in stat. 1 & 2 W. 4. c. 37., commonly called The Truck Act; and I am of opinion he is right.

In passing the statute referred to, the Legislature seems to have considered the artificer as requiring special protection in his dealings with his employers, and to have thought it right, therefore, to make the contracts between these parties one of the exceptions to the general rule, that persons should be allowed to make their own contracts in their own way. The particular evil intended to be remedied (and which, notwithstanding former enactments, still prevailed) was the truck system, or payment by masters of their men's wages wholly or in part with goods a system manifestly to the disadvantage of the workman, who was, practically, forced to take the goods at his master's valuation. In order to obviate this, the statute, reciting "that it is necessary to prohibit the payment, in certain trades, of wages in goods, or otherwise than in the current coin of the realm," by sect. 1, enacts, that any contract by which the whole or any part of the wages of the artificer is made payable in any other manner than in the current coin shall be null and void. Sect. 2 prohibits the insertion in any contract of any provision as to the manner in which, or the person with whom, any part of the wages due or to become due shall be laid out or expended. Sect. 3 directs that the entire amount of the wages earned by or payable to the artificer shall be actually paid to him in the current coin of the realm, and not otherwise, and that every payment of or in respect of wages by the delivery to him of goods, or otherwise than in the current coin, except as thereinafter mentioned, shall be illegal and void. Sect. 4 enables the artificer to recover so much of the wages as shall not have been actually paid to him

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in current coin. Sects. 5 and 6 prevent the master recovering or setting off the amount of any goods &c. supplied on account of wages, or sold at any shop of the master, or in which he has any interest, although the wages may have been paid in current coin. The exceptions referred to in sect. 3 are found in sect. 23, which allows a supply of tools &c. to persons employed in mining, and a supply of other things, therein enumerated, under certain circumstances; also providing that a stoppage or deduction in respect of such may be made if it do not exceed the true value of the supply, and the contract for such stoppage or deduction be in writing, signed by the artificer.

The statute, therefore, seems most distinctly to provide that the whole of the wages of the artificer's labour shall be paid to him in current coin, and not otherwise, without any stoppage or deduction, except in the cases and under the conditions referred to in sects. 23 and 24, and except he freely consents, under sect. 8, to the substitution of bank notes for such current coin. These enactments are made still more stringent by the addition of penal clauses; and what shall be deemed and taken to be "wages" of labour is declared, by sect. 25, to be 'any money or other thing had or contracted to be paid, delivered, or given as a recompence, reward, or remuneration for any labour done or to be done, whether within a certain time or to a certain amount, or for a time or an amount uncertain."

The question, therefore, in the present case, seems shortly to be this-was any "other thing" than money "had" by the workman, and "given" by the master, "as a recompence, reward, or remuneration for any labour done" by the former for the latter? In other

words, were the benefits represented by 3s. 9d.-viz. the use of the frame and machine, fire, light, &c.given by the defendants to the plaintiff in exchange for and as part of the earnings of his labour or not? That they were, in fact, "given" by the master to the workman, and "had" by the workman from the master, is as unquestionable as that they are not current coin, and were not given for nothing. For what, then, were they given except for the labour of the workman? Clearly, as it seems to me, for nothing else; the workman had nothing else to give for them but his labour, and gave nothing else. I am, therefore, unable to perceive how it can be successfully contended that the plaintiff was not paid his wages, as above defined, " otherwise than in money."

That he was not paid 7d. a dozen in money for the stocking heels was admitted; but it was said that 7d. a dozen did not represent his wages, but that his wages were 7d. a dozen minus a proportionate part of the 3s. 9d., and that he was therefore paid his wages in money. But this appears to me to be another way of saying either that the benefits represented by the 3s. 9d. were not given to him at all, or that, if given to him, it was not in exchange for his labour. If goods had been supplied by the master to the workman to the amount of 3s. 9d., instead of the use of goods to the same amount, and deducted from the 7d. per dozen, the artificer would not have been more or less paid "otherwise than in current coin" in the one case than the other; or if the workman had contracted with a third person to supply him with the things supplied by the master, the stocking heels would have clearly represented the value of 7d. a dozen, and he would have been paid that amount in money; how, then, can the stocking heels represent

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less labour or more, according as the workman hires the implements for making them from one person or from another? It is quite true that if 3s. 9d. be a fair price for the hire of the frame and machine, fire, light, &c., the result to the workman would be the same whether he hired them from his master or from a stranger, just as if he had been supplied at a fair price by his master with goods, which, if not purchased from him, he must have bought from a stranger. Yet that is precisely what the statute forbids. Suppose the workman to make for his master only six dozen and a half of stocking heels, that being about the amount which would repay the 3s. 9d. at 7d. a dozen, what does the master pay for them? Does he pay 7d. a dozen, 3s. 9d., or does he get them for nothing? There seems to me to be no medium. But the workman makes another six dozen and a half; for them he gets precisely 3s. 9d. Will the last 3s. 9d. be wages and the first not, or is there any other difference, except that the last is paid for in current coin, and the first "otherwise than in current coin?" It seems to me there is none.

The defendants, therefore, have paid the plaintiff, in exchange for his labour, otherwise than in money; and such is declared by the Act to be illegal. Whether rightly or wrongly it is not our province to inquire: it is sufficient if it be declared clearly and distinctly. The legislature has thought the payment of wages by masters to their workmen of a particular class, wholly or in part, in goods or otherwise than in money, to be liable to abuse, and therefore undesirable; and the present case furnishes a flagrant example of the precise evil intended to be remedied by the statute, viz. the giving by masters to their workmen, in exchange for their labour, wholly

or in part, things of uncertain value, instead of money, the value of which is certain. Here, by the contract, whilst the workman is forced to take that which is of uncertain value, in exchange for his labour, and to take it from the master alone, the latter reserves to himself the power of determining how much wages, if any, the workman shall earn beyond the precise sum necessary to reimburse himself for the outlay of his capital in building, lighting and heating his own manufactory, and providing the necessary implements for use therein. A more complete instance of that from which it appears to have been the intention of the Legislature to shield the artificer, it seems to me difficult to imagine.

But it is said that the case of Chawner v. Cummings (a) has already sanctioned this species of contract, and decided it not to be a violation of the statute; and undoubtedly (without, for the present, referring to the additional number of items of deduction we find in the present case, probably resulting from that decision) it does appear to be an authority to the extent stated. But I apprehend that, sitting in a Court of error, we are bound to look at the case before us unfettered by the authority which it is the object of the present proceeding to review; and, humbly conceiving that decision not to construe the statute correctly, I have been unable to convince myself that, sitting here, I ought to adhere to it. The judgment of the Court in that case seems to have proceeded upon the ground that the earlier sections of the statute do not prohibit any deductions whatever. "It is to be observed" (says the judgment, p. 323) "that payment otherwise than in money is alone prohibited. Deductions or charges are nowhere mentioned or alluded (a) 8 Q. B. 311.

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