o
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]

[Footnote 1: This matter will be found further discussed in chap. XI.]

Coming lastly to _tolls_, or rates of persons or corporations enjoying
a franchise, that is to say, a legalized monopoly, or exclusive
legislation, or special privilege, such as eminent domain, or the
right to occupy the streets; such are, in fact, identical with what we
term public-service corporations, the older, the most universal, and
certainly the most, if not the only, justifiable example of legal
regulation of the returns for the use of property or personal
services.

Whatever may be thought of the economic wisdom of attempting to
regulate any rate or prices by law (and for a discussion of this
subject as to railways, at least, the reader may well be referred
to the valuable treatise of Mr. Hugo R. Meyer, "State Regulation of
Railways"), such legislation was at least in England constitutional;
but in t