LABOR LEGISLATION

laws which are based on the a umption that the wage earner needs special consideration from the government on account of his social status. This principle has been gradually encroaching on the old a umption that there should be no interference with the ‘freedom of contract,’ reducing the latter to an antiquated idea. The first labor laws were those pa ed in Great Britain, nearly a hundred years ago, regulating the employment of workers in factories. In this country New York pa ed a law exempting a man’s wages from claims for debt, as far back as 1830. In 1842 Ma achusetts pa ed, laws regulating the hours of labor for children under 12, limiting their work to 10 hours a day, and extending these provisions to women in 1847. The Chinese Exclusion Law, of 1882, and the later Immigration Laws serve as examples of Federal legislation in behalf of the laboring cla es, but largely such laws are limited to the individual states. A multitude of such laws have been pa ed by the states, many of them through the influence of the— American A ociation for Labor Legislation, with headquarters in New York City, but most of them are due to the growing pre ure of the labor organizations. During the past few years, since 1920, when Congre pa ed the Vocational Reeducational Act, considerable progre has been made in this field of labor legislation. In 1920 the Federal Government appropriated $750, 000 and in 1921 and 1922 $1,000,000 each year, to be apportioned among the — states on condition that each state make ~ an equal appropriation, for the purpose of training people crippled in industry for new vocations. About a dozen states accepted the offer.