"November, 1633. ... The scarcity of workmen had caused them to raise their wages to an excessive rate, so as a carpenter would have three shillings the day, a laborer two shillings and sixpence, etc.; and accordingly those who had commodities to sell advanced their prices sometime double to that they cost in England, so as it grew to a general complaint, which the court, taking knowledge of, as also of some further evils, which were springing out of the excessive rate of wages, they made an order, that carpenters, masons, etc., should take but two shillings the day, and laborers but eighteen pence, and that no commodity should be sold at above four pence in the shilling more than it cost for ready money in England; oil, wine, etc., and cheese (in regard of the hazard of bringing, etc.,) excepted. ..." Winthrop, no doubt, put the cart before the horse. The increased cost of all European goods, due to high freights, necessitated higher wages; but Winthrop resents any attempt of the laborers to ask more than their old European wages.] 66. The Beginning of Town Government in Massachusetts, 1633 _Dorchester Town Records_, p. 3. For some three years after the great migration of 1630, the eight Massachusetts "towns" were governed wholly by the central colonial authority,--the courts of Assistants and the General Courts,--and by officers appointed by this central authority. The entry below marks the beginning of local self-government. The Dorchester _Records_, it is true, contain notice of four earlier meetings to regulate pasturage or the division of town lands (cf. one such Boston meeting later; No. 73 _b_); but here we have _a formal assumption of government by periodic town meetings and "select men."_ The next town to act in a like way was Watertown (cf. No. 83, opening). _Later_ (cf. No. 78, law 66), the central government accepted this establishment of local government, giving it the sanction of law. On the history of this movement, see _American History and Government_, ## 71-74. An agreement made by the whole consent and vote of the Plantation made Mooneday 8th of October, 1633.