ates the minute
domestic character of the Elizabethan legislation (D'Ewes, 674). The
question (1601) was the repeal of a statute of tillage. Cecil says: "If
in Edward I.'s time a law was made for the maintenance of the fry of
fish, and in Henry VII.'s for the preservation of the eggs of wild fowl,
shall we now throw away a law of more consequence and import? If we
debar tillage, we give scope to the depopulating. And then, if the poor
being thrust out of their houses go to dwell with others, straight we
catch them with the statute of inmates; if they wander abroad, they are
within the danger of the statute of the poor to be whipt. So by this
undo this statute, and you endanger many thousands." A strong central
government, a local authority appointed directly by the government, and
a network of legislation controlled the whole movement of economic life.
On this reliance was placed to meet economic difficulties. The local
authorities were the justices of the peace; and they had to carry out
the statutes for this purpose, to assess the wages of artisans and
labourers, and to enforce the payment of the wages they had fixed; to
ensure that suitable provision was made for the relief of the poor at
the expense of rates which they also fixed; and to suppress vagabondage.
Since 23 Edw. III. there had been labour statutes, and in 1563 a new
statute was passed, an "Act containing divers orders for Artificers,
Labourers, Servants of Husbandry and Apprentices" (5 Eliz. c. 4). It
recognized and upheld a social classification. On the one hand there was
the gentleman or owner of property to which the act was not to apply;
and on the other the artisan and labouring class. This class in turn was
subdivided, and the justices were to assess their wages annually
according to "the plenty and scarcity of the time and other
circumstances." Persons between the ages of twelve and sixty, who were
not apprentices or engaged in certain specified employments, were
compelled to serve in husbandry by the year "with any person that
keepeth husbandry." The length of the day's work and the conditions of
apprenticeship were fixed. The assessed rate of wages was enforceable by
fine and imprisonment, and refusal to be apprenticed by imprisonment.
Thus there was created a life control over labour with an industrial
settlement and a wage fixed by the justices annually. There are
differences of opinion in regard to the extent to which this act was
enforced; and