way and that way, ever experimenting, enacting new statutes and amending and repealing old ones, now imposing fetters on individual liberty, now striking them off and perhaps imposing others. Even in England and America, where personal liberty of action is most prized, time was when statutes were enacted almost putting people and business in strait-jackets. In English Norfolk as late as Henry VIII's time no one was to "dye, shear or calender" cloth except in the town of Norwich; and no one in the northern counties was to make "worsted coverlets" except in the city of York. In the reign of Elizabeth a statute was passed forbidding the eating of meat on Wednesday and Saturdays and this not on the score of health or religion but avowedly to increase the price of fish. Statutes fixing the weight and price of loaves of bread and the size and price of a glass of ale were not formally repealed till 1824. The famous Statute of Laborers forbade laboring men to ask or receive more than a prescribed low sum for their labor and

also forbade their moving about seeking employment. The statutes against forestalling, regrating, and engrossing were not formally repealed until 1844. In early times in New England also, statutory attempts were made to fix the price of various commodities and the wages of various kinds of workmen. Men were fined for accepting higher than the prescribed wages. The Sunday laws in some places forbade walking about on Sunday except "reverently to go to and return from meeting." Everywhere was the ever present tendency of the legislative power to invade and direct every function of society, — social, religious, political, and economical. It should be noted that all these and similar statutes were under governments unrestrained by written constitutions and bills of right enforced by an independent judiciary.

Though from time to time many restrictive statutes have been modified and many repealed, other restrictive statutes have been enacted. Today the same process is going on. While

now and then restrictions and embargoes of longer or shorter standing are removed, there is still the same tendency to enact other restrictions and prohibitions. At every session of Congress and of the state legislatures measures are constantly proposed hampering in some way the freedom of the citizen in his occupation, in his pursuit of happiness. Demands are being made upon the legislative department by one class or interest for legislation to restrain other classes or interests, but for exemption for itself. In earlier times there were statutes fixing a maximum wage for labor, and though these proved ineffectual it is now proposed to fix a minimum wage, even though it should prove to be much more than the labor is worth. There are also proposed, and in many instances enacted, statutes restricting the freedom of the workman as to his output, of the employer as to his direction of his business. The natural activities of men are sought to be hampered and handicapped in vexatious ways. In illustration, I quote the

following from the "Boston Herald" of June 5,

1914:

"Twenty-five states and the United States itself forbid any discrimination by an employer against union men. Utah alone has a law to protect the non-union men from organized discrimination of union labor to drive him from his trade. Several of our states require that all public printing shall bear the union label. One extends that rule to all stationery. Twelve states require employers advertising for help to mention in the advertisement the existence of a strike. The Minnesota statute provides that, per contra, no employer shall require any statement from a person seeking employment as to his participation in a strike. Eight states have enacted statutes exempting labor organizations from their respective anti-trust laws. The unscrupulous employer may yet find the labor union the best means of throttling his competitors and securing a monopoly." There seems at times to be a frenzy for such legislation. Only a vivid

imagination can adequately picture what might result if Congress and the state legislatures, or the inconstant majority of the electorate, were freed from all constitutional limitations or from the check of an independent judiciary.

Though Great Britain, our mother country, has no written constitution and no judiciary empowered to enforce its limitations, it is the happy possessor of a practically homogeneous people of the Anglo-Saxon race, little affected by immigration, and imbued for centuries with a deep regard for personal liberty and private rights. Yet, even there today, statutes are demanded and sometimes enacted in derogation of them. In this country the population as the result of great immigration is more heterogeneous. It comprises races and peoples of diverse temperaments, of diverse experiences, of diverse traditions, many unschooled in self-government and lacking in that traditional reverence for liberty and order so characteristic of the Teutonic races. We even find some classes openly declaring that