ABSTRACT
The manner, occasion, and degree in which the State may interfere with the industrial freedom of its citizens is one of the most debatable and difficult questions of social science. It might perhaps be expected that we could learn a good deal about labour legislation from the English Statute-Book, which covers in almost unbroken continuity an interval of 650 years. The whole division and subdivision of labour is but a case of Mr. Herbert Spencer's doctrine of evolution, and the evolution of special Government inspectors is a case of division of labour. As frequent complaints are now made in the manufacturing districts as to frauds committed in the packing of cotton—earth, stones, brick-bats, and rubbish of all descriptions being sometimes found inside the bales—it may be pointed out that such matters were well looked after by our ancestors.
