Book Description

Excerpt from The Labor Law of Maryland: A Dissertation Submitted to the Board of University Studies of the Johns Hopkins University in Conformity With the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Logically and perhaps historically the first instrumental ity made use of by the state in meeting the labor problem is the common law. This results, not from an active in tent ou the part of the state to solve any problem, but from a quiescent attitude towards an unimportant phenomenon. The common law is turned to before the labor problem assumes any special characteristics of its own, and the various cases are settled according to the general principles of the common law as laid down in cases between individ nals who are in no special relation to each other. If, in the beginning, as is usually the case, no economic question obtrudes into the case, but the matter is one of pure law, the decision based on former precedents will work substan tial justice. When, on the other hand, the relative economic position of the two parties is of importance, decisions based on pure law will not be adequate and will often entirely fail to settle the question at bar. When, as always hap pens, the economic status oi the parties does not merit attention until after the deciding of cases involving similar matters, but not calling into question the economic relation, it is practically impossible for the judges when the economic question is presented to them to disregard the precedents and to dispense economic justice and not justice according to law. Common law does, as is Often said, progress and grow with the times, but more often legislation is necessary to make it entirely adequate. Thus the common law of negligence did not meet the requirements of industrial accidents, and employers' liability and compensation laws were the result. Thus the common law of individual bar gaining and competition does not seem to meet the require ments of collective bargaining, and legislation recognizing the validity of unionism is being demanded. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.