Handybook of the Law Relative to Master, Workmen, Servants, and Apprentices, in All Trades and Occupations

PREFACE.

To write a book which would give, within a moderate compass and at a reasonable price, such a statement of the law relative to the rights and obligations of MASTER and SERVANT, as would serve the wants of the lawyer, and at the same time answer the purposes of a popular guide, does not seem to have occurred to any of those members of the higher walks of the profession, whose superior learning, greater leisure, and more extensive opportunities for obtaining information, would have given it additional value. Had there been any indication that a gentleman so qualified would undertake this task, the present work would not have been written.

Relying upon the indulgence of a profession which is never harsh to its junior members, and trusting to that spirit of fairness which the press always manifests towards any man who strives to contribute something, however humble, to the common stock of useful knowledge, the author has ventured upon a task which some experience and study gave him reason to believe he could fairly accomplish. He is not vain enough, however, to think that he has written anything to instruct the members of his own profession; but if the results of his investigation of the law of France, as well as of his examination of the numerous Acts of our own Parliaments relative to Industrial Legislation, coupled with the collection of Decisions embodied in the work, shall diminish the labour of others, and enable them with more facility to find what they might otherwise lose much valuable time in searching for, his intention as regards them will be accomplished.

While it is, therefore, hoped that the book will not prove unacceptable to lawyers, the author would be disappointed if it did not also fulfil the other and indeed the chief purpose for which it was written, viz., to enable masters and workmen to understand the law which regulates their relations towards each other, and to form Boards or Councils of Conciliation and Arbitration for the settlement of their disputes and differences. He has given such an outline of procedure, and prepared such forms as may, he trusts, render it an easy matter for both parties to put the law in practice for themselves.

Dealing, as it does, with imperial legislation, and allowing the common law of each of the countries to speak for itself, through its own decisions, the book ought to be equally useful in England, Scotland, and Ireland; and in order that it may fairly claim to be so, the proof sheets have been gone over by A. K. ROLLIT, Esq., LL.D., solicitor, Hull, to whom the author is obliged for many valuable suggestions. Thanks are also due to Dr. WALLER, of Dublin, for cases decided in Ireland. The author is indebted to Alexander GlEN, Esq., Solicitor, Glasgow, not only for going over the proof sheets, but for the preparation of the index of subjects. He begs further to acknowledge his obligations to the gentlemen of the French consulate in Glasgow, particularly to M. LOUIS THIBAUDIER. One of these gentlemen has the advantage of a professional knowledge of the law of his native country; and, with the courtesy common to all Frenchmen, he cheerfully undertook to read over that part of the work which deals with the law of France.

The author trusts that his attempt to treat the law of Master and Servant upon the broad imperial basis on which the laws of the United Kingdom must sooner or later be placed, will meet with that indulgence which a first essay may fairly anticipate from those whose province it is to sit in judgment upon the claims of authorship, and that it may provoke abler men to devote at least a portion of the talent and learning which they employ in building up separate systems of municipal jurisprudence, to the duty of assimilating the laws of the three kingdoms— to demonstrating the identity of the principles to be found in each, disguised by the garb of unfamiliar phraseology, and to educing from the Constitutiones antea confusas (which may here signify a "previous confusion of terms,") that luculentam consonantiam-that "obvious consistency "-which it was the boast of Justinian he had introduced into the Roman law; that the sovereign of these realms may also be enabled to employ, but in a more precise and definite sense, the language of the same royal reformer, Omnes vero populi legibus tam a nobis promulgatis quam compositis reguntur, which, it is to be hoped, may soon be interpreted as meaning that "all the people of these kingdoms are governed by one and the same code, founded upon imperial legislation.”

HYNDFORD PLACE, GOVAN ROAD,
GLASGOW, 1st June, 1868.

CONTENTS.

TABLE OF CASES CITED,

TABLE OF STATUTES CITED,

TABLE OF TRADES AND OCCUPATIONS AFFECTED BY ACTS OF PARLIAMENT,

INTRODUCTION,

PART I.

COURTS OF PRUD'HOMMES, AND OF JUGES DE PAIX, OR JUSTICES OF THE

PEACE, IN FRANCE.

I. Constitution and Powers of the Courts of Prud'hommes in France,
II. Juges de Paix, or Justices of the Peace, in France,

PART II.

JUSTICES OF THE PEACE IN ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND.

The Nature, Constitution, and Functions of the Courts of Justices of the Peace in
England and Scotland, and their Jurisdiction and Powers in Questions between
Employers and Employed,