In Great Britain according to the letter of the law, employer and workman are equal parties to a civil contract. The employer agrees to employ the workman at certain wages and under certain conditions, and the workman agrees to work for the employer at these wages and subject to these conditions. The vast majority of workmen have, however, no written contracts of employment with their employers. The contracts are unwritten; and they go, in the vast majority of cases, by the ‘custom of the trade’ or the practice of the particular factory or place of employment where a man is to work. Sometimes there is an oral contract with the individual workman, especially when he is to receive a special wage on account of his exceptional skill or the scarcity of a particular kind of labour. The contract, whether written or oral or assumed from the practice of the trade, may be for a shorter or a longer period.