it was essential to the maintenance
of their industrial standard by the artisan classes, because it alone,
in the absence of drastic legislative protection, could do something to
redress the inequality between employer and employed. It gave, upon the
whole, far more freedom to the workman than it took away, and in this we
learn an important lesson which has far wider application. In the matter
of contract true freedom postulates substantial equality between the
parties. In proportion as one party is in a position of vantage, he is
able to dictate his terms. In proportion as the other party is in a weak
position, he must accept unfavourable terms. Hence the truth of Walker's
dictum that economic injuries tend to perpetuate themselves. The more a
class is brought low, the greater its difficulty in rising again without
assistance. For purposes of legislation the State has been exceedingly
slow to accept this view. It began, as we saw, with the child, where
the case was overwhelming. It went on to include the "young person" and
the woman--not without criticism from those who held by woman's rights,
and saw in this extension of tutelage an enlargement of male domination.
Be that as it may, public opinion was brought to this point by the
belief that it was intervening in an exceptional manner to protect a
definite class not strong enough to bargain for itself. It drew the line
at the adult male; and it is only within our own time, and as the result
of a controversy waged for many years within the trade union world
itself, that legislation has avowedly undertaken the task of controlling
the conditions of industry, the hours, and at length, through the
institution of Wages Boards in "sweated industries," the actual
remuneration of working people without limitation of age or sex. To this
it has been driven by the manifest teaching of experience that liberty
without equality is a name of noble sound and squalid result.

In place of the system of unfettered agreements between individual and
individual which the school of Cobden contemplated, the industrial
system which has actually grown up and is in process of further
development rests on conditions prescribed by the State, and within the
limits of those conditions is very largely governed by collective
arrangements between associations of employers and employed. The law
provides for the safety of the worker and the sanitary conditions of
employment. It prescribes the length of th