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. 9