ABSTRACT
The large body of modern legislation for the protection of labour which exists in every civilized country to-day clearly needs enforcement through penal provisions. Apart from the usual points of legislative technique, no questions of principle seem to arise with.regard to any of them. In practice, most complaints are directed against the frequent inadequacy of the penalties provided by the law and actually imposed by the courts on employers for violation of statutes which are of vital importance for life and health of workers. 1 Moreover, it has been stressed in certain quarters that the ability to work, as the principal, or even only, asset of most people, should be afforded at least the same protection by the criminal law as property. It is in particular Nazi propaganda that has exploited this popular idea in order to put forward a number of far-reaching but rather nebulous proposals: it has been suggested, for instance, to make it a criminal offence to cause an industrial stoppage and long-term unemployment through “frivolous squandering of the means of production”. 2
