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tract for a long period of years or for life would not be sustained by the courts even to the extent of giving the master an action for damages. The only statute on the subject is in California, which limits contracts of personal service to two years (see § 6, note 1).

Contracts of employment or service may, however, provide that until or unless the whole period of service is performed the servant or employee can demand no part of his wages. The legality of such a contract rests on the principle that the performance of the whole work, or of a prescribed term of the work, is a condition precedent to the recovery by the employee of his wages for the whole time or for any special period, as the case may be. Such contracts are perfectly legal, but they must be clear. If it is not clear that the contract means to forfeit all claim for damages in case the employee leave the employment before the prescribed time, such leaving employment will only give the master a right to have the wages to be paid abated by a proportionate amount.2

Some states have, however, passed express statutes providing against the workman's leaving without giving a certain notice (see hereafter in § 62) in special occupations.

2 Stark v. Parker, 2 Pick., 267; Olmstead v. Beal, 19 Pick., 528; Hunt v. The Otis Co., 4 Met., 464; Fuller v. Brown, 11 Met., 440.

CHAPTER II

STATUTES REGULATING THE EMPLOYMENT

CONTRACTS

§ 10. Wages. No one of the United States has attempted to legislate concerning the rate of private wages; the constitution of Louisiana specially forbids it (see § 3, note), and such a law would be unconstitutional in all the states. As to public work (see § 12), it is possible that a statute requiring municipal corporations to pay not more, nor less, than a certain sum, or to pay a certain sum, would also be held unconstitutional in favor of any city or town resisting it; but no case of this sort has yet arisen. A municipal corporation may, however (in the absence of any prohibition in its charter or the general law governing it, such as "that all public contracts shall be let to the lowest bidder "), fix the payment for wages by resolution or vote at what price it choose; and towns and cities in the New England states often do fix the price they shall pay unskilled labor in that way, usually at $2 a day. Such resolutions have not commonly been questioned, though it may be doubted whether town officers are bound by them. But

municipal ordinances or by-laws must generally be reasonable and subject to review by the courts; and it is probable they would set aside an ordinance prescribing a grossly unreasonable rate. And Cooley says: "The power of municipal corporations to make by-laws is limited in various ways.

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"It is controlled by the constitution of the United States and of the state. The restrictions imposed by those instruments, and which directly limit the legislative power of the state, rest equally upon all the instruments of government created by the state. If a state cannot pass an ex post facto law, or law impairing the obligation of contracts, neither can any agency do so which acts under the state with delegated authority. By-laws, therefore, which in their operation would be ex post facto, or violate contracts, are not within the power of municipal corporations; and whatever the people, by the state constitution, have prohibited the state government from doing, it cannot do indirectly through the local governments.

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Municipal by-laws must also be in harmony with the general laws of the state, and with the provisions of the municipal charter. Whenever they come in conflict with either, the by-law must give way."

1 Cooley Const. Lim., * p. 198.

It is possible, however, that even an ordinance fixing the rate of wages to be paid by the town, for a brief period, or from year to year, might be regarded rather as a contract, or as a vote instructing the town officers as to the terms of a contract which they had the legal power to make, than as a by-law; and hence would not be subject to any constitutional objections. The question whether any town had power so to limit and control its officers, would turn upon the statutes of the state and its general system of municipal government. Where, as in most westtern states, the powers of city or town governments are expressly delimitated, it would seem that they have no power to fix wages by order or by-law, but the rate must be left in each case to the parties or officers to whom the law has delegated authority to make the contract for the labor in question. In California there is a statute requiring all municipalities to hire labor by the day only (see § 12).

There is one constitutional provision2 seeking to provide reasonable pay for labor in general cases. From the nature of the thing such provisions can hardly be more than glittering generalities. And there is a new law in Michigan requiring all highway labor and taxes to be expended “within the limits of the township;"

2 Wyoming. See § 3, note.

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which may mean that laborers without the town cannot be employed, and hence might have some effect in locally advancing the rate of wages. In Kansas, municipal corporations, the state, or contractors for public work shall pay "not less than the current rate of per diem wages in the locality where the work is performed.” 4

§ 11. Hours of Labor, Generally.-No states have passed laws limiting, in all occupations, the hours of daily labor of adult men, or forbidding contracts to labor for any length of time the parties may voluntarily agree upon. (See, however, §§ 13, 14, Georgia and South Carolina laws.) Such a law would probably be held unconstitutional in every state (see §§ 1-3). The nearest attempt to pass such a law was the Nebraska statute of 1891, ch. 54; this provided that eight hours should "constitute a legal day's work for all classes of mechanics, servants, and laborers throughout the state of Nebraska, excepting those engaged in farm and domestic labor. . Any employer or corporation working their employees over the time specified in this act shall pay as extra compensation double the amount per hour as paid for previous hour." The statute also imposed a fine as for misdemeanor upon any corporation or private

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3 Mich., 1895, 231.

4 Kan., 1891, 114.

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