cases, with what success it is no part of our business to inquire; but the Truck Act still remains, and while it remains must be honestly interpreted, and carried out according to its true meaning and spirit.

Indeed, the Truck Act, when passed, was a practical deduction from a principle, still more general, pervading more or less all systems of law founded on experience; that is to say, that where two classes of persons are dealing together, and one class is, generally speaking, weaker than the other, and liable to oppression, either from natural or accidental causes, the law should, as far as possible, redress the inequality, by protecting the weak against the strong. On this principle rests the protection thrown around infants and persons of unsound or weak mind, the protection afforded even by the common law to the victims of fraud, and by the Court of Chancery at this day to heirs, expectants, and sellers of reversions against catching and unconscionable bargains, though entered into without fraud, and by persons of full age. No doubt all such legislation or judical interposition is in many cases ineffectual. But, as Lord Hardwicke observed in Earl of Chesterfield v. Janssen (a), “I cannot hold that to be vain and wild which the law of all countries and all wise legislatures have endeavoured at, as far as possible; .... happy, if they could, in some degree, prevent it: est aliquid prodire tenus;" to which it may be added that the efficacy of such provisions must not be estimated by the abuses actually remedied so much as by the abuses prevented by the knowledge that such is the law. So viewed, the Truck Act must have been deemed by the Legislature which passed it a highly remedial statute, and is, therefore, now, as I admit, not(a) 2 Ves. Sen. 125. 158.

1862.

ARCHER

V.

JAMES.

1862.

ARCHER

V.

JAMES.

withstanding the penal clauses, to be construed liberally, so as to advance the supposed remedy and suppress the supposed mischief.

The motive for these observations has been, that it may not be supposed that the conclusion at which I have arrived was reached without due consideration of the policy of the Truck Act, or prompted by any prejudice against it.

Our decision must, as it appears to me, mainly depend on the meaning of the word "wages" as used in the Act. The interpretation clause (sect. 25) defines the word "wages" as "any money or other thing had or contracted to be paid, delivered, or given as a recompense, 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." Any remuneration, therefore, for the labour of the artificer, whether by the day or by the piece, is wages. Whatever is contracted to be paid for his personal labour is wages, and what is more than that is not wages.

The price of 7d. per dozen in the case before the Court is not merely wages so defined, but wages plus an addition for the work done by the stocking frame. Now, inasmuch as the frame does not belong to the artificer, he is obliged to hire a frame; and in the case under consideration, instead of hiring the frame of a stranger, the artificer hires it of his employer, at a fixed rent per week. The work of the frame is paid for by the employer to the artificer as part of the 7d. per dozen, according to the quantity of work done, and therefore is a fluctuating sum; but the rent of the frame is paid by the artificer to his employer according to time, and therefore is a sum certain. Suppose the rent of the frame

due to the employer and the compensation for the work of the frame due to the artificer were calculated on the same principle, at the same rate, and therefore amounted to the same sum-for example, suppose the rent of the frame due to the master to be 2d. per dozen, and the charge by the artificer for the work done by the frame to be also 2d. per dozen, then, the deduction being exactly equal to the addition, it would clearly appear, I conceive, that the 2d. per dozen deducted for the use of the frame did not come out of wages. But in the case under consideration, as the rent is calculated by time and the compensation for the use of the frame by the piece occasionally the hire of the frame paid by the artificer may be more than the compensation for the use of the frame received by the artificer, and the excess in such a contingency is a loss to the artificer, exactly as it would have been if he had hired the frame from a stranger. But then, on the other hand, occasionally the compensation for the labour of the frame is more than the rent of the frame, and the excess, in that event, is a profit to the artificer, again just as if the artificer had hired the frame of a stranger. When the bargain is a fair one, these contingencies are calculated to balance one another. There seems to me, therefore, nothing in such a bargain necessarily contrary to the Act of Parliament.

It is objected that sect. 23, which is a declaratory enactment, shews that wages are not to be paid or satisfied by a set-off for such things as fuel, materials, tools, implements, hay, corn, provender for a horse, and rent; which deductions, so far as sect. 23 is explanatory and prohibitory, are mentioned as examples of what has already been made illegal by the earlier sections of the Act; and that so far as the proviso in that section is enabling,

1862.

ARCHER

V.

JAMES.

1862.

ARCHER

v.

JAMES.

that proviso does not apply except in certain cases, e. g. signed contracts, of which the case under consideration is not one.

I admit the difficulty which arises on this 23d section. I do not think it is answered by saying merely that the balance of what is due, after stipulated deductions, are wages; for if the word "wages" were to be understood as the net amount payable after subtracting stipulated deductions, nearly the whole Act would be frustrated. It would amount to no more than this-that the balance, after stipulated deductions of any sort, shall be paid in coin. But I think it may be a satisfactory answer to the arguments founded on the 23d section, that deductions are admissible if they really come, not out of wages properly so called, but (as in this case they do come) out of previous additions to those wages.

It is then objected that this arrangement is a transparent artifice, I do not say to evade (for that, if practicable, may be lawful), but indirectly to infringe the statute. It may be remarked, however, that the practice does not appear to be a new one, and probably originated in cases where, before the establishment of great factories, the artificer worked in his own dwelling, and in such a case a fixed periodical rent for the frame was the only security possessed by the employer against loss to himself by his frame being improperly employed by the artificer to do other people's work. Besides, I think that enough does not appear on the case to enable us to draw the conclusion that this arrangement is a mere artifice to contract to pay, or to pay, wages otherwise than in the current coin of the realm (sects. 1,3).

The observations already made as to the deduction for the rent of the frame appear to me applicable to the deductions for the other machine, for the use of the

factory, for the winding, for the gas, and for the firing. In all those cases, as in the case of the frame, there is, first, an addition to the wages measured by the piece, and a subsequent deduction generally measured by

time.

With respect to the fines the case is different. The statute is very obscure on the question whether a set-off be allowable. Sect. 23 seems to imply that a set off is not in general to be allowed. On the other hand a setoff is not prohibited in terms, except in the single case of a set-off for goods received on account of wages (sect. 5). Looking at the limited character of that prohibition, and considering that this deduction may, perhaps, be treated as a condition in the original contract making a portion of the wages to depend on a contingency, I feel great difficulty in saying that it is prohibited. In Chawner v. Cummings (a) a fixed deduction of ld. in the shilling was held to be lawful, and to be but a mode of calculating wages.

It must be admitted, however, that the statute is very difficult to construe, and is ambiguous not only on this question of fines, but also on the other question. Yet, considering that the statute has already received, in Chawner v. Cummings (a) a judicial interpretation sixteen years ago; which interpretation has been acted on ever since, and that thousands of contracts and settlements of accounts have taken place on the faith of that interpretation; that if these settlements are disturbed an infinite multitude of actions will be brought, and many fines become payable by persons who have trusted the authorized expounders of the statute; I think this is a case in which the maxim "Stare decisis" ought to apply (a) 8 Q. B. 311.

1862.

ARCHER

V.

JAMES.