REGULATION OF RATES AND PRICES
This, the last method of infringing upon absolute rights of property, has assumed such importance of recent years as to deserve and require a chapter by itself. The reader will remember what precedents we found for the fixing of prices, wages, and rates or tolls in England. It may be convenient for our purposes to use these three definite words to mean the three definite things—prices in the sense of prices of goods or commodities; wages the reward of labor or personal services; and rates (the English word is tolls) for the charges of what we should now term public-service corporations, or in old English law, franchises, or what our Supreme Court has termed "avocations affected with a public interest." The reader will remember that the attempted regulation of prices began early and was short-lived, dating from the Assize of Bread and Beer in 1266, to the Statute of Victuals of 1362, hardly a century, and even these two precedents are not really such, for the first only fixed the price of bread and beer according to the cost of wheat or barley, just as to-day we might conceivably fix the price of bread at some reasonable relation to the price of flour in Minneapolis, and as it was fixed in ancient Greece by the wholesale price of wheat at Athens[1]—not as it now is, from three to four times the cost of bread in London, although made out of the same flour shipped there from Minneapolis; and the two latest statutes expressly say that they fix the price by reason of the great dearness of such articles on account of the Black Death or plague, and the consequent scarcity of labor. Then the Statute of Laborers of 1349 provided that victuals should be sold only at reasonable prices, which apparently were to be fixed by the mayor. With these statutes the effort to fix prices by general statute disappeared from English civilization save, of course, as prices may be indirectly affected by laws against monopoly, engrossing, and restraint of trade; and local ordinances in towns continued probably for some time longer.
[Footnote 1: For an actual report of an indictment and jury trial for forestalling and regrating wheat in the third century B.C., see Lysias's oration, translated by Dr. Frederic Earle Whitaker, in Popular Science Monthly, April, 1910.]
Legal regulation of wages lasted much longer in England; and has reappeared in very recent years, at least in the Australasian colonies, with a beginning of such legislation in Great Britain and Ireland and the State of New York. The first Statute of Laborers merely provides that the old wages and no more shall be given. The next year, however, in 1350, the exact rate of wages was fixed; and this lasted for more than two centuries, to the reign of Elizabeth, the so-called "great" Statute of Laborers consolidating all the previous ones. It is apt to be the case that when a statutory system has reached its full development it falls into disuse; and that is certainly the case here. There is no later statute in England until 1909 fixing directly or indirectly the rate of wages; and it may be doubted whether the justices of the peace continued to fix them for many years under the Statute of Elizabeth. More than three centuries were to go by before this principle reappeared in legislation or attempted legislation; but in Australia,[1] New Zealand,[2] and England[3] there has been recent legislation for a legally fixed rate of wages to be determined for practically all trades by a board of referees, consisting, as such boards usually do consist, of one member to represent capital, one to represent labor, and the third to represent the public or the state. As such third representative almost invariably votes on the side of the greatest number of voters, this practically makes a commission hardly impartial. The working of the system in New Zealand will be found discussed in the Westminster Review for January, 1910. There is an appeal to the courts from the rate of wages fixed by such commission; and it appears that out of four such appeals, in three the decision of the commission was confirmed, and in the fourth set aside; but the workingmen disregarded the judgment of the court and struck for a higher wage—contrary to the whole theory of such legislation, which is to prevent strikes. This strike succeeding, there has, therefore, been no case so far where the increasing rate of wages was checked by any appeal to the courts.
[Footnote 1: So. Australia, 1906, no. 915; 1900, no. 752; Victoria, 1903, no. 1,857; 1905, no. 2,008.]
[Footnote 2: See New Zealand Law of 1900, no. 51; frequently amended since.]
[Footnote 3: 60 and 61 Victoria, c. 37, 9 Edward VII.]
In the British Parliament last year (and the identical bill has been introduced in the State of New York under championship of the Consumers League, as applied to women and children), a bill was introduced,[1] not backed, however, by the government as such, although bearing the name of Lloyd-George, providing in effect that wages might be fixed in this manner in certain definite named trades, and also in such other trades as might be designated from time to time by the home secretary. The economic effect of such measures we are not to discuss. In the United States, except as to public work, they would be probably unconstitutional.
[Footnote 1: Since enacted, see below in chap. XI.]
Coming, therefore, to public work, we use this phrase for all labor contributed directly to the State, to any county, city, town, village, or municipality thereof, to any municipal-owned public-service corporation, gas, water, etc., company, or, finally, and most important, to or under any contractor for the same, or any of them. Some years ago the State of New York adopted legislation to the effect that in all such public employment the wages paid should be the usual rate paid for similar work in the same locality at the same time. As a result of this legislation, many thousands of lawsuits were brought against the City of New York by persons who had done labor for that municipality in the past, complaining that they had not in fact been paid "the prevailing rate," although in fact the work had long since terminated, and they had been discharged, paid in full, and apparently satisfied. Shortly after, the law itself was declared unconstitutional by New York courts. Thereupon the labor interests proposed a constitutional amendment in 1905, to the effect that "the legislature may regulate and fix the wages or salaries, the hours of work or labor, and make provision for the protection, safety, and welfare of persons employed by the State or by any county, city, town, village, or other civil subdivision of the State, or by any contractor or subcontractor performing work, labor, or services for the State or for any city, county, town, village, or other civil division thereof." A very small proportion of the voters of New York took the trouble to vote upon this amendment, although it revolutionized the economic, if not the constitutional, system of the State, so far as property and contract rights are concerned; and it was adopted by a substantial majority. In Indiana there was a statute at one time fixing the rate of wages in public employment at a minimum of not less than fifteen cents per hour, but it was held unconstitutional. It is customary in New England villages to vote annually that the town shall pay its unskilled labor a prescribed rate for the following year, usually two dollars per day. The effect of this has been sometimes to cause the discharge of all but the very most skilful and able-bodied; of those who had, by working at less than full pay, been kept out of the poorhouse; and the selectmen of some towns, notably Plymouth, have refused to obey such a vote. The California Code of 1906 provides a minimum compensation of two dollars per day for public labor, except as to persons regularly employed in public institutions. Delaware has copied the New York statute as to the prevailing rate. Hawaii, in public labor, provides a minimum wage of one dollar and twenty-five cents per day. Nebraska goes further, and provides not only for two dollars per day for public work, but that it must be done by union labor in cities of the first class, while Nevada has a minimum wage of three dollars and an eight-hour day for unskilled labor in public work. On the other hand, the Constitution of Louisiana prescribes that no law shall ever be passed fixing the price of manual labor.[1]