolies begins to be shown this year (but see also 1503, above) in a statute complaining of the grant of second patents of a matter already granted; and avoiding in such cases the later patent unless the king express that "he hath determined his pleasure against the first."
The appearance of the gypsies in England is marked by a statute of 1530, describing them as "outlandish people called Egyptians," complaining of their robberies, and requiring them to depart the realm. In the same year first appeared the celebrated Act for the punishment of beggars and vagabonds and forbidding beggary, and requiring them to labor or be whipped. Herbert Spencer states in his "Descriptive Sociology" that it punishes with loss of an ear the third conviction for joining a trades-union, which, if true, would justify much of the bitterness of modern labor unions against the common law. The provision evidently referred to (22 Henry VIII, chapter 12, section 4) applies, however, not to guilds, but to "Scolers of the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge that go about begging not being authorized under the seal of the said Universities" as well as to other beggars or vagabonds playing "subtile, crafty and unlawful games such as physnomye or palmestrye." The same year is an Interesting statute against foreign artificers exercising handicrafts in England, not without example in the labor legislation of our modern States; but exempting beggars, brewers, surgeons, and scriveners as not handicraftsmen, possibly the origin of the vulgar notion that those trades are more genteel than skilled labor.
(1535) Another statute against sturdy vagabonds and "rufflers found idling after being assigned to labor," and already having their ears so slit, are punishable with death. This year Wales was joined to England; and we see the first act for the suppression of monasteries; the next year came the statute extinguishing the authority of the Bishop of Rome. With the struggle against the Roman Church went the contest for freedom;inter arma silent leges; sociological legislation came to an end for the rest of the reign and arbitrary laws passed at the king's desire; in 1536, the act authorizing kings of England, on arriving at the age of twenty-four, to repeal any act of Parliament made during their minority, and in 1539 the "Act that Proclamations made by the King shall be obeyed"—the high-water mark of executive usurpation in modern times. Proclamations made by the king and council were to have the force of acts of Parliament, yet not to prejudice estates, offices, liberties, goods or lives, or repeal existing laws; the cardinal constitutional rights were thus preserved, even as against this royal aggression.
(1548) Under Edward VI and Elisabeth we may expect more enlightened legislation, and are not disappointed. Indeed, no one can read the statutes of the great queen without seeing that modern times here begin. Nevertheless, while trade is becoming free, labor is no less severely, if more intelligently, regulated. We first note a short but important statute touching victuallers and handicraftsmen, worth quoting in part: "Forasmuche as of late dayes divers sellers of vittayles, not contented withe moderate and reasonable gayne … have conspyred and covenanted together to sell their vittels at unreasonable price; and lykewise Artyficers handycrafte men and laborers have made confederacyes and promyses and have sworne mutuall othes, not onlye that they shoulde not meddle one withe an others worke, and performe and fynishe that an other hathe begone, but also to constitute and appoynt howe muche worke they shoulde doe in a daye and what bowers and tymes they shall work,contrarie to the Lawes and Statutes of this Realme" (It is extraordinary how closely this old statute sets forth some practices of the modern trades-union.) "Everie person so conspiring covenantinge swearing or offendinge … shall forfeyt for the firste offence tenne pounds … or twentie dayes ymprisonment" with bread and water; for the second offence, twenty pounds or the pillory, and for the third offence forty pounds, or the pillory and lose one of his ears. After that he is to be taken as a man infamous and his oath not to be credited at any time, and if there be a corporation of dealers in victuals or of handicraftsmen so conspiring, it shall be dissolved—the origin and precedent of the Sherman Act! This, of course, is the statute which Herbert Spencer cites as making a "third conviction for joining a trades-union punished with loss of an ear"; but he places the date at 1535 instead of 1548. The statute, however, goes on to provide absolute freedom of employment or trade for all skilled mechanics in any town, although not freemen thereof, whether they dwell there or not, any town or guild by-law to the contrary notwithstanding; so that this important statute may be said to establish the most enlightened view that there must be absolute liberty of employment granted any one, only that they must not conspire to the injury of others. Unfortunately, in the very next year this last part is repealed as to the city of London, "Artificers and Craftmen of that ancient City complaining that it was contrary to their ancient privilege," a view as modern as is the law itself. Immediately after this law is one providing that journeymen, clothiers, weavers, tailors, and shoemakers shall not be hired for less than a quarter of a year on penalty of Imprisonment to them and the employer, the statute reciting that, once out of their apprenticehood, they "will not commonly be retained in service by the year, but at their liberty by the day, week or otherwise, to the intent that they will live idly, and at their pleasure flee and resort from place to place, whereof ensuith more incovenyencies then can be at this present expressed and declared"—an inconvenience not unknown in modern intelligence offices. All employers having more than three apprentices shall keep at least one journeyman, and unmarried servants in husbandry must serve by the year.
(1550) In the 3d of Edward VI we find the first Riot Act, aimed at persons to the number of twelve or above assembling together and proposing to alter the laws and not dispersing when so required by the sheriff, and even persons more than two and less than twelve assembling for such purpose are subject to fine and imprisonment with treble damages to parties injured, and if forty persons so assemble and do not disperse in three hours, they are declared felons. This statute was re-enacted and made more severe in the reign of Queen Mary.
(1562) In the 5th of Elizabeth comes the last and greatest Statute of Laborers. This statute is a consolidation of all previous laws, and it begins by recognizing the principle that the fixing of wages is a mistake and all such laws are repealed so far as they relate to terms of hiring and wages. Servants in certain employments, generally speaking the tailoring and shoemaking trades, may still be hired by the year, and persons unmarried, not having an income of forty shillings a year, may be compelled to serve in their own handicraft. Such yearly servants may not be dismissed or depart during the year except by cause allowed by two justices, nor at the end of a year, without a quarter's warning. Unmarried persons under thirty, not having any trade and not belonging to a nobleman's household, may be compelled to labor at the request of any person using an art or mystery, and all persons between twelve and sixty not otherwise employed may be compelled to serve by the year in husbandry. The masters may not dismiss, nor the servants unduly depart; nor leave the city or parish of their service without a testimonial; that is to say, a certificate of due cause under the seal of the town or constable and two honest householders. The hours of labor are still fixed from 5 A.M. to 7 P.M., between March and September, with two and one-half hours for meal times, drink times, and sleep. From September to May, from dawn to sunset, and sleep times only allowed from May to August. A penalty of one month's imprisonment and fine is imposed on artificers and laborers leaving their work unfinished. Wages are still to be fixed by the justices of the peace, and it is made a penal offence to give or receive higher wages than the lawful rate, and all contracts for higher wages are void. Unmarried women between twelve and forty may be compelled to serve in like manner, and everybody has to work at harvest time, that is to say, artificers as well as laborers. The elaborate law of apprenticeship dates also from this great statute, and no one can use a manual art who has not been apprenticed to the same for seven years. One journeyman shall be kept for each three apprentices; disputes are to be settled by the justices of the peace, and indeed the whole labor contract is regulated as carefully as the most statute-mad of modern labor leaders could desire, though hardly, perhaps, then, in the sole interest of the workingman. If this statute was ever repealed, it was in very recent times.
(1571) The year of the statute against fraudulent conveyances, and of another poor law, with provisions for the punishment of "rogues, vagabonds and sturdy beggars," who are defined to include those going about the country "using sybtyll craftye and unlawfull Games or Playes … Palmestrye … or fantasticall Imaginacons…. Fencers Bearewardes and Common Players," and the penalty for harboring such vagabonds was twenty shillings. We are a long time from the knighting of Sir Henry Irving. In 1575 comes another act for setting the poor to work, and the punishing of tramps and beggars.
In 1571 also is the first formal complaint of monopolies by the Commons. Coal, oil, salt, vinegar, starch, iron, glass, and many other commodities were all farmed out to individuals and monopolies; coal, mentioned first, is still, to-day, the subject of our greatest monopoly; while oil, mentioned fourth, is probably the subject of our second greatest monopoly; and iron, mentioned seventh, is probably the third. Conditions have not changed. The only reason we don't have salt still a monopoly is on account of the numerous sources and processes for obtaining it from mines and from the sea; Fugger, the John D. Rockefeller of the sixteenth century (whose portrait in Munich strongly resembles him), had a monopoly of the salt mines of all Germany. The conditions have maintained themselves, even as to the very articles. This grievance was first mooted in Parliament in 1571 by a Mr. Bell, "who was at once summoned before the Council." This council was the King's Council, or Privy Council—a body roughly corresponding to our United States Senate. He was summoned before the council for objecting because coal, oil, salt, vinegar, starch, iron, glass, were the subjects of monopoly; and he "returned to the House with such an amazed countenance that it daunted all the rest." That is very much the fate of the tariff reformer to-day, if we may credit the tales of those returning from Washington.
After a lapse of twenty-six years the Commons ventured again. This time the queen replied that she hoped her dutiful and loving subjects would not take away her prerogative, which is the choicest flower in her garden, but promised to examine all patents and abide the touchstone of the law. Nevertheless, four years later the list of articles subject to monopoly was so numerous that when it was read over to the House in 1601 an indignant member exclaimed: "Is not bread amongst them? Nay, if no remedy is found for these, bread will be there before the next Parliament." The Populists openly cursed the monopolies and declared that the prerogatives should not be suffered to touch the old liberties of England. Seeing that resistance was no longer politic, Elizabeth sent a message to the House saying that some of these monopolies should be presently repealed, some superseded, and none put in execution but such as should first have a trial according to law for the good of the people; and Robert Cecil, the secretary, added an assurance that all existing patents should be revoked and no others granted for the future. The Commons waited upon the queen with an address of thanks, to which she replied almost affectionately that never since she had been queen "did I put my pen to any grant but upon pretence made to me that it was good and beneficial to the subjects in general, though a private profit to some of my ancient servants who had deserved well. Never thought was cherished in my heart which tended not to my people's good." Notwithstanding these fair words, the House of Commons found it necessary to enact the Great Statute against Monopolies.
(1623) In the beginning, the statute recites that "Your most excellent Majestie in your Royall Judgment … did In the yeare … 1610 … publish in Print to the whole Realme and to all Posteritie, that all Graunt of Monapolyes and of the benefitt of any penall Lawes, or of power to dispence with the Lawe … are contrary to your Majesties Lawes, which your Majesties Declaracon is truly consonant and agreeable to the auncient and fundamentall Lawes of this your Realme…. Nevertheles … many such Graunts have bene undulie obteyned … For avoyding whereof and preventinge of the like in tyme to come, May it please your most excellent Majestic … that it may be declared and enacted, and be it declared and enacted by the authoritie of this present Parliament That all Monapolies and all Commissions Graunts Licenses Charters and lettres patents heretofore made or graunted, or hereafter to be made or graunted to any person or persons Bodies Politique or Corporate whatsoever of or for the sole buyinge sellinge makinge workinge or usinge of any things within this Realme or the Dominion of Wales, or of any other Monopolies, or of Power Libertie or Facultie to dispence with any others, or to give Licence or Toleracon to doe use or exercise any thinge against the tenor or purport of any Lawe or Statute … are altogether contrary to the laws of this realm and so are or shall be utterly void and in no wise to be put in use or execution." Section 2 provides that all such monopolies and the force and validity of them ought to be and should forever hereafter be examined, tried, and determined by and according to the common law; section 4, that a party aggrieved might have treble damages, as in our modern Sherman Act. There followed provisos for exempting existing patents for twenty-one years or less for new inventions or like future patents for fourteen years or less, the charters of the city of London, or any custom or customs of London, or any other city or town, for corporations, companies, or fellowships of any art, trade, occupation, or mystery; that is to say, exempting the guilds, but these guilds by this time had long ceased to be societies of actual journeymen or handicraftsmen. This great statute may fairly be classed among the constitutional documents of England, and it left the great fabric of the English common law guaranteeing freedom of labor and liberty of trade, Magna Charta itself recognizing this principle, and the Statute of Westminster I forbidding forestalling and excessive toll contrary to the laws of England, as it has remained until the present day—only rediscovered in the statutes of our Southern and Western States aimed against trusts, and reapplied by Congress, in the Sherman Act, to interstate commerce; but in neither case added to, nor, possibly, improved.
Two years before this great statute, the process of impeachment, not employed for nearly two hundred years, had been revived against Sir Giles Mompesson and Sir Francis Mitchell, who in the Parliament of 1621 were impeached "for fraud and oppression committed as patentees for the exclusive manufacture of gold and silver thread, for the inspection of inns and hostelries, and for the licensing of ale-houses. While no definite articles were presented according to modern forms, an accusation was made by the Commons and a judgment rendered by the Lords, condemning both to fine, imprisonment, and degradation from the honor of knighthood." Nevertheless, Charles I revived the system of monopolies and raised revenue by their application to almost every article of ordinary consumption as well as by enormous fines inflicted through the Star Chamber, both important matters leading to his dethronement.[1] Elizabeth granted monopolies on the perfectly madern pretence that a monopoly, be it made by law or by tariff, is for the benefit of the public good, though at the same time possibly a private profit to certain individuals, friends of the sovereign.
[Footnote 1: See Dowell, "History of Taxation," vol. I, pp. 204-209.]
But all this early legislation of England was far better and more advanced than our own; for in all these questions of duties on exports and duties on imports and monopolies, they never consider the man who has the monopoly, the producer; but always they are avowed to be, petitioned for, declared to be, only in the interests of theconsumer; which cannot be said to be the case with ourselves.
(1275) The Statute of Westminster I has sometimes been termed a great English code; it is certainly a comprehensive statement by statute of a considerable portion of existing law. In our consideration of labor and conspiracy laws we have had to include statutes of later centuries. Now, returning to the year of the Statute of Westminster, we found, in 1275, also the Statute of Bigamy, aimed against priests with more than one wife. It is to be noted that this was centuries before the celibacy of priests became one of the doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church. It is also interesting that this early statute refers to the pope as "the Bishop of Rome"—but only as printed since 1543.
(1279) The Statute of Mortmain, aimed at the holding of land in large quantities by religious corporations, was a true constructive statute, and the principle it establishes has grown ever since. The law regards with jealousy the ownership of land by any corporation; the presumption is against the power, and it extends to-day to all corporations, and particularly to alien corporations (see chapter 7); and in 1283 came the Statute of Acton Burnel, re-enacted in 1285 and called the "Statute Merchant," equally important. It provides for the speedy recovery of debts due merchants, and is the foundation of all our modern law of pledge, sales of collateral, etc. It is distinctly an innovation on the common law; for in those days there was no method of collecting ordinary money debts. You could levy on a man's land, but there really seems to have been no method of recovering a debt contracted in trade; and this is the first of many statutes adopting foreign ideas as to matters of trade, and the customs of merchants, drawn frequently from the Lombard or Jew traders of the Continent, which, by statute law, custom, or court decision, has since become such a considerable body of the English law as to have a name to itself—the "Law Merchant." This first statute provides for imprisonment for debt; "if he have no goods to be seized the debtor is to be imprisoned, but the creditor shall find him bread and water." A foreigner coming to England to recover a debt may also recover the expenses of his trip; and the statute is further liberal in that it does away with theDroit d'Aubaine, that narrow-minded custom by which the goods or personal property of any person who died passing through the kingdom were seized by the authorities and could not be recovered by his heirs. This mediaeval injustice continued for some centuries in Germany and France, and we can hardly say that the notion is extinct in this country when a State like California, by her system of public administrators, practically impounds a large proportion of all personal property owned by non-residents at their death. Cases have been known where it cost the executor more than one-third of the money to collect a mortgage, owned by a deceased citizen of Massachusetts, in California; and for that reason, among others, Eastern lawyers have advised against investments in that State; for the public administrators are usually petty politicians in search of a job. The increasing burden of our State inheritance tax laws, whereby every State wherein a corporation exists besides the State of the deceased seizes its percentage of the stock of such corporation in the hands of the executors, is another step in this direction. This early Statute Merchant, liberal in other respects, still excludes Jews from its benefits.
(1284) Jury trial was well established by this time, for the Statute of Wales includes it in its code of procedure for that principality. The great StatuteDe Donis, or Westminster II, came the following year; most interesting to lawyers as the foundation of estates tail; but it also regulates "assizes or juries" that "rich men do not abide at home by reason of their bribes." It also specifically requires indictment "of twelve lawful men at least," and gives an action against sheriffs imprisoning without such warrant "as they should have against any other person." Rape, ten years before made punishable only by two years' imprisonment, is now made an offence punishable by loss of life or member; showing how our ancestors treated a burning question, at least in our Southern States, of to-day. Finally, it confirms and explains the writde odio et atia, the predecessor of the modernhabeas corpus. Some writers have doubted whether this writ existed as a practical remedy much before the Statute of Charles II; but here it says that parties indicted, etc., are to have the writde odio et atia"lest they be kept long in prison, like as it is declared in Magna Charta." This can only refer to C. 36 of John's Charter, "the writ of inquest of life or limb to be given gratis and not denied"; and taken in connection with the action for damages just given affords a fairly complete safeguard to personal liberty. It also contains the first game law, protecting "salmons." "There are salmons in Wye," says Shakespeare, and we are reminded of it because the Statute of Winchester in the same year contains a provision that is almost literally quoted by Dogberry in "Twelfth Night." It provides for the gates of great towns to be shut at sunset, and that no citizen should bear arms, and no tavern sell drink after 9 P.M., and then it comes to the duties of the watch, which are described in such like manner that Dogberry's language seems a mere paraphrase. Whoever wrote the play certainly had read the Statutes of the Realm for the year 1285, but so far as I am aware, the Baconians have not yet called attention to this. And the same statute shows us how much better police protection the England of 1285 gave than the New York or Chicago of 1909; for all the people dwelling in the hundred or country (county) if they do not deliver the body of the offender, "shall be answerable for the robberies done and also the damages." The same year was a statute of "The common customs of the City of London," among which was one that "taverns should not be open after 9 P.M. for the selling of wine or ale," a regulation for their "tenderloin," which itself is described in quite modern terms; "none shall walk the streets after curfew." Possibly the same year is the Statute of Bakers, with careful provisions against putrid meat, worthy of consideration by our cold-storage plants. Butchers selling unwholesome flesh, or buying it of the Jews, were severely punished.
(1289) The Statute of Quo Warranto is another historical landmark, showing the jealousy our ancestors felt of officials, bureaucracy; a writ specially devised to enable them to challenge the right of any magnate who pretended to power by virtue of holding office, and the predecessor of our modernquo warranto, which we still use at all times for that purpose, not only as against officers but to test any special privileges or charters claimed, such as the right to a monopoly, a franchise, a ferry, etc. These may be still tried byquo warranto; meaning, by what warrant do you claim to exercise this office, this monopoly, this privilege?
About this time is another statute forbidding usury, and permitting Christian debtors to retain half of all debts they may owe to the Jews, who are required to wear the mark of two cables joined on their coats; and there is the great Statute of Westminster III,Quia Emptores, affecting land tenures, still of importance to the conveyancers. In 1295 we have the famous Model Parliament; that is to say, the first one where kings, lords, and commons were joined, the legislative branches sitting separately and the Commons represented. Two years later Edward I, carrying on the war in Flanders, was compelled to grant that great confirmation of the charters already referred to, that no aid or tax should be taken but by the common consent of the realm and for the common profit; restoring thus into the recognized charter that important provision of the original Charter of John; and it provides that the great charter shall be read twice a year in every cathedral in England. In our country I am aware of no provision for reading the Constitution, though the Declaration of Independence, an obsolete document, is occasionally read upon the Fourth of July.
In 1305 the Anglo-Norman law reports begin, the Year Books. From then to now, at least, we have continuous written reports of all important cases decided in England. This is not to say that we do not have them before (our people, first in the world's history, has the records of all its cases in high courts for nigh a thousand years), but they are now for the first time systematic.
(1309) On the accession of Edward II came the Summary of Grievances, recited in the Statute of Stamford as recognized by Edward I at the close of his reign. The seizure of supplies by the king without due payment; the maintenance of courts at the gates of the king's castles in derogation of the common-law courts; the taking of "new customs," two shillings per tun of wine, two shillings for cloth and other imports, "whereby the price to the people is enhanced"; the debasement of current coin; that petitions of the Commons to Parliament were not received, etc., etc. All duties were then suspended, in order to know and be advised "what Profit and Advantage will accrue to him and his People by ceasing the taking of those Customs"—a precedent it were to be wished we might have the intelligence to follow to-day—surely better than a tariff commission!
Two years later came the New Ordinances, which contain a most interesting precedent, hitherto almost unnoted, of the American principle of having the courts construe the Constitution. Section VI: "It is Ordained, That the Great Charter be kept in all its points in such manner, that if there be in the said Charter any point obscure or doubtful, it shall be declared by the said Ordainours, and others whom they will, for that purpose, call to them, when they shall see occasion and season during their power." Section XXXVIII: "That the Great Charter … and the Points which are doubtful in it be explained by the advice of the Baronage and of the Justices, and of other sage Persons of the Law." It was ordained that the king should not go out of the realm, a precedent never violated until modern times, and even followed by our own presidents, except for Roosevelt's trip to Panama and Taft's to the borders of Mexico. Again we find "new customs" abolished, "as upon Wools, Cloths, Wines, Avoir de pois, and other Things, whereby the Merchants come more seldom, and bring fewer Goods into the Land, and the Foreign Merchants abide longer than they were wont to do, by which abiding things become more dear," saving only to the king his duty on wool and leather, half a mark for a sack of wool and one mark for a last of leather. "The king shall hold a Parliament once in the year or twice if need be, and that in a convenient place." This principle has maintained itself in the English mind, still more in the American mind, ever since. To this day, in Massachusetts, for instance, we cannot get a constitutional amendment to have the legislature sit only once in two years, though it would probably be a very wise reform, on account of this old inherited feeling that there is something peculiarly free about an annual parliament, as indeed there is. The Anglo-Norman kings called parliaments once a year or oftener. Most of the States in this country now have their legislatures sit every two years. Alabama and some other States have recently changed, that they only sit once in four years. But the conservative old States, like Massachusetts and New Jersey, have still the rule that the legislature sits every year; and the prejudice in favor of the annual legislature goes back at least as far as this law of 1330, where the Commons succeeded in getting a law that Parliament should sit as often as once in a year, and is incorporated in England's and Massachusetts' Bill of Rights.
And then we find the first statute restraining what we should now call chancery jurisdiction, complaining that the law of the land and common right was delayed by letters issued under the king's will, and ordaining that henceforth they shall not be disturbed by said letters and nothing done in any of the places of the court of the king or elsewhere by such letters against right or the law of the land shall avail.
In 1313 the coming armed to Parliament is forbidden. These were troublous times and there was little legislation in consequence, and in 1322 Edward II secured the revocation of the New Ordinances themselves, but as in all such cases of royal grant and withdrawal the principles shown are even the more important historically. Of uncertain period is the Statute of Jewrie forbidding usury to the Jews, and Christians from living among them, but permitting them freedom of trade and exempting them from taxation except to the king; and a statute of the usages and customs of the men of Kent beginning with the statement that "all the Bodies of Kentishmen be free, as well as the other free Bodies of England," which dates at least as late as the early part of the fourteenth century, but still exemplifying the notion that a statute should only express law or custom previously existing.
(1327) The Statute of Northampton, at the beginning of the reign of Edward III, confirms many of the earlier statutes, but abolishes all staples beyond the sea and on this side, on the ground that they tended to monopoly, and provided that all merchants, strangers, and citizens may go and come with their merchandises into England after the tenor of the great charter (cap. IX). In the next year is another provision for annual parliaments, and in 1335 the Statute of York again allows merchants to buy and sell freely except only enemies, and giving double damages for the disturbance by any one of such freedom of trade, and the Statutede Moneta, forbidding carrying money abroad; which is notable to the student of economics as showing how early what we now call the fallacy of the mercantile system appeared. Our ancestors thought that there was something peculiarly advantageous in a tariff or system of duties which put all the money into a country and allowed only goods to go out; and that opinion is perhaps not yet extinct.
There always seems to have been a notion that there is something peculiarly sacred about wool. So we find that in 1337 they made it a felony to carry wool out of England, or to wear cloth made out of England; and no clothes made beyond the seas were to be brought into England. That notion that a man ought to dress on home products lies behind our present McKinley tariff. Then, in 1340, you will find another statute for the liberties of merchants, that they should be allowed the freedom of the kingdom; and a new duty is imposed on wool. Then we find the abolition of the laws of "the staple"; foreign staple towns had been abolished just before. The "staple" was thetownin which one commodity was mainly dealt in. Every commodity in England had some particular town, where the principal market was for it; just as, with us, the boot and shoe market of the United States is supposed to be in Boston, the money market in New York, beef and hogs in Chicago. In England, in the Middle Ages, they really provided that a certain trade should have its home in a certain town; not necessarily the only one, but very often in that one only. Thus there were certain towns for the carrying on of the wool industry; you could only trade in wool in those towns. The word "staple," from meaning the town or market, got applied by an easy process to the commodity dealt in; so that when we now say that the Vermont staple is hay, we mean that this is the main crop raised in Vermont. But the staple—like the modern stockyard or exchange—tended to monopoly and was abolished for this reason.
In 1340 and 1344 we find two picturesque statutes showing how the English were getting jealous of the Norman kings: "The realm and people of England shall not be subject to the King or people of France"—that is, that the customs and law of France, although their kings were French, were not to be applied to England. Then in the royal edict that year when King Edward assumed the title, King of France, they caused him to put in a statement that no inference was to be drawn from his assuming the flower de luces in the first quarter of his arms. The present English coat of arms is modern; instead of having the Norman leopards in the upper right hand and lower left hand, they then had the blue field and the fleurs de lys of France in the upper, and the Norman leopards only in the lower corner; and this lasted until the time of Charles I. In that part of Normandy which now still remains to the English crown, that is, in Guernsey and Jersey, you find to-day that only the leopards, not the arms of Great Britain, are in use. But then again, in 1344, we have a statute (which, by the way, itself is written in French) complaining that the French king is trying to destroy the English language. They were getting very jealous of anything French; the Normans had already been absorbed; modern England was beginning to appear.
(1344) And now comes a liberal statute, repealing those restrictions on wool, and allowing it to be exported; and another statute that "the Sea be open to all manner of merchants." Now this is the origin of the great English notion of freedom to trade with foreign parts; and was principally relied upon three centuries later in the great case of monopoly (7 State Trials) brought against the East India Company. And England has assumed dominion of the sea ever since; "the boundaries of Great Britain are the high-water mark upon every other country."
(1348) This year was the plague of the Black Death, and the following year is the first Statute of Laborers discussed in an earlier chapter and elaborately amended in the following year. In 1350 also we find the Statute of Cloths, providing again for free trade in victuals, cloths, and any other manner of merchandise in all the towns and ports of England, and punishing forestalling of any merchandise with two years' imprisonment and forfeiture of the goods, one-half to go to the informer. Two years later the forestalling and engrossing of Gascony wines is forbidden and even the selling of them at an advanced price, and this offence is made capital!—and the next year we have the most elaborate of the Statutes of the Staple re-established. This ordinance (1353) provides for a staple of wools, leather, wool fells, and lead in various towns in England, Wales, and Ireland. The safety of merchant strangers is provided for, and it is again made a felony for the king's subjects to export wool; and more important still, all merchants coming to the staple and matters therein "shall be ruled by the Law-Merchant and not by the common Law of the Land nor by Usage of Cities, Boroughs or other Towns," and any plaintiff is given the option whether he will sue his action or quarrel before the justices of the staple by the law thereof, or in the common-law court. Merchandise may be sold in gross or by parcels, but may not be forestalled; and the goods of strangers suffering shipwreck shall be restored to their owners on payment of salvage. Houses in staple towns must be let at a reasonable rate, and conspiracies or combinations against the law of the staple made criminal. Again our ancestors showed themselves more civilized than we, this time in their Custom-house proceedings; for Article 26 of this statute provides that "whereas a Duty is payable of three pence in the pound by all merchant strangers coming into the kingdom, they may show their letters or invoices to prove the value of their goods, and if they have no letters, they shall be believed by their oath … and now of late we understand by the Complaint of the said Merchants that although they have Letters or have made oath, nevertheless after the Oath made the bailiffs of the customs do unseal their Barrels, Fardels, and Bales for which they have taken their oath. We, not willing that Strangers that come into our Realm be in such Manner grieved, establish that when the Letters or the oath be taken their Goods shall be delivered to them without delay and the bailiffs meddle no more of the same Goods upon Pain of Imprisonment and pay the Party grieved quatreple Damages." As is well known, it is the United States custom to insist upon the oath of the importer, and notwithstanding that, rummage open his trunks. Or are we to infer that people were more truthful in those days?
(1354) The export of iron is forbidden, and the justices given power to punish them that sell iron at too dear a price, but it does not appear how the prices are to be determined; and the Statute of the Staple is again re-enacted and the provision made that duty shall be paid only upon those goods which are actually sold in England and the merchant may re-export the balance—the first precedent of our laws of importing under bond. It is notable that this year the Statute of Laborers is extended to the city of London.
(1357) The Ordinance of Herrings is a most interesting example of early intelligence in dealing with a modern abuse. It provides "that no herring shall be bought or sold in the Sea, till the Fishers be come into the Haven with their Herring, and that the Cable of the Ship be drawn to the Land." That thereupon they may sell freely, but only between sunrise and sunset. "The Hundred of Herring shall be … six score, and the Last by ten Thousand and all Merchants must sell the Thousand of Herring after the Rate of the Price of the Last, and the people of Yarmouth shall sell the last [that is, the ten thousand red herring], bought for forty shillings for half a mark of gain and not above; and so the people of London for one mark of gain"; and the destruction of fish is prevented, but all caught must be sold. It is well known that the custom was to destroy all the fish brought into Billingsgate market above a certain quantity, which led Ruskin to cry out furiously that the real prices of the world were regulated by Rascals, while the fools are bleating their folly of Supply and Demand. One may guess to-day that most of the proceedings in the ports of Boston, New York, or Gloucester would be highly criminal under this ancient law. So, in the Statute of Dogger (this ancient word meaning the ships that carry fish for salting to Blakeney, Cromer, and other ports in the east of England), the price of dogger fish is settled at the beginning of the day and must be sold at such price "openly, and not by covin, or privily," nor can fish be bought for resale, but must be sold within the bounds of the market. To-day there is not a quart of milk that goes into Boston that is not forestalled, nor possibly a fish that is not sold at sea or even before its capture; and the number of middlemen is many—when, indeed, they all are not consolidated into a trust. The destruction, directly or by cold storage, of milk, fish, eggs, or other food in order solely to maintain the price should to-day be a misdemeanor; and these early doctrines of forestalling and restraining trade should be to-day more intelligently applied by our judges—or by the legislatures, if our lawyers have forgotten them—for they all are "highly criminal at the common law."
In the reign of Edward III appears one of many cruel ordinances for Ireland. Although the Roman Church was then, of course, universal, the statute is addressed to "the Archbishops, Bishops, Abbots, Priors and our Officers both great and small of our land of Ireland," and recites that "through default of good government and the neglect and carelessness of the royal officers there [this is probably true enough] our land of Ireland and the Clergy and People thereof have been manifoldly disturbed and grieved; and the Marches of said Land situate near the Enemy, laid waste by Hostile Invasions, the Marches being slain and plundered and their Dwellings horribly burnt." The Marchers were, of course, mainly of English descent; and one notes that the Irish are frankly termed the Enemy. As a method of meeting this evil, the Saxon intelligence of the day could find no better remedy than to lay it to "marriages and divers other Ties and the nursing of Infant Children among the English and the Irish, and Forewarnings and Espyals made on both Sides by the Occasions aforesaid," and it therefore forbids such marriages to be contracted between English and Irish, "and other private Ties and nursing of Infant Children." The statute notes that these dissensions do not occur only between the English and those of Irish blood, but as well between the English of birth and the English of descent living in Ireland; a condition which has, indeed, continued till to-day, Parneil and a host of famous Irishmen being of pure English descent.
In 1360 the exportation of corn is forbidden. We now, therefore, have that principle applied to wool, iron, and bread-stuffs—corn, of course, meaning all kinds of grain. There is another statute requiring Parliament to be held once a year; and, more interesting, that pleas should be made in the English language, for "the French tongue is much unknown in said Realm of England," but the judgments are to be enrolled in Latin. In 1363 another statute concerning diet and apparel fixes the price of poultry, a young capon three pence, an old one four pence, a hen two pence, and a pullet one penny "for the great Dearth that is in many Places." Department stores are anticipated by a clause complaining that the merchants called grocers do engross all manner of merchandise "by Covin and Ordinance made betwixt them, called the Fraternity and Gild of Merchants," and anticipates the prejudice against the modern department store by ordaining that merchants shall deal in only one sort of merchandise; and furthermore handicraftsmen are allowed to "use only one Mystery," that is, trade—which also anticipates a principle dear to modern trades-unions. The statute then regulates the diet and apparel of servants. They may eat once a day of flesh or fish, but the rest of their diet must be milk or vegetarian. Their clothing may not exceed two marks in value. People of handicraft and yeomen, however, are allowed to wear clothing worth forty shillings, but not silk, silver, nor precious stones. Squires and gentlemen of a landed estate less than one hundred pounds a year may wear clothing to the value of four marks and a half, but not gold nor silver, precious stones nor fur. Merchants having goods to the value of five hundred pounds may dress like esquires and gentlemen to a value of six marks. Clerks, that is to say, persons having degrees from colleges, may dress like knights of the same income and may wear fur in winter and lawn in summer, and clothiers make clothes accordingly and drapers and tailors charge proportionately. This most interesting effort to interfere with private life stops short of regulating the use of wine or beer; and tobacco had not yet been discovered. It is all the more interesting to note that it was found so intolerable that it was repealed the following year; and little effort since then has been made to regulate the diet or dress or expenditure of Englishmen; it was declared in memorable language that "which was ordained at the last Parliament, of Living and of Apparel, and that no English Merchant should use but one Merchandise" be repealed, and "It is ordained, That all People shall be as free as they were before the said Ordinance," and "all Merchants, as well Aliens as Denizens, may sell and buy all Manner of Merchandises, and freely carry them out of the Realm … saving the Victuallers of Fish that fish for Herring and other Fish, and they that bring Fish within the Realm." Thus, after trying the opposite, we find triumphantly established in the middle of the fourteenth century the great English principle of freedom of life and trade. The legislation of this great reign ends with the prohibition of practising lawyers from sitting in Parliament and an ordinance that women might not practise law or "sue in court by way of Maintenance or Reward, especially Alice Perrens," Alice Perrers or Pierce having become unpopular as the mistress of the elderly king. Our courts have usually held that there is no common-law principle forbidding women to practise law, but from this ancient statute it would appear that such decisions are erroneous.
(1381) In 5 Richard II is a law absolutely forbidding the sale of sweet wines at retail. This law, with the testimony of Shakespeare, goes to show that England liked their wines dry (sack), but the act is repealed the following year, only that sweet wines must be sold at the same price as the wines of the Rhine and Gascony; and in the same year, more intelligent than we, is a statute permitting merchants to ship goods in foreign ships when no English ships are to be had. In 1383, according to Spence, the barons protested that they would never suffer the kingdom to be governed by the Roman law, and the judges prohibited it from being any longer cited in the common-law tribunals. The rest of the statutes of Richard II are taken up with the important statutes concerning riots and forcible entries, and regulating labor, as set forth in the last chapter.
The troublesome reign of Richard II closes with an interesting attempt to make its legislation permanent, as has sometimes been attempted in our State constitutions. The last section of the last law of King Richard declares "That the King by the Assent of the said Lords and Knights [note it does not say by consent of the Commons], so assigned by the said Authority of Parliament, will and hath ordained that … to repeal or to attempt the repeal of any of the said Statutes is declared to be high treason," and the man so doing shall have execution as a traitor. Notwithstanding, in the following year the first act of Henry IV repeals the whole Parliament of the 21st of Richard II and all their statutes; that it be "wholly reversed, revoked, voided, undone, repealed, and adnulled for ever"—so we with the States in rebellion, and so Charles II with the acts of Cromwell.
(1400) Under Henry IV is the first secular law against heresy, making it a capital offence. Upon conviction by the ordinary the heretic is to be delivered to the secular arm,i.e., burnt. Note that the trial, however, still remains with the ordinary,i.e., the clerical court. Under Henry IV also we find a statute banishing all Welshmen and forbidding them to buy land or become freemen in England; and under Henry VI the same law is applied to Irishmen, and in the next reign to Scotchmen as well. The Irishmen complained of, however, were only those attending the University of Oxford. In 1402 we find Parliament asserting its right to ratify treaties and to be consulted on wars; matters not without interest to President Roosevelt's Congress, and in 1407 we find definite recognition of the principle that money bills must originate in the lower house.
For the purpose of his Chicago speech, it is a pity that Mr. Bryan's attention was never called to the Statute of the 8th of Henry VI, which forbids merchants from compelling payment in gold and from refusing silver, "which Gold they do carry out of the Realm into other strange Countries." An enlightened civic spirit is shown in the Statute of 1433, which prohibits any person dwelling at the Stews in Southwark from serving on juries in Surrey, whereby "many Murderers and notorious Thieves have been saved, great Murders and Robberies concealed and not punished." And the statute sweepingly declares everybody inhabiting that part of Southwark to be thieves, common women, and other misdoers. Fortunately, this was before the time that John Harvard took up his residence there.
In 1430 was the first statute imposing a property qualification upon voters.
In 1452 is a curious statute reciting that "Whereas in all Parts of this Realm divers People of great Power, moved with unsatiable Covetousness … have sought and found new Inventions, and them continually do execute, to the Danger, Trouble and great abusing of all Ladies, Gentlewomen, and having any Substance … perceiving their great Weakness and Simplicity, will take them by Force, or otherwise come to them seeming to be their great Friends … and so by great Dissimulation … get them into their Possession; also they will many Times compell them to be married by them, contrary to their own liking." A writ of chancery is given to persons so constrained of their liberty to summon the person complained of, and if he make default be outlawed—an early example of "government by injunction" applied to other than labor disputes! I know no example of an American statute to this effect; presumably our women are lacking in "weakness and simplicity."
In 1463 is another curious sumptuary law prescribing with great care the apparel of knights, bachelors, gentlemen and their wives, making it criminal for tailors to make cloths not according to this fashion, and for shoemakers to make boots or shoes having pikes more than two inches long. No draper shall sell or women wear hose to the value of more than fourteen pence, nor kerchiefs worth more than ten shillings, but scholars of the universities "may wear such Array as they may," nor does the ordinance extend to judges or soldiers. The provision against long pikes to shoes appears to be considered of importance, for it was re-enacted in 1464. I have searched in vain for a statute relating to hatpins. Again in 1482 there is another long statute concerning apparel which seems to have been considered under the reign of Edward IV quite the most important thing in life. A more manly clause of the statute is concerned with the benefits of archery to England, reciting that "In the Time of the victorious Reign … the King's Subjects have virtuously occupied and used shooting with their Bows, whereby and under the Protection of Almighty God, victorious acts have been done in Defence of this Realm," and the price of long bows of yew is limited to three and four pence. The statutes now begin to be in English.
In 1488 the Isle of Wight is to be repeopled with English people for "defence of the King's auncien ennemyes of the realme of Fraunce."
In 1491 all Scots are to depart the realm within forty days upon pain of forfeiture of all their goods; it is not recorded that any remained in England. In 1491 Henry VII levied an amazingly heavy tax upon personal property, that is to say, two fifteenths and tenths upon all "movable goodes cattales and othre thinges usuelly to suche xvmes and xmes contributory," with the exception of Cambridge and a few other favored towns. In 1495 the famous Oklahoma statute is anticipated by a law regulating abuses in the stuffing of feather beds.
In 1503 a statute recites that the "Longe Bowes hathe ben moche used in this his Realme, wherby Honour & Victorie hathe ben goten … and moche more drede amonge all Cristen Princes by reasone of the same, whiche shotyng is now greatly dekayed." So this mediaeval Kipling laments that they now delight in cross-bows to the great hurt and enfeebling of the Realm and to the comfort of outward enemies, wherefore cross-bows are forbidden except to the lords, on penalty of forfeiture of the bow.
(1509) The reign of Henry VIII was one of personal government; and in those days personal government resulted in a small output of law-making by Parliament. Indeed, after 1523, under Cardinal Wolsey, Parliament was not summoned for seven years. In 1539 the attempt to do without popular legislation is shown in the act already referred to, giving royal proclamations of the king and council the force of law, a definite attempt at personal government which might have resulted in the establishment of an administrative law fashioned by the executive, had it not been for the sturdy opposition of the people under weaker reigns. But under the reign of Henry VIII also the great right of free speech in Parliament was established; and in 1514 the king manumitted two villeins with the significant words "Whereas God created all men free," vulgarly supposed to be original with our Declaration of Independence.
The important principle of a limitation for prosecutions by the government for penal offences dates from the first year of Henry VIII, the period being put, as it still is, at three years; and it is expressed to be for better peace and justice and to avoid the taking up of old charges after the evidence has disappeared.